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Last Updated: 2/12/2009

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Wednesday, July 16, 2008 

Category: Music
Hello 1 and all (well hopefully 1 at least!)!

Another day another blog - and yep,we are still working on stuff - 'STILL' I hear you cry.... well trust us - we have almost been in tears through the frustrations of trying to get it right

When you know what you want, and yet what comes out as a result of hours and hours, actually weeks and weeks is not what you were hoping for - but not quite sure why, is really frustrating - TRUST US! -

We have moved onto another track as we feel as though we have at least pieced together the components for 'that' 3 part song - thats all I will say - and its different, spiky, fresh, unusual, and has a fair bit of computerised speech in it, talking you through history - thats all Im saying at the moment! You should know us by now - never make things simple if we can do it in a more precise and methodical and structured way! LOLOLOLOLOL

Working on a drum loop and rythm layer for another track at the moment. which is always fun - but we want to incorporate various machines and sounds and samples to get a fuller and fresher sound - easier said than done - but fun none-the-less!

So best get on with it as time is running away from us again...

keep reading - and until next time...

laters

M


9:53 PM 
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Thursday, February 28, 2008 

Happy New Year!

Well, what have we been up to since we last did a diary entry? Apart from the Christmas break and the festivities, oh and the odd glass of sherry (ahem), we met up  in January and both had the same idea - which was to write a new faster track as we both felt that the work so far was missing this 'new track'..... That didnt really get too far and we sort of put the demo on the back burner - BUT....Stevo came up with an idea for a more mid tempo track - and when he played me the idea - I was really up for doing some of the old tricks we used to use - like sampling the most bizarre sounds and making the best of a bad lot - and we were off....at great speed!

We are currently working on the middle extra bit - and it has turned out to be a great addition to the colleaction of material we already have!

We think that we wil not write anymore NEW tracks - but  have 4 more songs to work on before we are at the deciding stage -  well the initial deciding stage.

Also - we are writing adverts for a new vocalist - so if you know anybody or would like to know more - keep an eye out here for further details!!!!

We both are raring to get this underway with the 'record' and 'vocal stage' - so watch out world .....HERE WE COME!!!!!

Until world domination takes place - keep checking to see any future updates!

Mike x
10:02 PM 
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Monday, December 24, 2007 

Category: Music
Hello.

Almost every Christmas from about 1998 to about 2004 we produced a christmas song for all our fan. For the last few years, though, we haven't recorded one. It's not that we're being all 'humbug' about it,  but the truth is that those christmas songs used to take about a month to record, which is like.. what?.. a twelfth of a year. This year we did stop for a second and discuss whether we should make a christmas song, but we decided very quickly that we shouldn't. The work on the new album has been slow going this year, but the stuff we have produced we are very happy with indeed. However, the prospect of losing a month of production for christmas just seemed to be too steep a price to pay.

The other reason is that I think we've already done all the good songs.  I've always quite liked the idea of putting out a christmas album at this time of year, with all our xmas covers on, but the earlier ones would need to be re-recorded I think, as the originals are on hissy old 4-track cassette tape. These are the christmas songs we've recorded to date - let me know if I've missed any out, and more importantly, if you want us to cover a christmas tune next year then get your requests in now!!!

Winter Wonderland
Another Christmas Song (a very shabby original song)
Let It Snow
When a Child Is Born (this wasn't my choice of song, but is one of my favourite covers that we've done)
Silver Bells
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

If I can find the master copies of any of these tracks I will post them up here between now and the new year.  I know this is a bit of a lame christmas present to all our fan and so as a final festive gesture I'll also upload an instrumental snippet of one of the new album demos, just so you can get an idea of what the new stuff MIGHT sound like, if we don't change our minds.

For the last three weeks we have been working on the production demo of a track with the working title of "Is That It?". Once again it's been tough-going as we have ideas in our head that are proving hard to realise in the studio, but we're getting there. I'll update you more on the progress of this track in the new year. Once this track is finished there are really just one or two tracks that need some production work before the real and proper recording begins.

Until then, though, both Mikey and I wish you a very merry christmas and happy new year, and thank you for reading this infrequent blog throughout 2007.

S.


8:30 AM 
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Thursday, November 08, 2007 

Category: Music
We are now both back from our Autumn holidays and tonight we started on the production demo of a track I wrote about 2 or 3 years ago and which has been sitting in the song pile ever since.

Over that 2 or 3 year period my thoughts about this track have changed radically - I started off liking it and then had a spell where I intensely disliked it, and now I quite like it again.  Mike has always maintained that we should work the song up to the next level, ie make it sound a lot better, so that's what we've started doing.

The problem with this song is that the original version had quite a lot of layers to it, so we're having to strip it right back to work out which bits are essential to the track and which bits are wrong for the track.  Tonight we've changed the opening synth-hook sound, the bass sound and completely scrapped the drums, so that's a fairly major overhaul already.

After that bold start, we then spent at least an hour trying to find a fat (or should that be phat) analogue sound for the chorus, and that's where we struggled. Tweak as I might, I couldn't get something with the right tonal qualities and this sort of process can be quite mind-numbing for two people - you can't both push the buttons at the same time. Invariably someone ends up just sitting there listening to the other person coaxing a synth into making all sorts of weird noises :-  "bleeee... bleeeeeee.... bleeuuuuu...... bllllloooooop..... blooooeeeep...." for over an hour. Lucky Mike.  I'm going try and work on this sound some more before Mike comes over next week, just to save him from the boredom!

Finally tonight I ate an iced and spiced bun and Mike had some chocolate ameretto cake.

S.


11:07 PM 
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Thursday, September 27, 2007 
Tonight was our last evening of music before Mike goes on holiday for 2 weeks. We finished making noise at about 11:15pm when Mike left to go home and pack and then head straight for the airport - he flies in just a few hours time!

Earlier this week, I worked on the mix and the structure of our latest demo track, that we're referring to as "balance" for the time being.  Mike and I scrutinised the latest version of the track this evening and agreed that it has gone as far as we can take it until we've got some lyrics and melody mapped out - although the song is far from finished, if we impose too much of a rigid structre on the song now it will limit us when we come to work on the vocals and lyrics.

As there wasn't anything useful to do on the song, and because Mike is already in holiday mode, we took the opportunity to review our most recently finished demoes and ended up getting very slightly depressed.  It turns out we've only finished 3 songs this year - that really does sound quite bad, doesn't it?

In truth, these 3 tracks are much more sonically complex and much less "written" than last year's tracks. Last year we were working from songs that were already written and were just working them up into good quality production demos - this year we've been writing, demoing, producing and re-writing the songs as we go. So I think if we focus on those facts enough, it might temper the depression slightly.

While Mike is away I'm going to try and tweak some of the things that are still nigglingly wrong with last year's demos, and then when Mike is back we hit the final leg which is to work up the production on 2 or 3 more songs that were written a couple of years ago, but which we've been leaving until last, because we like the songs and want to make sure their production fits with the overall style of the album.

We've also been talking about resurrecting an old old song that we wrote back in the 1990s, but which we never properly recorded - so that could be quite interesting. All being well we will have an instrumental version of the album in pretty good shape by christmas and then all we need to do is get going with some vocals!!

I'm hoping that we can put an instrumental snippet of one of the new tracks on OurSpace page as a little christmas present. But even though the mince pies are already in the shops (and yes I've seen them), we probably won't put any audio christmas present online until the middle/end of December, so I'm afraid you'll have to wait a little bit longer to hear the noises we've been writing about over the past few months.



S.

 

10:30 PM 
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Thursday, September 06, 2007 
Today is Mike's birthday.

Happy Birthday Mike!

Last night Mike came round for chocolate birthday cake, presents and music.  I bought him a melodica, and Mike took to it straight away, blasting out a couple of.. er.. well sea shanties actually!  We then got down to business and worked on the rhythm for this latest track... although the track is going to be sort of underwater, you'll be pleased to know that it's not actually a sea shanty!  We're really pleased with the way it's working out - it's got a really good vibe about it.

S.
8:00 AM 
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Friday, August 31, 2007 

Category: Music
Hello Ourspacers,

We've both been really enjoying music these last couple of weeks (not that we don't normally enjoy it, but it can be labour of love sometimes so I feel compelled to write an update.  The reason for greater than usual enjoyment is that we've been working on a song which seems to have a life of it's own.

I started working on an idea a few weeks ago, which was really very sparse and quite basic.  When I played it to Mike he had some quite different ideas about how to develop the song, so we started to take it in this new direction.  Then last week we stumbled upon a few sounds that really seemed to fit well, and the more we worked on the atmosphere of the song, the more it became apparent that music itself wasn't quite right.

So this week, we've changed the music to fit in with the new sound of the song. It might seem like a very backwards way of writing a song, and it's not something we do often, but we're now at a point where we have a song which neither of us were really aiming for, but which we both really like.

As part of getting the right sound for this track, we went surfing the internet looking for tiny clips of random noise to inspire us. On our hyper-travels we came across a short animated film on YouTube called "Balance".  We ended up watching the whole thing, transfixed, before returning to the song in hand. If you haven't seen it I suggest you check it out...

Click Here to see "Balance"

Back to the song, though, and the only worry I have with this track is that it has quite a relaxing hypnotic aura about it. You may know that on an ordinary music evening Mike likes nothing more than to grab a quick 40 winks while I'm, maybe, editing a sample or tidying up a bit of the sequence.  So with this track playing on a repeated loop while I worked on the mix, Mike started settling into his beanbag and I figured it wouldn't be long before he was snoring in time to the music (again). So it's all credit to Mike, then, that he did remain concious for a pretty much the whole evening. Maybe it was the fresh lemon I put in his tea.

Next week we are going to attempt to take this song underwater. Oh yes, we like to try and push our own boundaries whenever possible - even if that means being electrocuted.

S.
6:10 AM 
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Thursday, August 23, 2007 

Category: Music
Hi all!

Well - we are still working on "stuff" and being as productive and original as our little minds will allow us!
Actually we are going in various new routes musically and trying to develop a sound that we have not actually recorded before!
We decided to go back to our early days and try to be as imaginative with the machines as we can be, and to not let them dictate the way that trax are produced - with the same old sounds and the same old musical progression that is  the norm for alot of electronic based bands these days.

We certainly have a varied result but we are both really happy with it all  so far, and are really looking forward to the recording process and the  next step - finding  a new vocalist to fit into the new sound (and understand it!!!!!) LOL

We are currenlty working on a very strange track that is definatley pushing us to our imaginative limits - and although its a little slow in its development - we hope the track will stand the test of time and show the amount of effort that has gone into it so far!

Anyway...best crack on.....

Mike
1:58 PM 
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Monday, July 23, 2007 

Category: Music
At last we have finished the full demo version of what will probably be the opening track for the album, and it certainly took some finishing.

Why some songs take longer than others and why some songs are just harder than others I don't really know.  In strictly musical terms this version of the song hasn't changed too much from the initial scrap-book demo - we've added a middle section, as the early demo only lasted for a verse and a chorus. We've also changed a couple of chords in the chorus as it was sounding a bit "predictably us", I thought.. and whilst it's nice to have a bit of a sound and a style, it's not so good if you can guess exactly where the song is going as soon as it starts.

Most of our time, though, has been spent on the pre-production - although the real detailed production happens when we record the song, we often find 70% or 80% of the demo production stays on the final recording, if it's good enough, so we've been spending quite a bit of time getting the feel, the atmosphere,  the ebb and flow, and the rhythm track right, and I think it's sounding really quite interesting (in a good way).

We've also been discussing the lyrical theme for this track - although no lyrics are written yet, the music suggests a slightly darker subject matter than the positive opening of "hope you're happy" on the last album. Darker, but not downbeat... hopefully this album will explore new areas lyrically, but without just being weird or 'dark' for the sake of it.  Mind you, our last album had it's dark moments too - "the man upstairs" being a case in point.

Anyway, for this song's final demo session, last week, we worked virtually - which isn't to say we only virtually worked.  Mike's car was off the road, and he didn't fancy the 6 mile walk (!). Luckily, our studio - The Treehouse -  is connected to the web, so I was able to play the track in good quality down the line to Mike, who listened at home whilst we pulled stupid faces on our webcams - very mature, of course. In this way, we managed to agree a final few changes, which I made, and voila - a finished, pre-production version of the track. It's a useful way to work, for times like that, but it is a bit scary to think that very soon no-one will ever need to leave their house for anything.

This week we'll be starting on a new song... but we haven't decided which one yet, either way, the good news is that we're getting a really strong arsenal of songs together for the next album.  Very soon we'll have to stop writing and demoing and start recording, and that's when things will get really exciting.

Sorry, a bit of a boring update this week, I've put in too many mundane facts, and I can't be bothered to edit what I've just written. I think it's Mike's turn to write something more interesting next time!!

Thanks for reading this.

S.
9:51 PM 
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Thursday, June 21, 2007 

Category: Music
Hi all!
 
Well - lets see - what have we been up to? We have been taking photos to update our Myspace page but as yet havent had time to work on the images - I fancied doing some art work with some of the photos - as Im feeling a little artistic at the moment! So we will see if they actually amount to anything or just end up in the bin!!!!
  
Musically - we are still working on what could be the new album opener - and both really like the track so far - although we need to polish off some production areas, and are now working on the "middle bit" - however that turns out, we will just have to wait and see!

It's not always straightforward when working on parts of songs - as we both came up with ideas - liked them alot - recorded them and then played the new section in context - and realised that the majority of the evenings work was not working for both of us - although musically it was ok - artistically we both knew it was wrong! so scrapped that and started again - although I have to own up to the fact that it was Stevo working on the revised-revised section - as I was asleep "sprawled" out on the beanbag - but in my defence - I always start in a sitting up position - but as the evening goes on - I seem to get nearer to the ground - and the fact that I was tired didnt help matters - I did try in my best acting - to pretend I was listening - but I think the snoring gave it away!
 
Anyway - here's until the next time - if I dont get snapped up to do an exhibition at the TATE with the artwork before then! which is very likely!!!! (NOT)
 
M. xx     
4:37 AM 
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