Recording "Freya" album

Its been a very long time since my last post, but there is good reason for this! I've been involved in a writing / recording project since January 29th, and have not found a great deal of spare time!!

It all started on a family holiday two years ago. We (myself, Penny and the kids) went camping near St Tropez. Freya (Penny's cousin) was staying with her folks, at their house also near St. T. We were invited over for a meal, when I heard Freya playing the piano and singing. I thought it sounded good, and suggested that, when we all got back to blightey, I bring some kit to her place and make a recording. The following April, we hooked up and recorded a demo. She loved the process so much, her heart was set on writing and recording more material. I was duly enlisted to facilitate this!

Freya and I have now written a whole bunch of songs, enough for at least a couple of albums, and are now in the recording phase of the project, due to complete this on July 19th whereby the mix sessions will follow.



For the writing phase, we set up a writing space at her parents fabulous home in the Cotswolds, taking over their shooting lodge whilst the shooting season was in recess. We hired some wonderful musical instruments - Gibson and Fender guitars, Rhodes Suitcase88 electric piano, Hammond C3 and 147 valve Leslie, a set of beefy studio monitors and a nice big mixing console and set to work. Thanks to Tickle Music Hire for this. We also bought a whopper of a computer to handle the recording and midi sequencing tasks required for the writing and demo stage - thanks to Carillon and Turnkey for this. They also provided the software: Cubase 4, Reason and NI Komplete (a brilliant collection of software synths and sample players).



The songs are based mainly around Freya's life experiences - she's kept diaries since she was first able to hold a pen to a piece of paper, so there was plenty of material for inspiration - some jubilant, some quite dark and difficult.

We also did the Dylan thing, hanging out in coffee shops and making up stories about the people we observed! Great fun...

Once the writing phase was complete and some demo recordings drafted, we set about finding a place to record. We'd initially booked Real World - Peter Gabriel's staggeringly sumptuous studio, just outside Bath. However, this would have proved logistically difficult, as Freya had other commitments elsewhere, and would have found the endless hours in the car tiring. By chance I came across Yellow Shark studios, right in the centre of Cheltenham, and happened to call them on a day when a Mr Matt Butler was in residence. Butler was Paul McCartney's engineer for many years, and has recorded and produced many of the worlds finest bands and artists. On meeting him and the studio owner (also in the process of setting up a record label and publishing company!) we played them our material, and their eyes lit up. Suddenly the project had shifted gear! Matt "Major" Butler was brought in as engineer and producer. With his contacts amongst session musicians, we set about hiring some seriously good players to overdub the instrumentation. This has taken the sound of the project to a new level.

The studio itself is excellent, euipped with a virtually new Studer 2" 24 track recorder, along with Radar, and Pro-Tools. It also has a fabulous Yamaha C5 grand piano, a beautiful Hammond A100 (basically a B3 with extra bits and bobs) , a 147 Leslie, a Rhodes 76, a great collection of mics, and some great sounding rooms. Also, being in the heart of Cheltenham, there is no shortage of fine eateries and drinkeries!



So we're now negotiating recording contracts, publishing, licensing, PR and marketing, with a view to releasing the first single in early Autumn.

We've yet to record the lead vocals, brass and backing vocals, and we're going to Czechoslovakia to record the orchestral strings, as this is more cost effective than our original plan (Abbey Road - exciting, but expensive) so plenty yet to do!

I'll endeavour to keep you posted as to release dates, forthcoming gigs and any radio / tv stuff which may (hopefully) be happening.

Sorry, nothing for you to listen to yet - there'll be a myspace site set up soon as part of the marketing and PR campaign where you'll be able to hear what we've been up to...