Recording with
Fiona Dickinson pt. 2
last night, we went back into the studio to record the rest of dan’s main guitar parts for the record, and to retrack some of fiona’s guitar parts.
shortly after i arrived, it started down pouring outside. the rain and the evening light set the mood perfectly for working on “danny’s lullaby.” dan’s guitar parts sound more like a shimmery farfisa than an actual guitar. really, really gorgeous.
after he finished up his guitar for that song, he busted out his bass and added a really lovely, springy little lick in the intro and chorus. it sounds real vintage and lynchian as hell. *chef’s kiss*
after cruising through “danny’s dream,” “danny’s lullaby,” and “just sleep,” the sun came back out before dipping down below the horizon. the light looked really beautiful as it shone on the grand river, just outside the window of the control room at matt’s.
after dan finished up his main parts, he tracked a tiny little melody for the outro of “children” in one quick take.
afterwards, the four of us sat around for a bit and talked about some ideas for overdubs and scheduled some more dates to come in and track with matt. which brings us to today…
03-Jul-2019 3:08:32 PM
today we started recording fiona’s vocals. i know leading up to today, fiona was pretty nervous about recording her vocals. last night, she made dan and i promise that we wouldn’t watch her while she was recording. dan and i sat in the control room with our backs to fiona who was in the live room.
she started with “danny’s lullaby” and knocked it out in about 45 minutes. we moved on to “danny’s dream.” after finishing her first run through, we could faintly hear some shouting coming through fiona’s vocal mic. the next moment we heard “get your hands on top of your head” and realized someone was getting arrested outside. we rushed to the window and looked out and saw a cop with his gun drawn, pointing it at some dude out of our line of sight. there was a significant period there where i was worried i was gonna witness some dude getting shot. the cop kept yelling at the guy and telling him to comply. fortunately, what looked like two undercover cops in bulletproof vests got the dude handcuffed. they held him near the unmarked cop car and gave the dude some long swigs of his arizona iced tea. they got the dude in the car and were gone in a matter of minutes. very bizarre experience witnessing that, but i was super relieved that it ended without anyone getting hurt.
after settling back into our work, fiona finished up “danny’s dream,” adding some really lovely, bright harmonies to the choruses.
now fiona was on quite a roll. we moved onto my favorite song of ours, “forge.” she did quite a few takes of this one over the course of an hour, eventually tapping out after delivering some really hair-raising performances. despite the oppressive humidity, i still got chills on my arms and legs from hearing her nail the choruses of this one.
after cruising through “forge,” fiona tackled “old body.” this tune is just her voice and guitar. no help from the band on this one.
sitting in the control room, listening on headphones to fiona sing this song, was really, really special. i had never been able to clearly hear the lyrics before, and hearing them for the first time was a really emotional experience. fiona did three or four takes of this one and eventually had to stop; she starting tearing up while recording her parts and was starting to lose control over her voice. i think her emotion was definitely captured in the takes that we got and it was lovely being able to hear those get tracked. this song is a stunner and i’m so excited to be able to listen to it again.
“say it right” was next. this one is driven by a drum beat i programmed on a yamaha rx11. it’s a very bright and relaxed pop song, and is one of my favorites of ours. the recording is sounding really, really nice and fiona managed to knock this one out without very much trouble at all.
she gave “cabin song” a shot, but fiona was pretty spent from having cruised through 6 full tracks + harmonies. i was super impressed with fiona’s stamina and how much she was able to accomplish in one day. it was really stunning. how she was able to nail such controlled and evocative performances, just one after another, is completely beyond me. true mvp status.
we booked another couple days with matt for recording. off the top of my head, i know we have a few vocal harmonies to record, as well as the main vocal parts for “cabin song” and “just sleep.” after that, i know we’re going to do some auxiliary percussion and possibly some more guitar. after that, we’ll likely get deep into the weird stuff, which i think will be vital in giving this record a sense of identity, uniformity and just really help make each song something really special. matt has done some very light mixing while we have been tracking stuff, and it’s already starting to sound sooo good. i can’t imagine at this point how it’s going to sound once it’s been properly mixed. i think this record will be a stunner and i just really hope it ends up resonating with people and is able to stand out.
going forward, i plan on writing more about personal projects and less having this just be a recording journal. but, recording this album is like my main personal project right at this moment, so it only makes sense to me to talk about it and try to document it to the best of my ability.
