Rosemary

I've been recording and mixing two songs with my first Dartington artist in the new studios this week.

Rosemary is a 4th year Music student who writes songs along with her boyfriend Ant, just about to enter the final term of her degree. We recorded two songs in the session, one actually had to be finished being written during the process which was actually more interesting than frustrating, although it took a long time.

It was the first time I've really been enthusiastic about the songs or the artist I'm recording, which was very refreshing. It was also the first time I properly recorded a piano part (which for this song was the main instrument) and I they also trusted my say in the progression and arrangements of both songs.

Rosie even encourage me to experiment with the sound of the mixes rather than just accommodate what she was expecting - which is usually the case. We've booked another session for this Friday, before I go home for Easter, and she's also asked me to record the band she's putting together for her final performances.

Here's one of the songs we recorded, called Hieroglyphs:

New Recording Studio practise

I've finally gotten around to using the new Dartington recording studios in Falmouth's £15 million Performance Centre that opened this year. I've only been inducted in two of the four control rooms so far, and it's the first time I've been using an analogue mixing desk by myself, but it didn't take as long as I thought to get used to.

I think I'd still prefer to use the digital control desks - I've gotten used to being able to mix as I record - but it's just what I'm used to. It's also because this control room is on the upper floor, so the only real visual communication I can have with the live room is through the TV's and CCTV (the novelty of which wears off very quickly).

I began work on an EP with a third artist called Simon, and I'm working with my first Dartington student and her band tomorrow.

Extract from Nothing

“Do you want this?” She asks me.

How am I meant to know if I want this? How am I meant to know what’s right in these situations?

“It’s not about what’s right, it’s about what’s good.” She says, reading the look on my face. I look her up and down.

“There’s nothing about this that’s good.”

“Not morally. Fuck morals, fuck ethics.” She commands, her voice is stern but her face relaxed. “I mean good for you.” She smiles when she says this, her lip curls and she’s gorgeous and, just to top it off, when it’s done curling she bites down on it, and looks up at me through her eyelashes. “Why deny yourself something you want so badly?”

I don’t think there’s an answer to that question, if there is I definitely don’t understand enough about anything to be able to answer it – not even myself.

I take what she’s offering – how can I not? I put it in my pocket, and that’s that.

Before this I’d never stolen, and before this I’d never done anything under the influence of anyone else, but she had a flower in her hair.

'Collapse Into Now'

R.E.M. have just released their fifteenth album and Michael Stipe is back to writing poetry like he used to. Much more of a personal album than a political one this time around, it doesn't quite have the grip of Automatic for the People or New Adventures in Hi-Fi, but amongst the lulls in pace are some stand-out tracks.

Here's an excerpt from the closing track, 'Blue', that I think still represents his mind at his best.

"I am made by my times

I am a creation of now
Shaken with the cracks and crevices
I'm not giving up easy
I will not fold
I don't have much
But what I have is gold

I sing in platinum
I dress in brass
I eat in zinc
Let it pass

I like you, love you, every coast of you.
I've seen your eddies and tides and hurricanes and cyclones.
Low ebb tide and high, full moon.
Up close and distant.
I read you.
Look, the sky, the sea, the ocean, the sun, the moon.
Blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue blue, blue, blue, blue, blue.
Naked and blue.

Breathing with you. Touch. Change. Shift. Allow air. Window open. Drift. Drift away. Into now.

I want Whitman proud. Patti Lee proud. My brothers proud. My sisters proud. I want me. I want it all. I want sensational. Irresistible.

This is my time and I am thrilled to be alive.

Living. Blessed. I understand.

Twentieth century:
Collapse Into Now"