THE DIFFICULT SECOND ALBUM PART THREE
/15.02.2012

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After two months of fidgeting, existential crises and doubts over whether a song should be called “The Sun Shines On” or simply “Sun Shines On”, all of our differences and dilemmas have been overcome and we have entered the studio.

Despite our best efforts to arrange the songs in the practice room, songs always require a little tinkering once you enter the studio – the drums sometimes feel less energetic as they did beforehand and need an extra kick, the bass occasionally belches along to the drums without sounding musical and the guitar at times sounds like it’s playing to a different tune! Musical dissonance can be the most beautiful ingredient in a song, though dissonance can sometimes sound clumsy, aimless, downright amateurish and in urgent need of repair.

The greatest moment when recording is when all of the instruments – having previously sounded disharmonious – suddenly come together and you feel that you have a song. At times - as was the case with Battles and Wastelands on our first album – you find yourself thrashing around, looking for the missing piece to the puzzle, everything sounds ok, but nothing sounds sublime and then you hear a violin in your head, record it and the whole song suddenly takes off

We have only just started recording but the songs already sound good, though we don’t want the songs to just sound good, we want them to explode out of the speakers. If everything goes according to plan, this album will be far more up-tempo than the first, a lot riskier in the production and mixing and far more ambitious in the overall sound. Next week we have a real legend flying in from Arizona who will be helping us to arrange the strings to a couple of songs and we will also have far more English singers involved to help us with the backing vocals. If the difficult second album isn’t bigger, brasher and better than the first, yours truly will look like a real prat for having promised the Earth and delivered mirth!