Sawmills - Day Four & Five

Day Four.

The final day has been perfection - we had a lot to do...overdubs on all the tracks, guitar parts, vocals, percussion, claps...."chuka chuka's" (you'll understand when you hear them!)...but we got it all done, and the tracks sound amazing. Really...we worked together in a way we never have before...John Cornfield was fantastic to work with (yes, I'm full of it tonight, but it's all true)...let me tell you about the tracks, in the order they'll appear on the EP:

1. Get Me. A track unlike any we've done before, and one I wrote quite recently...it starts with just guitar and drums, and is a short, tight, exciting track with a huge middle eight. I'm making a video to this track from footage from this week....lots of people seem to love the lyrics to this track too.

2. Something About You. We got this nailed in just a couple of takes because we were so full of excitement and energy! The big climax at the end of the solo is breathtaking! It's full of joy, which I can remember when writing it.

3. No Reply. I'm not sure what to say about this one. The first part of the track is just vocals and two guitars, and has a very melodic Sinatra feel to it (you'll probably disagree with that entirely....I just want to sing swing and jazz!). It was written a few years while ago about how someone I cared about drifted away from me.

4. Country Low. This song had the most tracks by far - 69 individual tracks at last count! My brother Ian came down to put piano at the end, and it has a huge crescendo to the end. Though we were uncertain whether to do this track or "Run" I'm VERY happy with the end result. I wrote this song in the garden as it started to rain at my parents house in Somerset.

We've got to be up early and leave by 11am at the latest, or the tide will be out and our boat will be stuck in the mud. The only low point of the day was when I smashed my head on an open cupboard door. The agonising pain was really quite diverting from the coffee I was trying to make.

We're having a bit of a party now, which started in the studio with a bit of tipsy playing and has moved into the main house where we've found a big megaphone and...well....that's enough for now!


Day Five.

We all managed to get up and load the boat before the tide went out! Here we are about to board ship with John outside the studio (click on any of the photos in this blog for the whacking great full size versions, or just leave them for nothing to happen).




The drive back took hours and hours and hours. We're all a little sad to leave our little forest studio home, but it's likely we'll be back for a much longer session in the summer. We're also all totally thrilled at how well the recordings have turned out...it'll take a good couple of weeks for John to complete the mixing and then the mastering by our main man, Mr John Davis, who did all the previous singles.

Anyway, here's a little snippet of video from the studio when Jonno was doing some guitar overdubs to "Get Me" - full documentary to come in a couple of weeks! I'll also be putting up video tasters of all the songs in forthcoming blogs.

Much love,

Nigel.

I'm going to be working on the second part of the 2008 tour video now, so it should be up this week...it's far naughtier. First part here, well worth watching!

P.S. I've had no phone signal (apart from the few moments I've had a walk in the woods) so that's the reason I've ignored any texts etc)
P.P.S. I've had hardly any time free (apart from the time I've spent doing these blogs) so that's why I've not replied to emails and Facebook messages.
P.P.P.S. There are no spelling mistakes in this blog Alexandra!


"Thumping great dynamic, I love it" - John Cornfield, yesterday.

"Goodbye" - John Cornfield, today.

"Goodbye John" - Us, today.

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Loading the boat. It's amazing how much stuff you can fit in it: