Subplots

An update of sorts

2012-01-04T11:43:00.001Z

So.... our weekly recording diary ground to a halt over three months ago. It's probably about time we brought you up to speed.

Firstly, the album is nearly recorded. All that remains is some minor additions and some vocals. We're really delighted with how it's turning out. When we started recording this album nearly a year ago, we really weren't sure what it would sound like. The album has slowly revealed itself over time with every tiny glitch, wonky synth and rusty nail added. Songs have morphed and changed and we are proud of the piece of work we've (nearly) completed.

Unfortunately it's going to be a while before we finish the record and before any of you get to hear it. To cut a long and somewhat awful story short, Daryl has been sick for the last 5 months. He has lymphoma, which is a form of cancer. After two pretty major surgeries, he began the treatment this week and so far it's going very well. He's taking the first steps on the last lap of getting better.

So, as you can imagine, making music is on pause for the next while. In a weird way this year was both the best we've ever had as a band, and the worst. We can't wait to get back to making music and for you all to hear our second album. I think we officially have the most difficult second album prize sewn up...

For the time being, I'll leave you with some of our favourite songs and albums from 2011 and some photos from the last recording sessions we had a few months ago.

Our top albums of 2011

1) Kuedo - Severant
2) Bon Iver - Bon Iver
3) Jamie XX & Gil Scott Heron - We're new here
4) John Vanderslice - White wilderness
5) Radiohead - The King of Limbs

Some of our favourite songs from 2011

Kendrick Lamarr - Rigamortis
Cass McCombs - County Line
Frank Ocean - thinking of you
Radiohead - Bloom (Jamie XX remix pt 3)
SBTRKT - Right thing to do
Machinedrum - U don't survive
Jape - The Oldest Mind
Actress - Parallel World
Burial - Stolen dog
Jai Paul - BTSTU
Gold Panda - Mayuri
Floating Points - ARP3
Daphni - Ye Ye
Purity Ring - Lofticries
Koreless - Lost in Tokyo

Happy New Year,

Subplots

Week 20: Chaney²

2011-09-07T11:41:00.003+01:00

Daryl’s brother, Ross, stopped by this week to record some jazzy drums for a few tracks (we say jazzy, as he’s a jazz drummer…). He made some rather spiffing additions to ‘End of Print’ and ‘Prog’. It’s made a pretty huge difference to both songs, but particularly ‘Prog’.

Did some nice layered drums for the outro of ‘Prog’ which sound great. Daryl had done some rough recording for it with Ross in the attic of his family home last week – recorded with just a Macbook mic. Sunday was spent in the same room for a couple of hours trying to get the same sound from ‘proper’ mics. I think we’ll probably end up using the Macbook recording…

Ross’ transcription for ‘Prog’ looked highly impressive to us fake musicians…

In between takes we’ve been watching:
The Killing (don’t ask me why I started watching the US one as apposed to the Danish version, but its bloody great anywho)
Norwegian Wood (it aint the book, but it’s nice)
The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo (same as above could probably be said, but I haven’t read the book…)

Week 19: Ich bein ein Subplots

2011-09-02T23:19:00.000+01:00

I was in Berlin this weekend. I can’t speak German, just in case that title didn’t give it away. In my absence, Daryl got lots done on ‘Prog’. It’s sounding rather lovely altogether. A little bit more tweaking, and all the programming will be done for it, this one has a really interesting mix of live and programmed drums. I’m going to take the track for a while now so that Daryl can put the finishing touches to ‘Elongated Walk’ (mental note: name that song….).

It’s looking somewhat possible that we may meet our deadline – how’s that for confident? Of course, we won’t share this deadline with you, just in case something unforeseen happens or the autotuner breaks during mixing.

Second extended weekend of recording is happening in a few weeks. If we squint, we can just about see the outline of a finished album. Now if we could just say the same for a
title…

In between takes we’ve been… working. :(

Week 18: Progressive Autumning

2011-08-25T11:38:00.002+01:00

Splitting our time (when we can claw some free time) between two songs the minute – Autumning and Prog. Autumning will be one of the few songs that will remain pretty much identical to how we were playing it two years ago. We recorded the guide tracks on Saturday and without the drums and samples, it sounded like a shit version of the XX. Whilst I quite like the XX and don’t buy the indie music fan snobbery often cast upon them, the sound doesn’t really suit us….

Exciting happenings with Prog. Daryl spent a while working on a rough backbone of electronic drums for the song. We then gave this to Ross who has transcribed the line out into notation. He’s also devised a bloody great outro drum line for it. We’re recording it on Saturday. EXCITED.

Now off for a “band meeting” in 3fe. We actually have nothing to meet about but it’s a great excuse to go to 3fe…

In between takes we’ve been listening to:
Daphni – Ye ye
Apparat – Ash/Black Veil (Beautiful Reich-esque track. Looking forward to the record)

Week 17: Eh…

2011-08-19T10:37:00.002+01:00

We won’t lie to you. This week wasn’t so productive. One of the advantages of a weekly recording blog is that when you do nothing, you have to post an entry to that effect. A nice way of keeping productivity in check…

So here's a photo from when we were productive, during one of our many percussion overload sessions.

Week 16: Making a midi mess, and other pursuits

2011-08-11T11:35:00.002+01:00

We’ve started working on the tentatively titled ‘Prog’. We’ve avoiding this song for months and this week decided it was time to face the fear. This is one of the oldest songs on the album, but has been in a constant state of flux since it was originally written some two and a half years ago. It’s been re-worked, edited, expanded and (nearly) discarded. Daryl’s been spending some time with it and I think we might finally be en-route to a final version of the song. Even if it does sound like a bit of a midi mess at the minute.

We both watched the three part BBC documentary series ‘All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace’ this week, frightening and brilliant stuff. See for yourself.

In between takes we’ve been reading:
Haruki Murakami - What I talk about when I talk about running (first non-fiction work of his that I’ve read. It's different, but just as great)
Brian Wilson – Wouldn't it be nice (Finally going to see him live in Dublin soon, on what is sadly expected to be his last tour of these parts)

The glockenspiel rule has been broken...

2011-08-08T12:27:00.002+01:00

Its power was too strong for us mere mortals.

At least the song in question sounds twinkly....

Week 15: Perhaps a spot of cleaning is in order….

2011-08-03T10:59:00.005+01:00

Apologies for the lost week... Not sure how that happened (pretty sure not writing a blog last week might have something to do with it though).

So we noticed today how many eight legged friends we have in our recording hut. Thankfully we are not arachnophobes and won’t be evicting them. The cobwebs however, we could live without.

We’ve practically finished ‘Bouncy’ now. Making proper strides with this album lark now… Daryl’s brother is stopping by next week to record some drums on a few tracks, which should speed up progress on the three songs we have yet to touch.

First mixing-related discussion happens next week, commencing mixing on three songs. Whoop!

In between takes we’ve been reading:
‘Just my Type’ – great read on all things typographic.
‘Tape Op Volume 2’ – worth purchasing alone for the pics of Elliott Smith in Abbey Road.

Week 13: The returneth of the bounce

2011-07-22T12:12:00.006+01:00

This week was fun. I dug out my folks’ old Roland keyboard and we used it on a song which for the past few years has been known as “Bouncy”. After some time trying to figure out what the difference was between the three different electric piano settings, we managed to stumble across something useable. Daryl had his heart set on sampling one of the dodgy drum machine rhythms, which of course ended quite horribly. See below for some random footage and to hear the eclectic style and sounds on offer with the Roland Piano Plus.

I’ve been catching up on some quality TV of late. Anybody been watching Bored to Death? I’ve only recently become a fan. Great show so ‘tis. Also, how’s about this for an advert… I would love to see this aired after an episode of Fair City. Anybody tasted the coffee?

In between takes we’ve been listening to:
Actress – Splazsh
Baths – Ocean Death (a demo of a new song online, a highlight from his stellar Workman’s Club gig earlier in the year)

Week 12: Community Games Frisbee Throwing Tournament Runner Up, 1999

2011-07-15T12:30:00.003+01:00

Had our first extended weekend of recording – three extra long days of fluffed takes in a row. It did wonders for getting some perspective on the album. We’re very nearly finished five songs now (Whoop). We also started work on ‘End of Print’ over the weekend, which is shaping up nicely. All in all we’re feeling positive and increasingly excited about this wee record.

Did some cool work on percussion / ambient stuff this week, which included some nice slowed down snare drum, crumpled paper, giant wind chimes, a bunch of kids on a trampoline and a piano fed through a DD5 pedal. It was nice to have some time to try new ideas. More of that lark should be forthcoming as we’ll be starting to join forces for a midweek recording session from next week onwards.

We also enjoyed a bit of barbequed sweet potato and roast pepper during a break from recording and indulged in a spot of freestyle Frisbee throwing. That is, until Daryl lost the bleedin’ frisbee (documented below) – up until that moment I could have sworn Daryl was a semi-professional frisbe-er, such was the level of skill on display…

In between takes we’ve been listening to:
Large Mound – songs from the opus in progress ‘Another Year of Rock’ (You’ll Never See a Dinosaur is a particular favourite)
Caribou – Resident Advisor mix (There’s an amazing afrobeat song near the end – worth downloading for that alone)
Mathewdavid – Outmind (All City calls it ambient / emotional, which I would incline to agree with. Lush)

Untitled from Subplots on Vimeo.

SUMMER mix

2011-07-11T19:22:00.005+01:00

Seeing as it's not raining, we thought we'd share some rather nice music we've been listening to of late, through the medium of mix.

If you're wondering what any of these songs are, give us a shout on facebook: http://on.fb.me/pNT5wF

SUMMER mix by Subplots

Week 11: Would somebody kindly supply myself and Daryl with a new bike and brain (respectively)?

2011-07-07T21:00:00.000+01:00

Not a very productive Saturday recording session. The world conspired against us this week. In my case I was a bit knackered following a 4:45am start on Friday and a manic day in London. This was twinned with my bike collapsing en route to our rehearsal / recording hut (axle on back wheel and the bloody chain broke). In Daryl’s case, it wasn’t so much the world conspiring against him, merely the copious amounts of alcohol consumed the night (and afternoon) before. We were pretty useless.

That said I think we may be *nearing* the half way mark. We’re doing a bit of an extended weekend of recording next week, we’ll be recording all the piano, percussion and acoustic instruments for most of the album. That should speed things up a little.

We’re starting to look at the schedule for the latter half of the year now – in particular the non-music related bits and pieces. Speaking of which - any photographers / videomakers out there interested in working together? Drop us a line at subplots@cableattack.com

In one of the more productive elements of the week, Daryl performed some necessary surgery on a worse for wear synth. We're hoping that it will make a full recovery and will one day learn to be in tune again.

In between takes we’ve been listening to:
Panda Bear - Tomboy (an incredibly beautiful summertime album)
Gold Panda - Lucky Shiner (You heard this npr feature?)
Panda Kopanda - This Hope Will Kill Us (our criminally underrated friends from Belfast. Second album on the way too)

Week 10: A long walk off a short pier

2011-06-29T12:15:00.002+01:00

Feeling extra positive about the album this week. Songs are definitely coming together. We have the majority of the (ridiculously titled) Elongated Walk in the bag. During drum recording, torrential rain suddenly decided to descend on our little green hut. All of the mics picked it up and seen as it sounded rather nice, we decided to keep it in. A nice addition to the second verse. We also spent the guts of four of five hours on a new song which we’ve since abandoned. That wasn’t so productive.

Planning a bit of a four day recording break, so I reckon that should bring us up to the half way mark with the album.

Thought it might be useful to summarise some useful lessons learnt over the past three months, in the hopes that we can impart our new found recording wisdom to all you musician folk.

1. When in doubt about a song, a sound, or your entire album simply purchase a new synth.
2. Just add some reverb.
3. When one of your monitors is broken, just listen to everything in mono.
4. When your bass amp is broken, simply replace all bass lines with synth bass.
5. Always use hand gestures when describing desired sounds.
6. Nougat can be a useful stimulant for the teeth and for the mind.
7. Don’t change the tubes, it’ll ruin the vibe.
8. Jazz-funk middle eights should be used with caution.
9. If your drumming isn’t up to scratch, play louder.
10. Recorded adverse weather sounds can be desirable as a textural addition to second verses.

In between takes we’ve been listening to:
Peter Gabriel – So (my ladyfriend found this second hand a few weeks ago in town. Forgot how amazing it is)
Fleetwood Mac – Rumours (see above)
TV on The Radio – Nine Types of Light (hmm)

RAIN from Subplots on Vimeo.

Week 9: Pernickety programming for the very patient

2011-06-23T12:43:00.003+01:00

After a break of a week we return to evenings full of constructing tiny drum noises and adjusting minor frequencies. Some well spent time with a focus on the finer details for two songs. I’m just back from Paris and I think a bit of that laid back, café vibe has rubbed off on the track I’ve been working on. Has a nice lilting groove to it.

We worked on a song each separately for the last two weeks. Was really interesting to hear where we both took each song. Thanks to Daryl, 9/8 has a new found urgency. We worked on a new outro for it on Saturday too, which makes nice use of phased acoustic piano.

Synth watch
Back with a bang, Daryl has gone and purchased two synths this week. The hooligan. He got one of these and one of these. Now that didn’t take long, did it? This now brings Daryl’s total number of synths purchased (since album recording began) to five. Lunatic.

In between takes we’ve been listening to:
Moths – various Mp3s and whatnot (lovely stuff)
Casino vs Japan – Go Hawaii (picked this up second hand on vinyl this week, had forgotten all about this record. A lost gem)
Mansun – Six (When I was 13, it really didn’t occur to me how prog rock this album was… 2 minute single turned to 8 minute album version = prog rock? Never...)

Week 8: More of our patented brand of geek-waffle

2011-06-15T12:30:00.001+01:00

We’re back working on some older songs this week. We reworked ‘Tom Tune’ quite drastically. It’s changed from being a foot stomping drum-filled pop tune, to a slightly more somber, glitch-ridden, head shaking ditty. My chopped up Rhodes idea finally found a home with this song. Huzah!

On reflection, the smooth jazz-funk middle eight *might* not have been the best option for this song. Let us never speak of that again.

Synthwatch
In a shocking twist of fate, this week’s new synth was purchased by myself. I got a bit of a bargain, an old 70’s Yamaha CS5 analogue synth. Normal service will no doubt resume shortly. Daryl had to be stopped purchasing some mad filter / step sequencer / effects unit during the week. He was also heard muttering something about how buying an old Korg MS20 would save him spending 50 quid on a Monotron for the MS20 filter, so he’s not quite a changed man.

I’m threatening to do a cover of this tune. Best pop song of last year in my books.

In between takes we’ve been listening to:

Bibio – Excuses (haven’t made it past track one of the new album yet – so good I have first song on repeat)
Luke Abbott – Holkham Drones (Synth goodness. Trying to hold Daryl back from entering Modular synth territory… dangerous)
Fourtet – There is Love in You (primary influence behind the reworked ‘Tom Tune’. You probably wouldn’t notice it, but we had his approach to samples in mind throughout)

Week Seven: La retorune de la GUITARE

2011-06-09T12:41:00.002+01:00

We moved on to a new song this week, the first of an older batch of songs called ‘Tom Tune’. The first thing we did was remove all toms from the equation, so henceforth the song shall be known simply as ‘Tune’ (if we do say so ourselves).

We had already cast this song in to the mental reject pile, but a new drum line and arrangement has sparked some life back in to the beast. Did a live take of drums, warbled vocals (drumming and singing: Levon Helm I aint), bass synth and key board.

During the week I played lots of guitar, which made for a nice change. I recorded all the guitars for ‘Abbatoir’, using my Kramer, Blues Junior and an Ibanez analogue delay. The chopped up Rhodes stuff I did last week didn’t make the cut as it kind of became too big for the song. Might use it for something else. I also managed to get guitar done for ‘Pianodrum’, which was a tad more rawkus – only used an electro harmonix booster pedal and the Blues Junior.

In between takes we’ve been listening to:

Sleep Thieves – 5am, November 6th (Tune. Super mix from Ciarán too)
Gil Scott Heron & Jamie XX – We’re new here (BASS)
Jeans Wilder - Sparkler (Great band name, great song)

Week Six: Ou est la guitar?

2011-06-01T13:13:00.007+01:00

Yes that’s right, with an impending (non band related) visit to Paris on the horizon, I’m to trying to recall my mediocre French skills. You may be subjected to further casual French usage over the next few weeks. You have been warned, or as the French say vous aurez été prévenu.

I realised this week that we haven’t touched a guitar or bass in the rehearsal / recording room for over a month now. Well apart from bowed bass, but thats not proper bass. With all this drumming, programming and synthing, you miss the odd power chord or a metallica riff. Enter Sandman on drums just doesn’t have the same clichéd effect. Even with midi drums. Plus we don’t have a double bass drum pedal, which is the only real barrier between me and Larry Ulrich.

Started work on a new song which is temporarily (but not really) called "Pianodrum". Re-arranged and recorded it roughly at the same time. Pleased so far. Think this one could be edging out one of our older favorites off the album tracklisting… I experimented with something a bit different for the first verse. Recorded some Rhodes then sampled it, chopped it up and arpeggiated it. It sounds fantastic by itself but in the context of the song… still not sure.

In between takes we’ve been mostly listening to:

Tyler the Creator (of undoubtedly the video of the year)
Odd Future (US talk show performance of the year)
Hudson Mohawke – Butter (cos we’re a bit slow, and didn’t get round to checking it out back in ’09)

Au Revoir,

Subplots

Bikes, bows and beats from Subplots on Vimeo.

Week Five: The maddening power of one small bass drum

2011-05-26T12:44:00.003+01:00

A new week, a new bass drum. Our modest new kick drum has arrived. We continued on with the (brand) new tune this week, moving on to the song’s outro. We’ve spent a long time on the drum and percussion tracks for this one, but it’s definitely getting there. A good 6 hours of Saturday was spent tweaking the new arrival (tuning, recording, tuning, recording). We nearly gave up on it but after some persistence, eventually found the right mic placement to pick up some more of those desired low-end frequencies and less of those high, roomy thuds.

Synthwatch
Daryl purchased (another) new synth this week – a restored old Juno 106, which is working its way across the Irish sea as we speak. This brings the total number of synths Daryl has purchased since the start of LP2 recording to: 3.

During bass drum tune-a-thon we engaged in a nerdy argument which went something like:

D: Listened to that Toro Y Moi album, it’s great.
P: Yeah, I really like all that Sidechaining
D: Er, what sidechaining? He doesn’t use any
P: It’s on every track
D: No its not
P: Yes it is
D: No its not

This went on for some time before we eventually discovered that we were in fact talking about two different Toro Y Moi albums. That probably wasn’t blog worthy, but when you’re listening to 6 hours of bass drum, you’d be amazed at how it warps your sense of what is and isn’t interesting.

In between takes we are mostly listening to:

Toro Y Moi – My Touch (no sidechaining)
Toro Y Moi – Causers of this (sidechaining)

WEEK FOUR: Hit me with another one of those tooth-cracking nougat bars

2011-05-19T12:55:00.005+01:00

Wow, are we four weeks in to this lark already? Jeepers.

We stuck to our one song rule this week. We spent a couple of hours working on drum programming, percussion and live drums for a (brand) new tune. Very happy with how it’s progressing. Used the new (to us) Roland SPS-D for programming the drums, which was pretty revolutionary. SO much easier than your typical mpc / mpd pads – although Daryl would argue the opposite.

Daryl has renewed his addiction to the crap below.

Non musical inspiration this week was derived from watching both of the ‘Wall Street’ films in reverse order. For a moment, I felt nostalgic for a time when you, me and Charlie Sheen could eat a lump of raw mince with a raw egg on top. Nice. Speaking of nostalgia, it’s rather nice being back on the blog. Even if it is *so* 2005. Still not sold on this Twitter lark.

In between takes we’ve been listening to:

Mathewdavid (whatever we could find)
Teebs – Ardour (beautiful album)
Cass McCombs (looooove the new record)

Week three: Scatterbrain Krautrock

2011-05-12T12:45:00.001+01:00

We begin by revisiting the drum arrangement for ‘Wave Collapse’. I’ll let you decipher the chief inspirations behind that one. We came to the conclusion that after initially thinking that the song’s outro was fantastic, it is in fact rather awful. New Krautrock influenced outro is a winner though. We also added some beautifully dissonant analogue synth to the mix, and lots of it. We shall see how it lasts the test of one week’s time.

During the week I started working on the drum programming for the last song on the album, whilst Daryl started the electronics for ‘9/8’. I’m also busy trying to figure out how to midi-ify a bassline so we can route it through a drum machine and synth for track two. We have decided that starting next Saturday, we’re employing a one song a week policy…

Anybody interested in a Mexican Tele? Thinking of selling it…

In between takes we’ve been listening to:
John Cale - Paris 1919 (title track in particular is incredible)
Halves – It goes, It goes (if you haven't purchased it, do it)
The Notwist – Shrink (the snare sound on this record hasn’t aged too well…)

Week two: Beefy stereo bass synth beauty.

2011-05-06T11:35:00.001+01:00

With the guts of the first track done and dusted, we move on to a later track on the album which has a working title of ‘Wave Collapse’.

We spent the guts of Saturday figuring out the exact arrangement. Then we recorded the main guitar part fairly clean with the old trusted combo of Tele & Orange amp. We used my current favourite overdrive pedal (A Jimmy Behan clone of an old DOD overdrive preamp) to break it up just a tad. We also threw down some rough drums for the end of the track (as roughly mic’d as they were performed). The end of this tune has an almighty synth on it. Daryl recorded it with his Poly Evolver. My oh my. The Beefy stereo bass synth beauty of it all.

In between takes we’ve been listening to:

John Vanderslice – White Wilderness (John comes up trumps again. ‘20k’ is gorgeous)
Women – Public Strain (an album that I hated at first and now absolutely adore)
James Blake – s/t (its great but call me a cliché, I much preferred the Klavierwerke EP)

Week one: No Glockenspiel.

2011-04-27T20:45:00.000+01:00

And so it begins. After the best part of two years writing, we have started recording our second album. A couple of things to bring us up to speed, firstly, we are no longer a three-piece. Mick left the band a few months ago - we wish him all the best and look forward to hearing the long awaited Star Department record later this year.

So we’re back as we began some nine years ago. Myself and Daryl started playing together when we were 17 – we spent nearly two years on our own writing in my parents gaff, moving from room to room like nomads. We're really excited about starting work on the second album and sharing all these new songs with you. Its shaping up to be a bit of a big leap for us.

Now that we’re up to speed, back to the business at hand…

We begin with a song called ‘opener’. Yes, as you may have guessed, our skill of using appalling temporary titles for songs remains ever present. We recorded the guitar track with my mother’s old classical guitar, which is nice as it’s the first guitar I learned to play on (some 16 years ago). It’s also nice as no acoustic guitar made an appearance on ‘Nightcycles’. We then recorded some chopped up and delayed Rhodes samples from Daryl’s smaller Nord which worked rather splendidly and gave the song a real warmth.

A glockenspiel argument then ensued. We are attempting to make it through this album without the use of glockenspiel, due to the recent saturation of the instrument in popular music (that and we’ve used it on every EP / album we’ve ever done). I lasted all of two hours before suggesting we use it. I commend Daryl’s strength in resisting this foul and tempting beast.

We spent some evenings during the week separately recording some parts by ourselves – I recorded some more acoustic guitar for the track (this time with my Baby Taylor), and some shimmery electric guitar recorded with my new (old) Kramer, Blues Junior and Space Echo. Daryl recorded his family’s (slightly worse for wear) piano fed through an old Wem Copy Cat. One week in, two tape echos used. A good start.

Oh and during a clean up of the 'Green Hut' we came across this. Draft artwork for the '16:9' single which never happened:

September

2010-09-22T19:06:00.000+01:00

September has been eventful thus far. First of all we played support to Field Music a few weeks back, which was probably one of our favourite gigs that we've done in the last year. The new songs we played felt really great (more so than a few other recent gigs), it feels like they're really starting to take their final form. Field Music were pretty bloody incredible too. Super nice fellows too.

We're gearing up for some shows in the UK and Europe in the coming months. I think we may have one more gig in Dublin before the year is out too. We're also wrapping up a new group of demos at the minute too and expect a new episode too in the next month (a pretty different one too).

I do some singing on a track on the new Halves album (which is really great), Nialler9 has the song up on his blog for streaming and downloading so go and have a listen.

I'll leave you with a remix from Mr. Ellison (his best, in my opinion). Went to see him in London last month. SO much fun.

Ireland and UK tour dates

2010-08-12T13:21:00.000+01:00

We're delighted to be heading back out for some shows in the coming months. Further dates will be announced in the coming weeks. We'll be trying out some new songs at these shows.

Friday, August 13th – The Quad, Cork w/ Sideproject
Thursday, September 9th - Crawdaddy, Dublin w/ Field Music
Saturday, October 2nd – Club Fandango, London, UK
Sunday, October 3rd – Dublin Castle, London, UK
Saturday, November 11th – Newcastle, UK

Episode Three: Subplots take Manhattan (Well, Brooklyn)

2010-08-12T13:20:00.001+01:00

Last October we set off to New York for a gig at CMJ. It was a hectic few days… We set off on a Saturday morning following a Friday night gig at HWCH in Dublin, we then played a gig that night in Brooklyn, NY.

Our latest video (in an infrequent series of online episodes) charts the journey to the gig in Brooklyn and some highlights of our trip to NYC.

Also, the video is soundtracked by some new music. A preview of some stuff we’ve been working on. So do put the ol’ headphones on.

Episode 3: Subplots take Manhattan (well, Brooklyn) from Subplots on Vimeo.

Acoustic Session

2010-08-05T22:33:00.000+01:00

We did some radio interviews a while back before our last Dublin headline show. You can hear one of these here, our interview with Totally Irish on 98FM which features an acoustic version of 'Tired' along with new song ‘The Forty Foot’.

Demo recording

2010-08-05T22:23:00.000+01:00

So… on the recording front then.

For the past couple of weekends, we’ve been recording some demos. Its been really nice as this is the first time we’ve done any recording since January 2009.

We purchased a whole lot of musical gear recently that gives us a bit of independence to record ideas and new stuff in the rehearsal room. We’ve been really happy with the results to date. Its been great for writing too – its amazing how a song you’ve been playing for months sounds so incredibly different when you step back and listen to a recording – all of a sudden that extended two minute intro doesn’t seem like such a good idea…

On the song front, we’ve been working on (ahem, working titles): ‘Afrobeat’, ‘9/8’ and two others that I’m not going to mention as the working titles are so awful…

Some pics from the last couple of weeks are below, aswell as a video of Mick playing the 9/8 synth line.

9/8 from Subplots on Vimeo.

Recording

2010-07-12T23:26:00.000+01:00

So we spent this weekend recording some demos of some of the new stuff. It was lots and lots of fun. We're really happy with how these new songs are shaping up. Below is a video of Mick recording some drums earlier today.. More words, photos and whatnot to follow...

Recording from Subplots on Vimeo.

Retribution Gospel Choir

2010-03-10T21:36:00.000Z

We're supporting Retribution Gospel Choir in Whelans, Dublin this Saturday night. We is excited.

Might even try a brand new song.

Gives us a great excuse to post this video:

Listening to:

2010-03-06T22:50:00.000Z

Getting good at getting rid of the rubbish

2010-03-04T21:39:00.000Z

Gizit

2010-03-01T17:10:00.000Z

For those who can't afford a real one, this dude has the answer.

Listening to:

2010-02-25T18:12:00.000Z

Gizit

2010-02-23T21:24:00.000Z

Subplots ♥ MPC

2010-02-21T17:56:00.000Z

Both meself and Daryl are AKAI MPC users. I only recently picked up an MPC1000, but it was love at first trigger. Daryl has had his for quite a while but up until recently it had been gathering dust in his room of gear madness. He abandoned it after I brought my sp404 in to a rehearsal some time ago in 2008. A week or two later, he fell for the speed and just plain fun of the 404. However, recently I had found myself increasingly frustrated with the 404’s limitations. So I took the plunge and got an MPC. Daryl subsequently has re-discovered his MPC. We're like bleedin dominoes.

I still love the 404, especially its onboard effects and its incredible ease of use, but the MPC is in a different league. In honour of our love for this splendid machine, and a week too late for Valentines day (doh!), below are some videos of some rather nifty MPC users.

Backwards

2010-02-17T20:57:00.000Z

After a break of a couple months from playing live, this month we finally got out of the rehearsal room and got to play some of the new stuff to real people. We played three gigs in 10 days in Dublin, so apologies if you’re now sick of us. We’ll leave you alone for a bit, we promise. The headline gig in Whelans was the highlight of the bunch, a really great night and thanks to those who came along and made it so. We were in our own private world of stress before the gig thanks to things going wrong and mean people. Thankfully when we started playing, all was forgotten. We played two *new* songs at these gigs, and a bunch of new songs. As you can see, we’re having trouble categorising new songs now. We could just name the songs, but that would make too much sense.

Autumn Owls and Mail Order Messiahs played before us, and we thoroughly enjoyed watching them too. Autumn Owls are off to the U.S. next month for SXSW so for any of you stateside folk, make it your business to catch them!

We spent the latter half of last year not playing too much and working on new bits and pieces. This year, we’re aiming for a better balance with writing and playing live. Currently taking a break for a week or two in the hopes that when we come back, we can settle on a plan for the coming months. Plans are tricky. Below are some photos and a video from Whelans that Barry (who co-runs TheExile Ireland) sent us over, thanks Barry! The song featured is called Autumning.

Kowlaski

2010-02-02T19:30:00.000Z

We had the pleasure of playing a small, wonderful festival in Fermanagh a few years back with Kowalski and have been fans ever since.

This song (and video) is bloody great. Think the lads are supporting Two Door Cinema Club at their Dublin date in March, but don't quote me on that. The song is also available to download here.

KOWALSKI: GET BACK (MUSIC VIDEO) from BABYSWEET SESSIONS on Vimeo.

Listening to:

2010-01-29T17:17:00.000Z

Episode 2

2010-01-26T22:00:00.000Z

Subplots - Episode 2 - Baby Steps from thisredbook on Vimeo.

First show of 2010

2010-01-23T21:52:00.001Z

And its going to be a good one.

The rather wonderful Mail Order Messiahs will also be appearing. Took Daryl ages to do this rather lovely poster (by hand..) it was finished prior to their addition to the line up...

Cheerio 2009

2009-12-24T14:16:00.000Z

We currently feature in the two end of year poll type thingys. We make an appearance in the top 9 albums of '09 in the current edition of the RTE Guide. Only Irish band there too. How nice. Also feature in Nialler 9's readers poll of the best Irish albums of the year here: http://bit.ly/5Hp3EP

2009 was good to us. We hope its been good to you too. We've been busying ourselves writing lots of bits and bobs lately and making some changes to how we play live. We've discovered, after some years of being in this band,that we have quite a fancy for odd time signatures. Theres new songs in 5/4, 7/8 and 9/8... the latter being the oddest of the bunch. We'll look forward to watching people trying to nod heads along to these new songs. We're back to live action next year with a headline gig on Saturday February 6th in Whelans. Do come along and sample our new aural delights. I'll leave you with our in-band top 5 albums of the decade list which was born out of shouting at too many newspaper / magazine polls ove the last few weeks. Polls are fun...

Happy New Year folks!

Mick:
1. Field Music - Tones of Town
2. The Walkmen - Bows and Arrows
3. At The Drive In - Relationship of Command
4. Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlanticism
5. Radiohead - Kid A

Phil:
1. Radiohead - Kid A
2. Tv on The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
3. Bjork - Vespertine
4. The Notwist - Neon Golden
5. Cass McCoombs - Dropping The Writ

Daryl:
1. Radiohead - Kid A
2. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
3. Aphex Twin - Drukqs
4. Thom Yorke - The Eraser
5. Portishead - Third

Autumning

2009-10-03T00:41:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

This blog has been very badly ignored over the last few months... For this we apologise. But lets not dwell on that, and lets just renew the promise of more posts.

We're busy preparing for a few gigs at the minute. Tomorrow night we play with Cougar in Dublin's Sugar Club, two weeks from now we play HWCH in Dublin before we fly out for CMJ in New York later that week. At the minute I'm grappling with lyrics for a new song that we're supposed to be playing tomorrow night. We wrote it about a week and a half ago and liked so much that we all agreed we should just force ourselves to finish it and try it out tomorrow. That now seems like a scary prospect...

We're writing a lot at the minute. We're up to about 16 or 17 new songs now, which is more than we've ever had. We're not really sure what we'll do with all these songs, but we are certain that we won't be sitting on them for a year or two.. We're also working on some upcoming video episodes and whatnot, which will feature some of the new songs.

The next post, I promise, will not be 6 months off.

Happy Birthday Hip-Hop

2009-04-03T16:53:00.000+01:00

Cork

2009-03-25T15:27:00.001Z

We ventured down to Cork last week for our first gig in a while. The weather was remarkably nice, possibly the nicest day in recent memory in Ireland. We took advantage of this by having off-season ice creams and having a the first beer garden pint of the year.

We took advantage of the gig to try out some album songs that we haven't been playing live. Really great fun playing a set that was so different to ones we're used to playing. After the gig we ended up going to a party at the headline band's place, which was about 2 minutes walk from the venue. Ah the ease of it all.. Thanks to the Neon Flea fellows for being so hospitable. Cork is great.

Next gig is the album launch.. All will be revealed on Friday.

Stick a fork in it.

2009-02-16T11:59:00.000Z

Our first album is done...

You can expect to hear the details of whats on it, what its called and when its out pretty soon!. We'll leave you with a video of Ciaran busy working his magic (with a sneak preview of a song from the album...)

The final push to the sun.

2009-02-02T15:03:00.000Z

DAY ONE

Wowza. Its been a while. We've been on a rather long hiatus from this album business. Its actually been rather healthy though.. If you're doing an album over the course of a year and a half, theres a big danger of getting a bit lost in it. The temptation to listen and relisten to works in progress could get a bit too much. So we made the decision when we started the album, to not listen to any rough mixes when we're not recording. As a result, I think we've had quite a bit of healthy objectivity, which is nice.

Today we began by working on a song called 'baby steps' which somehow has been left behind thorugh all this album lark. It was a really good song to start with as it was a bit of a blank canvas. Recorded some nice swelly guitars for the intro and some nice keyboard bits and bobs. After the day the song had really taken shape, a wee bit of guitar on the chorus and it'll be done.

DAY TWO

Finished all the guitars on 'Baby Steps' and proceeded to have a listen to the other songs to acess what was left to do. For some reason we had thought that this session was going to be really tough going as we thought we had A LOT to do. Turns out we were wrong. As we listened back we realised that the songs were a lot closer to being finished than we thought. Score!

We powered though the main guitar parts of a few tunes and re-recorded some guitars on 'Anchors & Kites' as noted in the last diary, there was some pretty major tuning problems going on with my guitar. With tuning problems solved we flew through stuff today. Jolly good. We also discovered the controversial 'Boasters' biscuits: ginger and dark chocolate, three packets for one euro. Beware though, its not as great a deal as we had originally thought...theres only 8 biscuits per pack. Hooligans.

DAY THREE

Today I tripped over a heater and went straight in to daryl's large amp. Ouch. We then spent (when I say we, I of course mean Ciaran) an hour or so fixing the heater after this incident. And before you ask, yes the amp is fine...

I think I'm in love with Royer ribbon mics. Unfortunately for me, this is a forbidden love as I will never be able to afford one. Sniff sniff.

On the music front we finished guitars on 'Violent Sea' and the song currently known as 'Vocalsample' (not for too much longer, we hope..). The latter is probably the closest thing to a Subplots prog-rock tune. I like to think of it as our salute to Yes. Which is apt considering Daryl now has a bonified keyboard corner and is putting the finishing touches to a cape. We're still waiting for his debut appearance on Countdown's dictionary corner though.

DAY FOUR

We've finished recording guitar for the album. Huzah!

Dave from amble-gloom boy band Halves came over this evening to 'shred' some violin for violent sea. Its sounding only gorgeous.

DAY FIVE

Discovered fridges are very noisy beasts and covered it up with a big duvet whilst singing 'broken household appliance' (2nd grandaddy reference of this post). All sorts of bits and bobs recorded today. Some roomy vocals, percussion and most importantly cello.

Tully from the Chapters came by to 'wail' on some kirk hammett style cello for us. It added a HUGE amount to the two songs he played on.

We are currently in talks with a Hollywood production company for the film adaptation of Violent Sea, starring Steven Seagal.

"One man, One Sea and a love that lasts an eternity."

And....we're done! Well..this chapter is done. Onwards to the vocals!

VOCAL RECORDING

Over the last few days I've been recording vocals. Throughout recording we busied ourselves with listening to old David Bowie singles and coming up with sentences derived from some book on engineering that made me sound like I knew what i was talking about. The winning sentence was 'Just whack this bad boy through an M6K and do a vocal down then we're out of here'.

I managed to find time to do some singing too. Highlights include singing up the stairs for 'baby steps' and singing through a cardboard box for 'call to arms'. The recording finished in a flurry of backing vocals, glockenspiels, autoharps and with one last clunk of Ciaran's vintage mustang, it was over. Very surreal, in a good way. Our first album finished.

Today (the 2nd of february) we start mixing. Huzah!!

Summer Recording

2009-02-02T15:00:00.000Z

Hello

Its been a while.. Since we last spoke through the medium of 'blog' we've been busying ourselves…

We released 'Alarm' in April, following a really, really enjoyable launch gig in Whelans. That was the last gig we played, and will most likely be the last Irish gig until August. There are a few reasons for this. For starters I (I = Phil) am embarking on my last month as a lowly student. Unfortunately this month will not be spent enjoying the fruits of student life (afternoon cinema outings, 10 percent discounts etc. etc.). This month will be spent in front of my laptop attempting to carve together my final college project. This college malarkey unfortunately got in the way of the album making. Since February, we put recording on hiatus, allowing me to finish college, and daryl to buy more equipment (we're now accepting suggestions on how to keep daryl away from Thomann). During this period we have still been rehearsing and recently have gone through one of the most prolific writing periods since forming the band.

This weekend however, saw our return to recording. We're currently finishing a new EP which will be arriving on shop shelves and digital shop shelves in August. It was remarkably easy slipping back in to recording world and was perhaps the polar opposite of the sessions we had in February. No radiators this weekend. No numb toes. Oh no. We had all the doors open for the whole weekend. Who knew Ireland could be like this?

We recorded guitar and various bits for 5 songs, 4 of which will be on the forthcoming EP (the other one will be on something special which we'll tell you about in time). This was perhaps the most enjoyable recording experience to date, and songs took on new forms and found shape remarkably fast. The following is a brief account of the weekend:

- Set up in our new improved rehearsal hut. Now less green and more of an optimistic / neutral white. Ahhhhh
- Less random stuff in room makes for a more relaxed and less claustrophobic recording environment! Huzah!
- Saturday is spent working on 'Rats' which has taken on a life of its own and is sounding more and more like we all hoped it would. Outro is sounding lovely.
- At this point I should point out that Mick is absent, off in the land of Maple Syrup. The weekend sees countless mentions of the lack of Mick. We're sure that he is doing the same in Toronto, yes Mick?
- The weather gets to us and we embark on an extended barbeque break.
- An hour of this break was spent watching what could best be described as a lukewarm barbeque turning chicken an appetising shade of slimey grey. Yum.
- Ciaran points out the design flaw – lack of airholes in the tin foil. I admit my failure and we start over..
- After the false start and enforced smoke inhalation (for one of us anyway), barbeque is tasterrific (If anyone would like the subplots patented barbeque sauce recipe we'd be happy to oblige *producers of RTÉ's The Afternoon Show take note*)

- Sunday we fly through songs at a ferocious pace and make some controversial decisions concerning one in particular. 'Wolves' has never sounded as good.
- The ginger nut makes a come back, triumphing in the face of adversity. In a triple pack alongside Lincoln and Polo, there can be only one winner. Long live the crunch.
- Fender Champs are amazing. I want one.
- We spend the afternoon making strange echo noises and I became obsessed with banging an |SM58 mic in to a shaker (don't ask.. it seemed somewhat relevant at the time, I swear).
- Monday sees the appearance of a random dog who we believe is called Oscar (not to be confused with Oscar the cat, who is pictured below to protect his ego). Oscar the dog wandered in amongst the mics but ran before we could hit record.
- We have perfected the in-between takes game of 'keepy-upy'. We may not look skilled, confident or graceful whilst 'keepy-up-ing', but the ball stays up.

Album sessions willl resume this Summer before the EP is out. We're looking forward to getting back to playing live, and also to our first date across the water in Newcastle on July 15th. Finally, apologies for the ridiculous length of this blog, its incredible what avoiding a final project can do to you..

Hope you're all well

Subplots

Guitar Recording [part two]

2009-02-02T14:59:00.000Z

So the computer wouldn't let me continue my giant blog, thus....part 2:

Day 8.

Supposedly Jacobs are going to be taken over by McVities. Oo er. Lets hope we have the album finished before that goes down.

We finished guitars for 16:9 today. Also started work on a song we know as "vocalsample", which no longer has any vocal samples in it…. ah yes. Its actually one of my favourites on the record, and I'm looking forward to seeing where we go with it. Recorded some great glitchy guitar bits for the end of the song using my vox valve tone pedal and my boss dd5. Lots of random glitchy sampled fuzz, although my shin is quite sore now from copious stamping. Ouch. It was worth it.

Daryl came over in the evening to record a wee bit of bass for a nice new song. One of the most stripped down, simple songs I think we've ever done. Also one of the most recent songs we've written, nice to work on something really fresh. Daryl's on a flight to the U.S. tomorrow morning. We're fully expecting him to arrive back with half 30th Street Guitars stuffed in to his bag.

Day 9

Did some finishing touches on 16:9 and Tired guitars, and recorded all the rest of the guitars for Anchors & Kites. Pernickety day, full of doing lots of little bits and pieces, but pretty rewarding. I'm going to have to get my guitar fixed as it doesn't seem to be sitting in tune. Made sure the intonation was right, but I reckon it's a trust rod issue.. meaning I shouldn't really go near it. My ears are now in shreds and everything sounds like its out of tune, to make matters worse, my tuner broke.. Even when I sought refuge in someone else's music, it sounded out of tune.

Made a plan out of everything done so far. Making headway I think, it's sounding more and more like an album and less like a work in progress, which is cool.

Day 10

Mick came over to record some percussion for Leech and Anchors & Kites. Handclaps, shakers and tambourines all round.

We recorded all the piano for Anchors & Kites, which went surprisingly a lot better than I had anticipated. I'm now worried about the prospect of playing it live though… That'll be funny.

We decided on the first single we're going to release. We had our first single decided for months and months, in fact even before we had started recording, but we've changed our minds. We've gone for something a bit different…

Day 11

Spent the day recording little bits of piano for some songs. Also recorded guitar for "In rows of black of white" . It's actually the last song I wrote, so it's cool to be working on something really fresh. Recorded the acoustic guitar with a beautiful old Neumann pencil condenser. Sounded amazing. I think I now officially love acoustic guitars again. I went off them for quite a while.. Grizzly Bear may be part of the reason for my new re-found love. Grizzly Bear are amazing..

Day12

Today was pretty great. Recorded vocals for "In rows of black and white", which is coming along well. We also had Colm over, who recorded some trumpet and fluegel horn. This is a first for us, so it was pretty amazing to hear the arrangements spring to life. I think the end of "tired" is sounding bigger and bigger.. The most amounts of instruments we've ever had on any Subplots recording.

Thus, nearly ends this recording session. We have one more day of recording, which will be primarily vocals. After that we'll be returning to work on the album pretty soon, but we'll actually be spending the next wee while playing some gigs. It'll be great to get back to playing, and working out some new arrangements for songs. It'll also be nice to have some space to write some string arrangements and such, before we begin the next phase of recording..

Most of all we're looking forward to releasing some music. It's been a while. We're going to make up for our recent inactivity on that front this year.. Keep on eye on the blog over the coming days for an announcement…

Thanks for reading, and we'll return to album blog mode shortly. Hopefully see some of you at some upcoming gigs.

Guitar Recording [part one]

2009-02-02T14:57:00.000Z

A diary of recording guitar for our debut album.

Day 0

The day before guitar recording commences spent attempting to empty the brain of theories relating to "the information society". I had been writing a fairly hefty essay for college since December (which nearly killed me). It'll be a while before I look at my computer the same way.

Attempted to jump start the creative side of my brain, which had been dormant for quite a while. The Sigur Ros dvd and some videos of Owls on youtube do the trick. Ahhhh.

Ventured around Dublin collecting equipment. Realised at one point that we had forgotten the bring the hard drive (with the whole album on it) with us. Ah yes. We did, however, remember the "important stuff".

Day 1

Its been quite a while since we started this record, and its taken quite a few months for us to reach the stage of me actually recording a note. This happened today. Which was nice.

Half the day was spent getting everything together and setting up, deciding the plan for the next few days, drooling over microphones (ribbon mics. wow) and warming up the amps.I hadn't heard any of the recordings since November, so it was cool to listen back to them as we set up the gear. Also nice to go back to them with fresh ears. Daryl and Mick have done a pretty interstellar job with their parts, so it's my turn to sabotage the album now. I have been threatening to replace all my guitar parts with microkorg synth ( using the arpeggiator for the ultimate cheesy techno effect). I still might.

We've nearly finished guitars for Wolves. Used my deluxe tele and Ciaran's vintage Mustang, which is quite the guitar. For loudness, opted to wack my Orange up till it sounded amazing. Distortion, dis-mortion. Or something to that effect. Did some nice parts with one of Daryl's pedals, a Keeley modded Ibanez AD9 delay. Daryl had been reccomending I check out analog delays for ages. I now know why. Dreamy-tastic delay. Used a blues junior with it, which worked really well. Its been a while since I played a fender amp, I'd forgotten how nice they are. I intend on grabbing the Fender Champ and some borrowed pedals tonight for some experimentation before another day of loud guitar recording tomorrow.

A great start.

Day 2

Began by finishing off wolves. The end of this song is sounding rather gigantic. Wasn't much to finish, just some more layers really. Really, really liking the blues junior. Next amp purchase I think.

Started work on "untitled" which has been called "untitled" for over a year now, in fact nearly a year and a half. We're bad at naming things. Got off to a good start, used my tele deluxe for the all the verses. Decided that it could sound a bit "bigger", so wrote another guitar line for the verse that gave the song a whole other quality. It's amazing that after playing a song week after week for over a year, something so small can shift the whole dynamic of a song. As a result of this however, the chorus was suddenly sounding very… teen angst, and extremely out of place. We agreed to save our worries about it until tomorrow as it was getting a bit late for recording guitars.

We finished the day off by putting some really nice synth on wolves using my microkorg. We rooted it through a Keeley Fuzz head pedal. Sounded great, and lifted the second chorus nicely. Myself and Ciaran also added some pretty hillarious "house" synth and drums to the outro, just to wind up Daryl and Mick when the first listen to it. Techno-tastic.

Day 3.

What a creative day. Spent the whole day working on "untitled". Pretty much completely reworked it. We used to close our sets with this song for quite a while, it was prett,well… loud. We opted to make the whole song a lot cleaner, bigger and a generally a bit more adventourous.

The process began with the second guitar line yesterday, and ended with us rooting a whole lot of vocals through a ciggerette box amp and in to my Orange amp. A couple of hours were spent making all sorts of mad intertwining vocal lines, and what we ended up with is pretty cool. Saying that, we were unbelievably nervous at the prospect of Daryl and Mick hearing it and absoloutely hating it. It is after all, bloody different.

We finished it and made some pretty gutsy decisions about 10 minutes before they arrived. Some nervous cups of tea and ginger nut biscuits later, and we played them what we've been working on. Actually, I should acknowledge at this point the contribution of ginger nuts biscuits to this album. To quote Ciaran, "what a biscuit".

Thankfully… they liked it, and we lived. It may have taken a listen or two for Daryl to get in to it, but (I think) he's now converted. Also noteworthy was Daryl and Mick's looks of bewilderment upon hearing the techno version of wolves. "Choon".

Tomorrow = photo shoot & further adventures in album recording.

Day 4.

Photo-shoot went pretty well. Opted to avoid the issue of lighting and just head outside. Good fun.

Recorded all the guitars for 'Leech' and some guitars for 'Anchors & Kites'. Particularly happy with the end of Leech. We recorded a lead line through my Holy Grail pedal, with the hall reverb up full blast. Strangely enough, its almost like it was so much reverb that it was reverb no more, and has a strange kind of effect. We sampled a music box for the intro, which should be cool. With Anchors & Kites, we've opted to take most of my guitar line and move it over to piano, which I'm equal parts excited and nervous about… my piano playing skills are dubious to say the least.

Day off tomorrow. Sleep shall be had.

p.s. promise to put up some photos of some actual recording soon..

Day 5.

Disaster.

Having such a relatively smooth recording process thus far, I think we were due some bad luck, which reared its ugly mug today. About an hour in to the day, during some routine amp setting changes, my Orange amp decides to make some evil, howling feedback noises. We attempted to ignore this for a bit, but it persisted… Tried the ol' 'give it a knock' treatment, which didn't help. It was decision time. A phone call later, and we were off to get it fixed.

Perhaps we aren't too unlucky, as there happens to be a great amp repairer just around the corner from us. Martin actually worked in a music shop that myself and Ciaran frequented when we were kids. We totally took having a music shop at the end of your street for granted, "what? you mean you don't have a local music shop!?!". Here followed some uncomfortable carrying of the amp all the way to his workshop. Ouch.

When we got back, we decided we'd record as many parts that had alternative amps as possible. This involved jumping from one section of a song, to entirely different sections of entirely different songs. But, it was pretty productive. We got a lot of 'Call to arms" recorded using Daryl's Ampeg B25 and Musicman cab. We recorded the "delay bits", which is guitar swimming in reverse delay. Good fun. We also recorded all the guitars for "violent sea", using the Ampeg and the Fender amp. We returned to our giant swimming pool sound for a portion of this song too. Tried out numerous tremolo pedals for a small guitar part: Daryl's "Tremolessence" pedal (fancy boutique job), a Danelectro pedal (ridiculously cheap job) and the Boss Tremolo (old reliable job). The Boss pedal won out, and I was pretty impressed by it actually. Proof that Boss pedals can still triumph in the face of these expensive American pedals. Go Boss.

*Hopefully* get my Orange back tomorrow, and *hopefully* there isn't something seriously wrong with it. The general consensus is that the output valves might be dodgy, or that one of the valves has gone microphonic. Saying that, both of these concepts are new to me. We should christen Daryl "Dr. Valve", available for any valve related queries.

Day 6

My Orange amp returned sounding better than ever today, sighs of relief all round. Twas the output valves, as previously speculated.

We recorded guitars for 16:9 (formerly known as "funk", "a funk oddessy" & "the bowey one"). Discovered the wonders of ethiopean jazz. If theres some justice left in the music world Mulatu Astatqe will be the breakout artist of 2008. Keeping our jazz hands croosed, if thats possible... Realised that we were going a bit mad with all these shifts in songs, so decided that tomorrow we'll return to the -working on one song at the one time- model.

Day 7.

Spent today working on a song tentatively titled "tired".

Tired originates from a really simple idea that was knocking around back in the envelope days. Since then however, it's grown in to being a fully fledged song. I never really felt it was finished though until today. I had always heard a second guitar part, and never recorded one. So today, spent a while finishing it and recorded the guitar parts all using the ol' Fender Blues Junior which is getting tremendous use altogether. We had some pretty monumental problems with guitar tuning today. It was the coldest it has been thus far… and my word guitars don't like the cold. The revelaton of a second radiator has changed our recording lives. Toasty.

Really pleased with how "tired" is progressing. We added some glockenspiel and some melodica, although its looking like the melodica line will probably be turned in to a trumpet part. Which would be cool, and a first for us.

We tried some weird backing vocal ideas at 2am which proved to be surprisingly productive, give or take the odd indulgence in freestyle rapping to "Call to Arms",inspired by this gentleman.

Three amps are better than one

2009-02-02T14:56:00.000Z

We play our last gig of the year tonight supporting the very splendid No Age in the new fancy Whelans. Do come along, and come along early. We're going to try a few new songs. Should be fun.

The following are some pictures from an album session we had a wee while ago. Fairly nerdy stuff. We blame the amp photos on Daryl, who is now, you'll be happy to hear, scheduled for his first "Pedal Purchasing Anonymous" meeting. About time too.

Hope your all well, we'll be updating the ol' myspace with some recording updates as we progress through the album, which safe to say we're now getting excited about.

Subplots

And so it begins..

2009-02-02T14:51:00.000Z

We're in the studio. It's really nice to be back recording and to begin work on the album.

We have been busying ourselves with mindless computer games, tuning rack drums, singing chocolate rain, swimming, staring out the window at the constant rain, watching shockingly bad television, eating limes, running out of food quicker than anticipated. Oh and recording some drums
too..