The making of…

Having done Catweazle (www.catweazleclub.org) and a full day’s gardening the previous day, and being awoken this morning by Reuben, 3, at 5.30 am, by the time we arrived at the studio in the Wiltshire village of Aldbourne, I was already feeling decidedly shaky.

Lack of sleep was no doubt compounded by excitement and panic at the big day having finally arrived after months, if not years, of composing, arranging, dreaming, meeting the various musicians, and forming the band, raising money and finding the right studio.

As Tom was setting up the drums and landing the sound, I decided to wander up to the church to see if that tried and tested formula of fresh air, gorgeous views and a spot of singing at Jesus’ place couldn’t clear my head.

I sat quietly in the empty church for about a quarter of an hour. When I opened my eyes I was interested to discover that there were fairies and spirits dancing in the periphery of my vision – I floated back through the village and lay down in the drum booth for 38 winks.

I awoke half an hour later, remarkably refreshed, and we tore into Strange News From Another Star, Sweet Provider and Days Like These, capturing a wicked vibe after only three takes of each. Elated and knackered, I went back to my old mate Matt Reid’s place for the night.

In keeping with the supernatural serendipity that has surrounded this band from its inception, I’d asked Matt if I could stay with him while making the record as I knew he lived somewhere in Wiltshire, not realising until today that he in fact lived in the next village a couple of miles away. My morning walks to the studio through the woods behind his house is to play a vital role in proceedings.

Day Two:

Buzzed up and feeling exceedingly groovy after the success of yesterday’s work and my morning constitutional, we slipped into a pastoral mode to bag The King Of Everything – probably one of my favourite songs. Crisply recorded acoustic guitars and bazouki already laid, I went straight for the vocal – which turned out to be pretty other-worldly in keeping with the subject matter of the song: a character known to me from my days on the Oxford Canal, dreadlocks down to his waist and a far-off look in his eye, The King Of Everything was rumoured to have been a Professor of Chemistry at the University in the 70’s when he developed a fatal taste for his own home-made acid. It is unlikely he will ever return to our world and this song is my fantasy about what it might be like in his.

Also nailed the bones for All Around The World – with Johnny playing some devilishly brittle John Barryesque tremolo guitar, with the double Bass and drums locked in a clinch as tight and sexy as 007 with one of his ladyfriends.

Tried a version of Lilia, but I felt plagued by the mystical demo version and knew we weren’t gonna get close to that tonight.

Day Three:

A beautiful morning and truly inspirational walk in the late Autumn sunshine. I love singing and I love nature but most of all I love singing and nature at the same time. If the farmer heard me, he didn’t seem to mind.

Another fine day, with me, Adam and Johnny laying down Outlaws live in a warm Southern back-porch stylee – just what a pornographic country & western protest song needs. Adam on mandolin, me and Johnny on acoustics, with Adam laying down some shimmering slide on my mashed up baby classical – I bought this guitar 10 years ago for £15 and it has travelled over ten thousand miles with me and co-written 60-odd songs in that time. I really wanted to sneak her onto the record and she really sighed in his arms.

Johnny laid some blistering harp on Strange News – we are Bob Dylan! – and then the band melted into a beautifully warm Be There. As on Strange News and Sweet Provider, we’re keeping the original vocal that went down live with the band – if it ain’t broke…

Day Four:

Orchestra of Love Serendipitous Moment No.423: the path I walk through the woods into Aldbourne is called Loves Lane. Took a picture. Feeling chuffed.

Recorded some acoustic and electric guitars and bits and pieces and then the legendary Johnny Hinkes’ appeared with his pedal steel to put Be There firmly on the next flight to Nashville. Sounds wicked. Can’t wait for the girls to come and blow everything away.

Utterly shattered. Get a ride back to Oxford with Johnny H listening to some very mellow Japanese folk music and talking about the World and how to Save It.

Day Five:

Back after a three day “break” looking after the kids, working-my-butt-to-the-bone-and-back-again 12 hour days. Really happy to have four days straight in which to immerse myself in all this beautiful music. The longest time I have ever spent on a song in a studio is about an hour. This really is luxury and I thank my sponsors and my angels from the bottom of my heart for providing me with the good fortune for the opportunity to get this music out of my body, and into a massive pair of speakers – just so I can hear it back to prove that I am alive!

Great to be back playing live with the band again. After last week’s diet of sand, witches and sandwiches, I asked Martine, Nicky James’ the studio owner’s wife, if she might make us dinner. I had no idea that she is an extraordinary cook. We all sat round the table for a grade A feast replete with candlelight and some stunning Rioja. This is how albums should be made.

Bellies full and Spain’s finest massaging the rational mind into gentle submission, we captured a particularly sublime version of Summer after just two takes. Burning, crackling and blissed out. Can’t wait to build this into the magnum opium wig-out that I believe should be at the centre of all recorded works.

Lilia again proves elusive, as is her wont, shadowy babe. Feeling a bit scared that we won’t ever catch her and decide to see if we can’t rescue the demo and re-record the strings and the double bass here. The original was cut at The Ark T Community Centre in Oxford, in a tiny cupboard of a studio, while there was a kids’ dance class in the gym next door, the sound of their tiny feet inevitably spilling through the wall and onto the mics. While this leant the version some interesting ambience, it simply won’t cut it now that everything else is sounding so majestic.

I’ve got into a groove now as regards maximising my pleasure of making my own personal history, and have stocked up on fine wines to take back to Matt’s.

Day 6:

Another lie-in – till nine! - which of itself is something of a fantasy given that I have a seven month old daughter, and a three year old son who thinks that the day should begin at 6am, with full leaping and dancing. I’m more of an evening man myself, but he won’t be swayed.

Another great walk in, warming up the voice, and getting some badly needed oxygen into my body after another well-spent evening of smoking, drinking and talking bollocks until the teeny hours.

Recorded some vocals and some other stuff. Spent an awful lot of time trying to coax some life out of Lilia but knowing in my heart that there was really nothing we could do to bring her back.

Day 7 and 8: all a bit of a blur but I really feel that something special is in those damn mixes. It’s a pretty big job. As well as writing and arranging all the songs, I am producing the record and it has fourteen musicians on it.

I don’t feel at all overwhelmed, because I am so clear about what it is that I am after. But the concentration and focus required to ensure that I accurately realise that vision can be pretty draining – especially with this sort of work rate (12 hours a day, seven days a week!). I, however, am NOT complaining, I am fucking loving it. I am even loving the responsible family man bit as well: gardening, teaching guitar and yoga, working with blind older people on a creative reminiscence project, running Catweazle.

I camped at the studio tonight. Whisky from Scotland and regional refreshments from Morocco were produced and me, the legend that is Nicky James, and his mate Gaz, sunk into a deeply wicked three way acoustic jam. Until rather too late in the evening. This pace may well kill me. Had a shit night’s sleep on the studio sofa.

Day Nine:

Time to look heavenwards. The strings came on today. We turned Barney and Jane – on cello and violin - into a 26-piece orchestra for All Around The World, with me conducting, taking on a worryingly addictive persona of AN ARTIST (a cravat-wearing old luvvie bore who thunders to everyone I AM AN ARTIST, inevitably followed by some sort of tantrum). Starting to sound really rather good, the music, that is.

Day 10:

Barney and Jane turn in a scorching morning’s work with the strings now prowling like panthers across The King of Everything, Take Time and Summer. I have now decided to salvage the original demo of Lilia and we lay new, children-free strings on that, too.

Kate G comes by in the afternoon for serene harmonium and flute duties, which she duly performs in one take, stays only for a glass of wine, before driving to Bath to catch her man Barney doing a live launch of his new ep. Did I mention that each member of The Orchestra of Love also happen to head their own group. We often fantasise about putting on a whole festival bill just made up of these ten or so musicians and their various combos. The Festival of Love? Hmm, might attract the wrong sort of punter. Watch this space.

Day 11:

Engineer Nick Beere and myself spend a fun and sometimes scary day going through my various samples that I have collected over the past few years. These include the usual atmospheric brass band and ice cream van stuff but also something I found made by NASA entitled The Winds around The Moons of Uranus. He agreed that had to go on the album before he even heard it. On first listen, however, we were both utterly mesmerised and unnerved by what can only be described as the loneliest sound in the cosmos. Make up your own mind: it opens Summer.

Also placed my favourite sound at the beginning of The King Of Everything – something that my friend Johnny B recorded onto cassette from longwave radio a while back: a hauntingly majestic muezzin singer calling devotees to prayer. This completely sets the whole song in its rightful place.

Day 12:

The horns came and we spent all day on Sweet Provider and Days Like These, which now both pump and pimp as a result.

Day 13:

Got to finish all the vocals as the girls are coming down tomorrow and it had better be damn good by the time they get here. Try and get an early night but this is clearly impossible. Back at Matt’s we are too excited by our new project: A compendium of Great British Drunks Vol. 1. If you have a strong case for the inclusion of a favourite drunk please email me for consideration. Spent the evening getting into “character”.

Day 14:

This is the day I have most been looking forward to – apart from the very first day – for as long as I can remember: The chicks are coming down to spread their fairy magic across the album.

Apart from anything, it is so great to be outnumbered by beautiful women for a change in this remote and airless studio! Abbie, Kate and Lisa turn it on at noon and just keep going for eight hours straight lending a by turns angelic, sexy, rocking, folking and super sweet soul sensation to everything they sing on: seven songs in total.

Serious progress, a perfect day and one in which we captured some genuine bespoke magic onto the drives. This is finally an album I’ll want to listen to at home!

Day 15:

All day fine tuning vocals and guitars. All my electric guitar parts have been pretty arduous due to the idiosyncrasies of my instrument vis a vis staying in tune: just meant that everything took five times longer than necessary. But I still think we have made pretty good progress. This album is now all but completed after just two weeks, with only the mixing to follow.

It’ll be out in February. Can’t to wait to see what you think.

Thanks for tuning in,

Love,

Matt