End of Phase 2

Before I start. A big, big congratulations to Mr and Mrs Atkins on the birth of a mini Atkins as little Elia Sophia arrived last week. Eating, sleeping, making a racket, throwing up and learning to speak English are just some of the things we’ve grown to love about Mr Atkins in these past couple of years. We’re sure he’ll take to fatherhood like a duck to water.

And so…

Yesterday I emerged blinking into the outside world and discovered that it was autumn. It was very much winter when I went in the studio, so it came as some surprise to me that I had entirely missed two seasons.

Autumn is my favourite time of year. I’m a country boy after all and when I first started writing I used to have a special thinking spot on hill just outside my home town where I’d sit with my faithful dog, with nothing but the sound of birds and the steam train, watching the leaves turn and think up snatches of lyrics, wondering what it would be like to be in a band. Ah, nostalgia. I’m going home next weekend to visit. I love London but it seems so long that I saw the sky or walked somewhere without meeting anyone. I’m gonna make sure I go back to that spot and have a think about things. Somewhere near 9 minutes in on the vid below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zx5CYIxyzg

Only this time it’s with the satisfying knowledge that our second album is very nearly finished. It’s handclap day on Thursday (always good fun and really the only part that gets better with beer) and that will be all the recording done and in the bag. That’s just the last little bit though because last week we completed the second phase of mixing with
Dutch/ Australian, New Yorker: Victor Van Vugt.

Triple V is an all round nice guy despite his instance on being 6 hours behind us, which means when we’re toing and froing with stuff I have to stay up till all hours. He’s a real pro though and has a great pedigree (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Beth Orton, Sons And Daughters, Voxtrot, Kirsty MacColl, Kylie. Kylie!) and the tracks we’ve been getting back from him sound fantastic. Just the right mix of pop and grit.

So we’ve reached the end of this level where we’ve got good mixes of everything and now we’ve got a month to sit on them, digest them and decide what’s gonna make it on to the album before doing the final tweaks. It’s going to be really difficult. We’ve got fifteen to choose from and have to whittle it down to eleven or twelve. I’d like to go for ten really but we’ve been so concise with the arrangements that some of the more perfectly formed pop songs are way less than 3 mins so I think only 10 would leave a very short album and I don’t want to short change anybody.

It’s hard though because I would happily include every one of those tracks, there’s no fillers here. Pet Sounds is 36 mins long as is Revolver, so I’m going to take that as a good length and see what fits. I want it to be perfect.

The Great Unwanted was a bit of a horn frenzy but this time, there’s only 3 tracks with horns on them. Didn’t want to over do it, not with Ronson saturating everyone with ‘em. But ours are totally necessary. In a classic back-to-schoolesque moment I stayed up all night the night before the recording session trying to finish writing them. I’d got Love Love Love and Could Be I Don’t Belong Anywhere nailed but still hadn’t got Ain’t Nothing Like A Shame sorted (I’d had about five months). So I pretended the dog ate my homework and promptly wrote it on the spot. Phew, luckily the Killer Horns were really very talented and I could just sing the parts to them.
Some session musicians are like robots but the best one’s are flexible and believe me these guys could play.
Ain’t nothing like extreme pressure to get your brain working though. After we finished (late) I had to run across London with Misty (my pretty Gretsch) and a case full of pedals to get to Technicolour (the club night we’ve started with The Pipettes) and jump about on stage. I was pooped but it was great fun again see here http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/lucky-soul-the-lexington-londonbramazing-baby-proud-galleries-london-1779119.html

Ain’t Nothing… is turning out to be a beauty and is definitely up in contention for a single. It’s just a lot of fun sounds a bit like Booker T, a bit like The Specials, a bit like Paul Simon. It’s a cheeky song and the lyrics are right dark, which is always my favourite combination.

I’ll write some more later in the week and tell you about the other songs but tonight I’m going to the Raveonettes which is very exciting. It’s nice to be out of the woods, so to speak.

Take care of yourselves

Andrew

P.S. Why not be ever so modern and follow us on twitter here http://twitter.com/luckysoul