From Earth to Mars to Jupiter and beyond!
Among the many exciting things happening here at Broadoak at the moment, perhaps one of the most apt in light of the recent Mars excursion is that my new album, "Jupiter" is nearing completion. This record is a personal journey, a labour of love and a genuine effort to make the very best record I can. Having spent the last fifteen years or so working on commissions, soundtracks and producing other artists, I was longing to make a record that was, well, purely me! I wanted to sculpt a sonic landscape just the way I like it, and use lyrical themes connected to my interests in metaphysics, philosophy, cosmology and that fascinating area where science meets spirituality, yet retaining a poetic sensibility.Â
Jupiter is a 12-track album with 9 songs and 3 instrumentals. I am currently half way through mixing so it won't be long now! I have been privileged to work with some amazing musicians on this record, including the great Danny Thompson who plays his double bass, 'Victoria' on the title track, Sacha Trochet who has been a real trouper in working with me to create interesting, groovy and unique drum parts and sounds, Jem Turpin has played harp on a couple of tracks, then I have some backing vocals from Otti Albietz and Anna Graebe, a lush brass section on the track, "Bon Hiver" from David Holt and Bill Robinson and an epic string section on the track, "Non Mea Culpa", performed by Ben Sarfas. I've had lots of fun building textures and sounds using my guitars with echos and treatments from some of my favourite processors like the Eventide H3000 and the AMS 15-80S delay. Always serving the emotion of song though. It has been my mission to create sounds to conjure up other worldly imagery and provide an engaging and unique landscape using only organic sources. By this I mean that there are no synthesisers or samplers on the album (except for the lovely Moog Taurus bass pedals which play the bass lines on a few songs), instead, all sounds originate from a real instrument, played by a real human being, but which is then treated with effects and processors. This, I feel gives the sound a real, living, breathing quality and organic nature fitting of the subject matter, and quite different from the sort of sounds one might produce purely with electronics.
My love of vintage recording technology and techniques has been a strong guiding light also and fortuitously, about a year ago, I acquired my vintage Raindirk series III mixing console which is a joy to work on and sounds wonderful. So pleased to have such a great board to mix Jupiter on.
So, while I'm beavering away with the final few mixes, please enjoy a little teaser from the album. I have a nice little video on our YouTube page of the instrumental track, "Cosmos", which is pretty much a piano solo with some treatments applied for orchestration. I hope you enjoy it!
Check back regularly for more news and sights and sounds from the studio. We have some great stuff in the pipeline for you!
