Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Song 2 Klak


Klak

composer: David Campbell (music) and Geordie Robertson (words)

Line-up:
David Campbell: guitars, keyboards, vocals
Ange MacIvor: soprano sax, keyboards
Aaron Clark: drums
Claude Prince: bass



This was the first song written for the album and featured a lyricist I met at Progressive Ears; Geordie Robertson. There was a thread about surrealistic lyrics and he (among a host of others) posted some very cool poems. I got in touch and asked if he any he would mind giving me some to put to music. Geordie in turn sent me around 20 poems, 2 of which I combined to make the verse, chorus combination that eventually became Klak.

The demo for this song, as most of the others, was already fully produced, yet at rehearsals we spent some time going over a tricky section. Instead of moving along with the tune, we kept repeating the section when Ange mentioned that she liked it better that way. The whole of the under-pinning to her sax solo is the result.

Because we wanted to keep the solo as spontaneous as possible, Angie, Aaron and I tracked this song live off the floor at Shattered Wings studio with owner/manager Matthew Thomas engineering. Claude added the bass part later.


The words:

My baby klaks,
like the teeth of a shotgun cow,
dead meat, hits the killing floor.
My baby ticks,
like a deathwatch beetle,
waiting patiently beneath,
linoleum.

I dreamed I was homeless, wandering the strange avenues
In a daze lost and lonely, I called out for you.

My baby fucks,
fucks like a hurricane,
tearing up the coastline at,
break-neck speed.

I dreamed I was homeless, wandering the strange avenues
In a daze lost and lonely, I called out for you.
I dreamed I was home lying in, your arms like a child.
Until laughing and loved I, kissed you awake.



Recorded at Shattered Wings Studio January 19th 2009.

Gear used:
Drums: Pearl
Kick: AKG D-112
Snare: Shure SM-57
Piccolo snare: SM-57 (x2, top and bottom)
Snare Side: CAD E-350
Toms: Sennheisser MD-421 (x3)
Hi-Hat: Audio-Technica 4051a
Over-Heads: Neumann KM-184 (x2)
All into Daking preamps.


Electric Guitar: Howard Roberts Fusion into a radial direct box, split to an Adrenalinn and direct injected. The direct injected part was re-amped into a Mesa-Boogie Mark IV into a Neumann TLM-103 and a Millennia Media Origin channel strip.

Soprano Sax: Selmer Mark II into a Rode NT-V and Daking preamps.

Bass 1: Status Graphite into an Aguilar tube DI.

David's keyboards: Linplug Albino 3, M-Tron.

Ange's keyboards: Roland Fantom (organ patches)

Voice: Neumann U-87 into a Millennia Media Origin.

Recorded live into Cubase Windows and transferred to Logic for final tracking and mixing.

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