Previous: Vocals and one acoustic
The final stage of recording saw Rhys and Thomas fly back to London. Here’s more from Rhys’ diary.
Crouch Hill Studios, London, England.
3rd September 2009
I write at the end of a mental two weeks finishing up recording on my second album, Great Falls.
Rhys at the glockenspiel, looking a bit special needs
In the last fortnight, we’ve done two vocals (The One That Stayed Behind and Homes For Heroes), a load of acoustics, some extra keyboards (I was very taken with the Mellotron samples we used on Red, Homes For Heroes and particularly The Tame Lions), an insane day in which we very nearly fell out over the recording of some very loud electric guitars (which we mostly decided not to use), pedal steel from BJ Cole on Diamond Tears and The One That Stayed Behind (the man is a bona fide genius), harmonica from Tim Haigh on Homes For Heroes, a delicious string quartet on Hurricane Jane and Cressida Road and about 78 tracks of backing vocals, mainly from the outrageously talented Sian Cross. The whole thing was rounded off nicely by me playing the glockenspiel on Red.
Pedal steel genius BJ Cole
I’ve never worked so hard in my entire life. We started recording at 10am every day and rarely stopped before 1am. It was INTENSE.
High point number one was the contribution of BJ Cole – a true legend who played on Tiny Dancer by Elton John. And the Crooked Mile album by Microdisney! (OK, not as famous as Elton John, but a fantastic cult band fronted by my hero, Cathal Coughlan). He’s played for REM, Bjork, the Verve plus a squillion others. His work on my tracks was amazing. He spent forever setting up amps, tweaking pedals and getting the right headphone mix. Then he unleashed about three or four takes, any of which we could have joyfully used, before meticulously dropping in for bits he wasn’t happy with. He ended with a trippy one-minute solo for the fadeout of Diamond Tears. I looked through the glass and he was going mental in the live room. We asked him if he had one more take in him. He said no. He was right. We had it.
Paul Frith and the string quartet
The other high point was on the very last day. We worked with genius string arranger Paul Frith, who’s done strings for Radiohead recently, on arrangements for Cressida Road and Hurricane Jane. He did an amazing job. Totally different to what I would have come up with (which was the idea) and in some places, really quite adventurous, but really, really right for the tracks. He came in to MD the session. I just made myself some toast and sat in the control room crying like a girl. A really really special day.
