Howdy Folks.

We delved deep into Sydney's Mojo this weekend.  It is the geomancy of Sydney, Balmain and the old white bay power station. A powerful place.

One day soon that glorious, dilapidated and rusting edifice will make way.

For apartments.

Just as the working harbour made way for flats, super yachts and tour boats. 

Just as Balmain went from working mans suburb to the property of princes.

Bless you old girl, may the holes in your petticoat remain long enough to remind us of how truly rough the emerald city once was.

So, having drunk deep of the Mojo (kool aid?) we burrowed into the substrate of Balmain to record another track for the Curious Assembly Project, this time, the epic Twice Shy Girl.

For those who've been following our Adventures in Recording, please excuse the recap; For those new to these pages (Hi to all our UK readers), we've been working on a series of singles, recorded at different studios, with different engineers, released as multiple mixes.

So far we have:

- recorded live onto iPad (onward traveller)

- recorded multi track, layer by layer, digitally (dirty work)

- recorded multi track, layer by layer, on 2" tape (sweet adeline)

- recorded simultaneously, live, to digital (travelling song)

and err...

um

Well we kind of did that again, but sort of on a larger scale, with everyone getting line of sight.

We also chose a song that was only made possible by the fact that The Curious Assembly is all about being brave enough to try the weird and wonderful.

When originally conceived, the idea of the song was met with some degree of internal Band Hesitance.

A 7 minute song? With multiple parts? It'll never work.

Now Dear Reader, I ask you to guess which particular member of the band offered the suggestion that the more batsh-t crazy it was, the better.

if your guess is your present interlocutor, give yourself a pat on the back...unless you're still looking up interlocutor, in which case may I advise a healthy dose of Yes Minister.

With 6 or 7 sections (I may have lost count somewhere), three vocal melodies, two instrumental sections and some random timing, Twice Shy Girl is a blast to perform.

It's cumbersome, dangerous and filled with musical pitfalls that keep the band on their toes. It relies almost completely on communication between everyone to figure out when to go to the next bit.

Also, Rosie once upon a time, got the Solo Of the Gods in rehearsal...Trying to repeat that? YIKES! 

Given that this song is all about vibe, there was no choice but to find a studio where we could all play simultaneously, with line of sight, and still be able to get separation of sounds so we could 'fix' stuff.

We visited a number of studios but were drawn inexorably back to our centre, just around the corner from our gig haunt, the Bald Rock.

But enough mumbo jumbo - here's some scenes for a day well spent recording. 

They have buttons. Many buttons.

Our objective was to be able to keep everything. Guitars through amps, drums live, harp and vocals live.

That meant getting a sound for each of the instruments. Rosie and Paul's amps were outside the room, 

I wandered down to take a sample of their live sounds, Warning its a bit loud but if you're a guitar enthusiast, have a listen to the tones they're trying out.

Theo setting up for the session

I have some more footage but the iPhone is having issues with files over 700Mb so I haven't been able to transfer them, but I whist looking at the clips of us actually recording the song,  was amazed at how much sound separation we got, out int he main room you can hear drums but nothing else.

Cheers to Russell for demon speed in getting a sound and getting it down, Marshall for putting the day together and to Mr Rix for squeezing in another session even with a gig to go to.

By that evening we had a desk mix of the track and it's....it'...ah but you'll have to wait and find out.

We have at least one more song to record for The Curious Assembly project..maybe more. What will we do with them? Release them as an album? Keep dropping them out as single releases?

The 'death' of the album is being touted by internet music pundits.

Maybe they're right, but then again, to quote  William Goldman on the entertainment industry  'nobody knows nothin'

Recording each track in this ad hoc manner is more expensive than recording a whole album, especially when you consider that both Carl's Chair and Hired Guns were recorded inside a single week, although to be fair,  overdubs, patching and mixing took much longer.

On the plus side, we can release tracks whenever we feel like it, without all the fuss of releasing a cd. When we work out which way is best, I'll post it here :-)