Finished

Tracking done. Mixing starts tomorrow.

A discrete veil will be drawn over proceedings at this juncture.

See you tomorrow. Not too early.

The final push

We've just had dinner, and we're about to get to work on the last guitars for the last track ('Little Evening'). My goodness me. It's been a long, vocal-heavy day here at Spring Offensive towers (we don't actually have any towers), and now I can finally kick back, listen, and bark orders down the studio intercom. It's going to get pretty noisy in here now...

Monday monday, So good to me.

WEEK 2 BABY!

A weekend both restful and successful was had by all. Our bones mix went according to plan. When and where you can hear it will be decided at some point and in some place deep inside the massive and daunting bureaucracy that is our beloved British Broadcasting Corporation.

Without wishing to tempt fate, we made pretty good ground on the album front during week 1 so spirits are high and the creative juices are flowing. A few bits of guitar and vocal to get down and the tracking will be done.

Then on to the dark and mysterious art of mixing. Every engineer I've ever worked with has had a completely different approach to mixing, and Ian's is to banish us from the studio for long periods of time. And quite rightly, as we'd constantly be trying to prod, nag, pester and tinker. We can be like that sometimes.

I'm looking forward to it...

Placebo wrist

Getting onto the last hour of week one at the studio, and despite no small amount of clawing up the walls, confusion of time and space and an odd nagging doubt that other people or things exist beyond the walls of this building, everything has gone remarkably well. We're well over half way through the recording process, and pleasantly surprised/deliriously excited by how it sounds.

Tomorrow we escape from Sutton Courtenay and head to Oxford for a healthy dose of real life, safe in the knowledge that everything is in motion for the home straight next week. It's going to be great to get out, and if you see any of us wondering around the Cowley Road with a glazed and distant expression on our face, please come and say hello. I promise we'll try and be coherent.

Today we had an "outsider" in the house for the first time, which was quite exciting. Marcelo Paz, an Argentine film-maker, was following us around with a camera, observing our peculiar habits and rituals. We've been documenting a fair bit ourselves over the week. If any of it makes any sense, we'll put together a little film when it's all over. Actually, fuck it: it won't make any sense, but we're make the film anyway. So there.

Acid-long-takes

Phwoar. As Lucas said...what a day. This is the first time i have felt a bit couped up here actually. I haven't really been outside today. I haven't really had time to be honest. It has been flat out. Non stop. Except to make more coffee. Sad, isn't it?

I am finding it very hard to switch my mind off. Very hard to think of anything outside of these tracks. I know that sounds obvious (of course, we are here to record), but this is commitment of thought beyond anything i have personally ever experienced. Right from the beginning of the writing process we have been over and over this material. Writing and rewriting all the time. There have been times when i couldn't sleep or do anything else but call one of the guys and just talk about the album. Its an obsession. Totally. I dont know how many hours i have personally spent writing this album on my own, or writing as a group, or with others in the band. It doesn't really matter to me. I love it. That time spent, is a scratch on the time i have spent thinking and dreaming about this. As i said...obsession. I think what takes its toll is the fact that that passion spills out into other areas of life. It is uncontrollable and often overpowering. It can be wonderful. It can be destructive. It can be all the cliches. Really, it just makes you a boring person to hang out with.

However, in here, this thought process, this inability to switch off, is magnified a hundred fold. Does that make sense? Do you see my point? I am waffling. My mind has turned to cake again.

Exceptional take from the Whitworth senior today though. Please note.

Coffee like Marlon Brando, tea like my nan

My throat hurts. I've just finished "singing" 'Every Coin', which basically means putting myself through emotional and physical trauma (okay, that might be overdoing it a little) over and over and over again. Until I am basically unable to speak. So I'm writing instead.

It's Thursday. Already. Wow. And shit. Time is moving, it would appear. It's quite difficult to notice it doing that when you're in here. Very little natural light, you see. We're doing pretty well, but it's scary to think that we're over a third of the way through our session. The first three tracks off the album are as good as done, and let me tell you they sound good. Or at least, I think they do. It's hard to tell. Maybe they don't sound good. Maybe this is all a dream. Maybe I should stop worrying. Maybe I should get out more.

On that subject, for those of you who care about the amount of fresh air I'm getting, I took a walk along the Thames path today. There's nothing quite like a gentle river, peaceful fisherman, grassy banks and a massive fuck-off power station looming over it all to really get the creative juices flowing. Sutton Courtenay is, I can now confirm, idyllic, by the way.

Take care, all of you. Is anyone actually reading this? You don't have to answer that question.

Bomb-proof your horse

This afternoon we signed off on drums and bass, which felt special. No time to celebrate though, as we've moved straight on to gui-tarrs. Matt is locked in a room with just a classical guitar and a mic for company right now, working on the first track. At the other end of the house, myself, Pelham and Joe are sitting in contemplative silence, broken only by the sound of my fingers tapping on the keyboard. It's tense.

In other news, I left the house/studio for the second time today. Average time spent over the two forays into the outside world: 15 minutes. I'd love to tell you what Sutton Courteney is like, but my guess is honestly just about as good as your's.

I can tell you this: Joe is worryingly good at Mortal Kombat. I can't tell you why Kombat is spelt with a K.

Right, I'm off to warm up the throat.

Tuesday night - Almost finished drums and bass. A few loose ends to tidy up tomorrow morning but it's pretty much all there. Rehearsing for one or two evenings a week, it's easy to forget just how physically tiring playing the drums is when you're doing it 10 to 11 hours a day. And loud. So loud.

Have been tracking drums and bass simultaneously to capture the live feel that y'all seem to dig so much. Feel sorry for Joe for having to do perfect take after perfect take so I can sort out my shonky drumming.

Starting on guitars and vocals tomorrow. Things are starting to take shape. Just gotta hope it's not too lumpy.

Sleep tight.

Every Coin Must Be Swallowed

Oh my. It is 12:28 and i honestly dont know how many times i have heard this track. We finished at 11:00 last night and, after a night of it going round and round in my head, we have woken up, only to continue working on it.

I literally have no opinion on it any more!

Matt

"and a voice in my ear, and a voice in my ear, and a voice in my ear, and a voice in my ear...."

Drum-world

Having just finished our first day at Courtyard, we're all sitting in the, erm, sitting room. It's lovely here, let me tell you. We're getting good work done too. Today was all about the drum and bass. By which I mean the drums and bass, not the d 'n' b. Obv.

Pelham and Joe have been in a dark room all day, surrounded by scented candles, smashing the shit out of things. It's been well emo. Seems to be doing the trick though.

Progress report summary then: everybody is happy and comfortable, and things appear to be going very well thanks.

This has easily been one of my favourite Mondays ever, by the way. And I was born on a Monday. Though I couldn't tell you whether that particular one was any good. I can't remember it.

Album-mas Eve

A busy day in Warehouse Studios recording our Bones cover for BBC Oxford. It's not really kosha for Oxford bands to favourably compare themselves to Radiohead, but I think we've put up a good fight.

Couldn't be more excited about starting work on the album tomorrow. An idea hatched in a Wiltshire kitchen at the end of August has come to fruition, and it's a prospect both gratifying and terrifying in equal measure.

4 months in the planning: it all hinges on the next two weeks. We'd better eat our Weetabix tomorrow.

Sleep well.

ROFL MAXIMUS

I'm in bed. Lol.

Courtyard / Warehouse

Why hello there! Haven't I seen you before? Really? Okay. My mistake.

So, tomorrow we head into Studio No.1 (Warehouse) to record our rehash of a Radiohead track. Covering Radiohead is usually considered on a par with spitting at a crucifix, but we were lucky enough to be asked, along with some other awesome Oxford bands (the likes of Ute and Stornoway) by Tim Bearder and Dave Gilyeat of BBC Oxford to take part in a 15 year commemoration of The Bends album. For Children in Need, you see.

We have tried to dirty the record with our fingerprints, and hopefully give it a spattering of our sound. Johnny, a friend of ours from Fervours (www.myspace.com/fervours) was a really great help and helped us to try and root the track with a sort of In Rainbows vibe: if Radiohead were to have written it now, kinda thing. Oh, i forget to mention, the track is Bones by the way. I have begun to warm to the original too. I have never been the biggest Radiohead fan. Don't get me wrong, they are talented, creative, at once accessible and violently inventive, but it has never really been my kind of thing.

THEN on Monday comes the biggie, where we are going to Courtyard Studios outside of Oxford, where the likes of the mighty Radiohead, Band of Skulls, Supergrass, Badly Drawn Boy have recorded, to lay down our 7-track mini-album called Pull Us Apart. Sick. We are there for 11 days: sleeping, eating, recording, smoking. We have a two day break in the middle, where we are mixing Bones back at Warehouse. Its fairly wonderfully non-stop.

Excitement and fear has kicked in already. I can't wait. The main question in my head is, 'is this record any good?'. Well, i hope so. I believe so. And there is not much we can do about it now anyway. Also, 'will we kill each other before we finish?'.

This should be a pretty incredible few weeks. We will be uploading photos / videos / whatever else one can upload.

Anywho, i better save cyber space.

Matt x