So as I already have mentioned in the past few weeks, today is the launch of my first download single :-) This is a track I first wrote quite few years back, but it got berried under lots of other songs and projects. But I dug it out last August, and basically rewrote it. It somehow seems more relevant today than when I first wrote it. The single is an acoustic version of the track; the electric version will be on the album.
The track was recorded here at my home. On the track you have Acoustic guitar, Bass, Vocals and some light percussion. It was all recorded very organically; the only real studio trick indulgence I allowed to myself was spreading the acoustic with two sources. I placed a Shure beta 57 A around about where the Guitars neck meets the body. And I have Takamine TRI-AX sound hole pick up (Basically same as L.R. Baggs M1) that is an magnetic pickup that picks the string vibration, and also the vibrations from the top of the guitar. It is a wonderful pickup that I have been using for a quite some time now, after years of searching “The Sound”. So I also recorded this, and panned them on either side. This is one of the basic studio tricks used lot on guitars and drum overheads. It will make the guitar stereo, make it sound fuller and give it more presence. I wanted the Bass to sound mellow for the acoustic version, so we run the bass through my Fender blues junior amp and miced it with the beta 57A as well. The percussion was added with some home made shakers (Beer cans filled with rice and couscous). We recorded the track about two months ago over few days and first I had no plans of releasing it, but it ended sounding so nice that I thought it would have been a shame to let it just stay as a demo. So I spent few days of mixing it. Little bit of compression to even things out, even though all the takes were pretty even, and some tasty reverb to add some space. As I have mentioned in the past blogs, I try to keep the eq to minimum, but as I recorded the vocals on the Beta 57 A as well, my voice needed bit of a low cut around 200hrz. And it is always good to make sure the bass and the guitar will not end up on top of each others. But everything was recorded very naturally, so there was not too much need for processing.
As to the song it self, “Glory to the world”. If you feel every Christmas that the panic sets in weeks before, the city comes just unbearable, the money flies out of your pocket and it all just some how does not make sense, this is the soundtrack for you! Bit of a laugh, but at the sometime an underlying message of: let’s just stop and think for a second what we are doing.
With the help of AWAL I got the single distributed to all the major download stores and it is available on iTunes from today! And the price is only €0.99. All the profits will be used for the “On a shoestring” project and you will be supporting an independent artist :-)It is also available from other sites, for a list go to www.jpkallio.com/shop.html
Now it is full steam a head. I need to catch up on some missed rehearsal time and start the actual Album recording; this is what we have been building up to. My home studio is more or less set and ready, song structures are rehearsed, even though I do like to leave some room for changes during recording. And I am sure I will write more songs during the recording as well. But yeah, all set. And I will do my best to document all aspects of this process in the coming months. I will have my mobile phone with its camera with me all along the process and also Tomasz Jastrzebski (The Bass player) will be taking photos, he is an up and coming photographer and his interest is very much in the music. As being a part of this project he has offered to take all necessary photos for the album and for the blog, but he is also looking to take photos for other artists. You can contact him through his web site www.tomjphotography.net
So that’s all for this week, keep yourselves warm and if you want to make my day, go and download my new single:-)
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