Love Action

Two posts in one night...

In December we played at a private party in Sheffield to celebrate the launch of 'Wigs & Warpaint' a hair salon / clothes boutique, anyway Rob from EY asked us to do a Human League cover which of course we went and did. So because we were playing in Sheffield we decided to do our version of 'Love Action'. This was to a very young and very trendy crowd, afterwards a girl said to me "I've heard that song before, I didn't realise you did it" - I didn't correct her!, although I did ask "are you a waitress in a cocktail bar" she replied "No I'm a beauty therapist" - I felt very old.

Anyway this is a version of the track with just the backing vocals, we have decided to redo the vocals in our next recording session.

Have a listen here

Yazoo...

Well got my tickets in the pre-sale this morning, noticed this evening that the London show had already sold out, not sure if that means the whole thing or just the pre-sale allocation?

We had a request earlier in the week by Markus from Borlife in Germany, he did a great review of our album. This was his email.

Hi!

How are you? Hope, you feel well!

We are planing for our radio broadcast a special for YAZOO. For this we would like to have comments from you for our Radio-Show. Would it be possible that you answer the folowwing questions as MP3, so that we can play in our broadcast?

What do you think of the fact that Alison and Vince are together again on stage?

What influence did YAZOO to your music?

Which song is your favorite song of YAZOO?

Will you attend the concerts?

It would be nice, if you could send us the answers nearly. Of course, we would play Songs form you at the show!

By now many thanks and lots of love!

Markus

I will post a transcript of our answers soon after the show is broadcast.

I did start to wonder though what sort of musical set-up Vince would have. It will be really interesting (for me) to hear how faithful the tracks will be. I purchased one of the special "Evening with" Erasure CDs but I was quite disappointed at the Karaoke version of 'Just can't get enough' they did.

Vince... if you're reading this give me a shout, I'd love to help.

One of the first things I/We (Baz from Electrobelle) did when we got our virtual versions of the ARP 2600 was program the sounds from 'Upstairs at Erics'

Recognise the start of this? This track "Please" never made it to our album.

Mattx

Sarah: Writing about writing

Why do I write? I write to relax, unwind and de-frag the day. Writing soothes me, and when things are on the page, they’re out of my head and I don’t have to worry about them! Sometimes, I speed write. I’ll literally set a 5 minute timer and just go for it. I won’t think much about what I’m writing, I just make sure the pen keeps moving on the page. Quite often, I end up with some tasty lyrics from this approach – ‘with shaking hands and twitching face’ from Home, is one example.

What do I write about? Most of my lyrics aren’t really about any particular thing – they are more groups of words that give a flavour of something; a person, a feeling, a need or whatever. I wouldn’t ever profess to set out to write deep and meaningful lyrics. Sometimes, when Matt sends tracks up to me to work on, I listen to the tune and certain shapes and rhythms of words just seem to fit. It’s all a bit of a mish-mash. I mostly write from instinct and for pure pleasure. I wrote a couple of tracks on Fifty Three Degrees North that were specifically about people in my life. I have to be really moved (or pissed off) by someone for this to happen! I suppose it’s inevitable that you end up writing about your own life and relationships that effect you.
Someone at a gig of ours once said that my lyrics were ‘too personal’ for electro-pop, which is interesting. I think for the new tracks that I’m writing, I’m going to experiment with this and write some de-humanised, robotic lyrics in response. But, then even that will be personal, because it’s still about my emotional response to something – I guess there’s just no pleasing some people!

Who do I write for? Myself. With maybe a glimmer of hope that someone, somewhere might be moved, inspired or entertained by the words I’m singing.

Fresh ears

The first batch of ideas are now complete, Sarah will be finishing the lyrics for these over the next two weeks and we will be recording these over the first weekend in February. Previously we worked on at most two ideas at a time however I'm trying to get a feel for the album as a whole, so after the first vocal sessions I will pick out the stronger tracks to concentrate on. I plan to take these to almost a finished state and they will form the bulk of our next EP, Project X.

The reason for working this way is to try and get an album that feels complete, 53 Degrees to me feels like an eclectic album, probably as it was written and record over a year. We never really had the thought that we would do a complete album so the early tracks just happened. I'd like to strike a balance on this album between catchy pop tunes and more interesting tracks that maybe have a less conventional song structure.

Having reviewed the tracks so far I'm quite happy with them, Sarah thinks they are more mainstream pop than anything else, I think they probably are at this stage but I really want to push them to the edge when I produce the final versions.

We played live on Thursday night at The Musician in Leicester. Not really a night for "electo pop" but still quite good to get out and see other bands.

Quite excited about the Yazoo announcement, maybe we can be the support act :-)

Picture by Wout

Saturday 13th & Sunday 14th

I have been consciously trying to write an up tempo track over the last few nights, tracks with BPMs above 125 I find really difficult to write. I usually start with a repetitive bass line and add the kick and snare, then try and some kind of melody or lead line to sit over the top. The problem is I get very bored listening to the same loop over and over, so most of these ideas get trashed.

Yesterday however I persevered with a track and now finally I think I'm getting somewhere with it. I have left it over night and still find it interesting listening with fresh ears this morning, so this will one will stick. This is idea 009.

My plan of not drinking and trying to be healthy went straight out of the window this weekend, still I have now drank all the alcohol left over from Christmas so no more excuses and I'm definitely getting up early for the gym.

Matt

Friday 11th

Today I have been in William Orbit mode.

Done a dub, sub bass, minimal beat type thing. Not sure if it is at all Northern Kind but it sounds pretty cool. On the last album there were a couple of tracks that I gave to Sarah that triggered really good vocal melodies, but the music didn't really sit well with the other songs so I ended up re-writing the backing tracks. They were "Thoughts of you' & 'Home'.

Maybe this will be one of those tracks?

Its now 10.30pm, so I'm gonna get a beer and watch Jonathan Ross.

Matt

Thursday 10th January

Discovered a problem with my SSL Duende, or at least I think it's the Duende.

I needed to bounce down our remix of 'On & On" for the EY/UNDO compilation. I noticed after two attempts that there is an obvious audio click just before the first vocal comes in.

I did notice this happening when I was bouncing the tracks for 53˚N however the amount of parts playing always seemed to mask this. If you bother listening to the original 'On & On' you can actually here a click just before the first verse.

The annoying thing is that in this remix there aren't that many other things happening so it's quite obvious. If I disable the Duende on the track insert the click disappears.

I hate things like this as they tend to drive me insane, it becomes a process of elimination as to what is causing this and I could end up ripping my whole system apart. Indication is that it's something to do with the Firewire Bus, maybe I need to by a PCI to give me a separate FW Bus, this also might mess up my intentions to by the TC Powercore PCI card as there appears to be loads of issues surrounding compatibility with that. Bugger!

So again not a very productive evening.

Matt