STINGRAYS / ALIENS ETC.

Well, I've had nice break in the USofA.  Had some brilliant experiences, met amazing and inspirational people.  Learnt to surf in California (for those of you hooked up to me on Facebook, you may just get to see the video of this soon which I'm sure you'll find suitably hysterical). The waves were HUGE (honest) and I had to dodge the bloody stingrays as I went.  I had the pleasure of clubbing with Paul Oakenfold at the Palms, Las Vegas.  He ROCKED, quite dark and electro'ey and was set against a backdrop of robots, flame-throwing industrial type equipment and Cirque de Soleil artists dressed as aliens.  I couldn't help but think the wrong half of NK was in attendance. I also fulfilled a childhood dream of going to San Diego zoo :-) So now it's head down to the finishing line for the album - tomorrow we are back in the studio recording Pleasurely That Machine and adding the finishing touches to a few other bits and bobs. I miss gigging!! The album's taking longer than anticipated.  But I promise, it is worth the wait.   Sarah x

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DM

Well the DM press conference came and went and as usual I can't help but feel a sense of excitement. I trawled the web last night to find the pre conference clips with the new songs. The obvious searches on Youtube bring you to files that DM have sanctioned as copyright infringement, but if you search with less obvious keywords you'll find them. This is still up for don't know how long for http://www.dailymotion.com/YourUselessAdvice/video/x6zlq1_depeche-mode-wrong-peace_music

As mentioned in the conference Martin has been investing in old analogue gear, the clips I heard of "Wrong" & "Peace" certainly are very analogue sounding and "Peace" sounds amazing, I just hope hope they don't go back down the processed to death sounds as they did on PTA.

I was really encouraged after hearing "Precious" but was disappointed with the PTA in general. Depeche Mode in my opinion need another "Violator", it certainly sounds like they have quite a few songs written. The Violator period not only spawned their greatest album but also the b-sides to many of the songs were also some of their best songs so clearly a very productive period.

Like most people I am a little bit disappointed with the one show at the o2, of course I will be going but I did get to see them in Manchester, Birmingham & London on the last tour. I guess it will make this gig more special.

Matt

OCT UPDATE

Sarah is away now for two weeks on a road trip from Las Vegas to San Diego, we had a brief meeting before she left to review the tracks so far. We still feel there is a small amount of work to do with a couple of the tracks vocally, I have been working on these for a while but they aren't really happening yet. We have decided to revisit these when she is back and possibly change the vocal melodies and lyrics.

I'd like to write a couple of new ideas to give us options for the final album, currently we are at 11 songs and ideally I'd like to have 12.

A few readers of this blog informed me of some sites that were linking to a download of our album, Lee from http://cantstopthepop.blogspot.com/ kindly removed his link but the other sites didn't bother, fortunately I contacted Rapidshare who were hosting the file and they have now removed our album.

As Dave Gahan apparently once said, if your not being bootlegged, your not happening.
We didn't get a chance to record the Podcast as mentioned, so this is top of the list for when Sarah is back. Lots to talk about.

Matt

HEAD HURTS

The main problem with using software is that you loose the tactile control over the parameters of synths and obviously a mixing desk. With a mouse you can only control one element at a time and the arrangements and mixes on the new album are far more complex than the last. Some songs have up to 50 tracks each with EQ, Compression & plug-ins for the actual synths so controlling everything gets very tedious.

So I decided to invest in a new tool for mixing and general control of the various bits of software I use. There are quite a few control surfaces out there but I chose the Euphonix MC Control. The beauty of this device over others is the flexibility you have of assigning it's faders and knobs to anything, it also has a cool touch screen which can be configured to control anything within the software.

Although it only has 4 main faders you can bank through a project, you can also assign a group of tracks to one fader which is really useful. Needless to say I've spent most of this evening buried in the user manual, it's a really powerful control surface but hopefully it's gonna help with mixing the new album.

QUESTIONS FOR THE NEXT PODCAST

Please submit any questions you have for our next Podcast, this will be a video and recorded at the end of September.

We will be talking about progress on the album and our recent gigs.

Send them to matt@northernkind.co.uk

Thanks


Matt

NIGHT WITH THE DR

Had a great time last night, brilliant crowd and very receptive to us.

I think the highlight was when I was chatting to Dr Robert after the gig, a pretty drunk girl came up to him and said "I came to see you but their set pissed all over yours" - he politely smiled and said "Thanks" - I just burst out laughing and gave her an album.

I thought he did really well, just a guitar and his voice but really entertaining, at one point Sarah said she was mesmerized by him, I guess that is what the "X-Factor" is.

Thanks to Wout for the photos.

MYSPACE RADIO

Will be featuring our song DIRTY YOUTH tomorrow evening as track of the week.

The show is hosted by Alex Zane, tune in from 7pm Thursday 10th September.

Click here to visit the page



Almost makes me want to go and buy some chocolate... or is that the point?

Mattx