Sam Lench. Recording.

Documenting my Recording, Producing and Sound Engineering.

[samlench]

I recorded this live album back in May. I also acted as live sound engineer for the assembled audience. The finished record is available from this week. Press release below with more information about this interesting project:

Greedy Magicians (2012)

Artist: Quiet Loner  |   Title: Greedy Magicians

‘Greedy Magicians’ is Quiet Loner’s third album – a collection of contemporary protest songs seething with disgust and shot through with melancholy at the state of our coalition-led nation. It’s an album which responds both personally and politically, reflecting on recent events and rewriting them as chapters in a long and historic struggle of the many against the few.

The recording process

Rejecting the securities of a conventional recording studio, Hill instead recorded in an 18th century church in Salford. Lit only by candles and fairy lights with around 100 people present to witness it, Hill and his fellow musicians (with members of Samson & Delilah and Last Harbour) recorded the songs totally live in single takes.

“This was a very, very special evening.  Nobody left that building unmoved.”Read a review of the recording event on Americana-UK

Watch video footage of the evening and an interview with Quiet Loner

The art

Hill was determined to capture more than just music on this record so efforts were made to create a sense of occasion and atmosphere through two special art projects. During the recording session, 100 badges were handed out, each bearing a different name of 50 men and 50 women of history who had taken a stand and created positive change.

An edible art installation was created by the Cake Liberation Front (aka artist Caroline Turner). The protest march of cake evoked some of the classic slogan’s of historic struggle. The vegan cakes were eaten by the audience during the break.

The instruments

The instruments played came with their own histories – James Youngjohns played a mandolin from 1898, Mat Martin showcased a tenor guitar that included wood reclaimed from a Memphis dancefloor, Mike Doward played a 1960s double bass he had rescued from a school caretaker’s skip and Quiet Loner played a Gibson guitar that pre-dated the outbreak of WW1 (1911).

The artwork The album sleeves are all individually handprinted using 19th century letterpress machines, the techniques used to print radical pamphlets now deployed to produce a 21st century form of protest. Designed by K.Craig each sleeve has been through 9 seperate print processes meaning that no two sleeves will be identical. The CD insert contains extracts from essays, handwritten in 1934/35, and discovered by Hill in some notebooks written by his grandad. The CD insert also includes 3 reflections on the recording event, one from Quiet Loner, one from a musician (Mat Martin) and one from an audience member (Jane Renton).

Album reviews

Penny Black music

On ‘Greedy Magicians’, a Quiet Loner shows that you can turn feelings of anger and despair into warm and uplifting music. With a mix of humour, sadness and anger, he gets the tone spot-on. A superb album. Evoking an authentic spirit of English folk music. Read a review by Pennyblack music

Fatea

This is an album of real poetry, showing great imagination. He lines up both barrels at the institution of state and lets rip. “Greedy Magicians” is a strong album about standing up and being counted. Go out and get yourself a copy and enjoy a great album, that is both a joy to listen to and poetic in its nature. Read a review by Fatea magazine

Interviews about the album

Interview with Pennyblack music

Americana UK : Conversation between Chris Mills and Matt Hill

Futher information

Buy album from Little Red Rabbit records

Full album lyrics

Press release

[samlench]

Mastering GladEyes...

Just about to head off to see George Atkins at 80 Hertz for the first listen of the mastered GladEyes album. Massively excited. Can't wait to hear it. Some tracks will be posted here soon...  

[samlench]

Gabriel Minnikin - "Parakeets With Parasols"

Where do I start?.. How shall I put this?.. The closest I've ever come to totally losing my shit? Yeah, that about sums it up. This was one hell of a journey, but I think we created one hell of an album.

Recorded with zero budget over about 2 years, it takes in recording locations all over Manchester and musicians from all over the world. Initially started at Howard Mills' Humble Soul house studio with the core band of Gabriel on piano and guitar accompanied by Tim Warren (Polytechnic, GladEyes) on drums and Jon Thorne (Lamb and many, many other bands..) on double bass. We began the recording on tape using Howard's 1" 24 track machine, which we then transported (along with a 24 channel desk) to St Margaret's Church in Whalley Range to record the small orchestra that Gabriel had managed to assemble. Eventually we digitised what we had and over the next year or so (whenever we could) we recorded the rest of the overdubs between Howard's, my house, Gabriel's house, Salford Uni studios and lecture theatre and St Margaret's Church several more times. To put this into context I'll ty and list off just some of the instruments and people we recorded on virtually every one of the 12 tracks, here we go:

acoustic guitar, electric guitar, 12-string acoustic, 12-string electric, banjo, mandolin, 3 pedal steel players, electric bass, piano, organ, synths, keyboards, marimba, glockenspiel, vibraphone, timpani, orchestral bass drum, tubular bells, shakers, tambourines, sleigh bells, hand claps, violin, harmonica, clarinet, a brass section (played by The Earlies), backing vocals (by myself, Jo Rose, Ruth Minikin, Sam Hammond and many others), instrumental additions from members of The Travelling Band, Starless & Bible Black, Samson & Delilah and others and a full choir. I'm probably missing a lot of stuff, but you get the idea.

Then I had to mix it.

Oh shit.

So, the mixing took nearly a year (so that's nearly 3 years all together). Mostly because it moved between 2 operating systems, 2 faulty tape machines, 3 Digital Audio Workstations and 4 studios. It also took a lot (a lot!) of rejigging to even get it all to play back on any computer (some of the songs had over 100 recorded tracks...shiver...). But we got there eventually! I lost some hair. Nearly went insane. And began to question the very notion of 'quality' (like that dude who lost his shit in 'Zen & The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance'). But we eventually finished it. 

So there we have it. The most ridiculously epic recording project I've been involved with to date. Luckily the great times far outstripped the stressful times. Perhaps myself and Gabe will get karma points for even attempting such a thing without a label or money. I don't think my hairline will ever recover, but at least we got one hell of a record out of it.

You should buy it, or at least have a listen to it. So should everyone else you know. Really. Please.

Here's a 9/10 review from Americana UK:

An album created by a Canadian with an unusual gravelly voice will inevitably lead to comparisons with a certain Montreal-born crooner. Indeed Gabriel Minnikin often shows signs of being influenced by the elder statesman of melancholic folk. Yet this is an artist who deserves so much more than being dismissed as a simple Leonard Cohen knock off.

‘Parakeets With Parasols’ is an incredible multi-layered affair which covers a sweeping range of genres. From it’s beginning the album soars into life, Minnikin’s magnificently eerie tones backed spectacularly by a rich multi-pieced ensemble on ‘Land Of Language’. Indeed with an orchestra listed as containing 23 members (not to mention a band of 15), every song is given an extraordinary depth.

On the unnerving ‘Machine Guest’, Minnikin’s voice begins to sound like a fragile Iggy Pop, whilst at other times his music approaches the work of a particularly croaky Jens Lekman. ‘A Tune’ could even be mistaken for Tom Waits. Yet each track carries a distinctive Minnikin signature. In spite of such grandiose ideas, Minnikin still finds time to incorporate his Americana roots. The low key ‘Arkansas’ sees a sombre country-edged melody backed by luscious strings, whilst pedal steel and banjos battle the wails of a brass band throughout the excellent ‘New Orleans’. ‘Parakeets With Parasols’ is an astonishing album that echoes many of its predecessors, but offers something entirely different. Simply put, it is brilliant.

[samlench]

What would you say to an aspiring performer who were thinking about recording an album with a band of musicians but doing it live, in one take, in front of an audience, in a church? Yours curiously Mr. Q. Loner

Tell him he's dreaming... ;-)

[samlench]

Great review from today's Sunday Times. My favourite bit: "this album sounds magnificent".. That's one for the CV.

[samlench]

I'm recovering from a late night recording session with Pete Philipson last night/this morning.. Pete is a great guitarist and producer and has worked with the likes of Nancy Elizabeth, Dan Haywood's New Hawks and Jenny McCormick. He is also one of the driving forces behind Starless & Bible Black, The Woodbine & Ivy Band and Timbreland Recordings. He also helped to record The Waverton Collective EP, which was my first band upon moving to Manchester about 7 years ago. 

Last night we set up shop in St Margaret's Church and recorded about 4 hours of tasty, effects laden, Vangelis-2-amp-ping-pong-delay-guitar-soundscapes.. until the sun came up. It was epic. It might see the light of day again some day. Probably as a triple vinyl gatefold boxset..

[samlench]

The Rustle Of The Stars, Part II - 'The Wreck of Hope' / 'Drawing Lines to the End of the World'

A live recording of a gig I engineered a few months ago is going to be released as a limited edition cassette on Gizeh Records. This was another fantastic show for Little Red Rabbit Records monthly gig at Sacred Trinity Church in Salford. I was able to have a lot of fun with delay and reverb, as can be heard above.. enjoy! Its mesmerising stuff.

Details:

Richard Knox & Frederic D. Oberland with Angela Chan & Lidwine  performing 'The Rustle of the stars'

Live @ Sacred Trinity Church, Manchester 12.04.12

Part II - 'The Wreck of Hope' / 'Drawing Lines to the End of the World'

Live sound mixed by Sam Lench

'The Rustle of the Stars' is re-released on CD - May 7th (Gizeh Records)

The whole of the live recording from this show will be released as a limited edition cassette tape as part of Gizeh's Tape Series. (date tbc).

[samlench]

Samson & Delilah - 'Starlight In Your Afternoon'

My favourite 'production' moment from the first Samson & Delilah album. 'Starlight In Your Afternoon' started out simply as Anna singing with me playing bowed electric guitar captured by Tom Knott at Airtight Studios in Chorlton. Then we took the project to various churches and living rooms around Manchester to add the rest of the vocals, drums, flutes, synths and even the church bell from St Philips in Salford.

I think there might be more moments like this on the next Samson & Delilah album..

Enjoy!

[samlench]

Ruth Minnikin - Depend On This

I've just started listening to this fine album again recently, which came out back in 2010. Ruth is based in Nova Scotia, Canada and is a former member of The Guthries and The Heavy Blinkers. 

I recorded all of Ruth's brother Gabriel's parts for the album, including; mandolin, acoustic, banjo, electric guitar, Roland SH09 synth, stylophone and vocals. I seem to recall that I might have played the Roland on something too..

An extra cool thing about this album is all the remixes included on 'side B'. Well worth checking out.

Now have a listen to 'Animals of Bremen'. I really want to cover this song..

[samlench]

Great EP I recorded, produced and played on a few weeks ago (I still have double bass blisters on my fingers!). Alex is only just starting out, but he has loads of great songs and is an incredibly consistent performer. Promoters take note and book him now!

[samlench]

Last Harbour - 'Your Heart, It Carries The Sound'

Last Harbour are label mates with my band Samson & Delilah. I produced their new record, 'Your Heart, It Carries The Sound'. I've previously played drums and harmonica with the band (not necessarily at the same time, although there was that one gig in Newcastle..) mostly as a stand in when they were a member or 2 down, this included a memorable session worshipping at the altar of Marc Riley live on 6Music.

I mostly stayed behind the desk for this record though, only peering out for drum tub thumping on 2 tracks and bits of percussion, synth and backing vocals here and there. It was recorded at St Margaret's Church in Whalley Range, South Manchester last year and released on Little Red Rabbit Records in February.

I used the church as a sound stage and located the band members for the live takes and instrumental overdubs in different parts of the church to overemphasize the distance, pull and spread of the sounds, whilst treating my mixing desk position in the center of the church as the Point Of View of the eventual listener. This was augmented by having a pair of Neumann KM184 microphones in an ORTF configuration just in front of my mix postion. These mics were recorded, along with closer mics, onto everything we tracked to emphasize the stereo localisation of the instruments within the space to help specify the near/far and left/right image balance of the final mix.

Find out more about Last Harbour here: www.lastharbour.co.uk