Trust EP now available on Bandcamp

Last autumn, we aimed to release our debut album but unfortunately external circumstances dictated that this would not be possible. In fact the album still remains unfinished, although more progress has been made in the last few weeks. However, we really wanted to release something on CD at the Carpe Noctum gig on 3rd October of last year so we put this EP together.

Entitled “Trust”, it contains “The Last Time” – a song from the album, the DJ Cruel Brittania remix of Smoke and Mirrors described in our previous post, the original recording of Smoke and Mirrors from 2013 and our version of Status Quo’s “Pictures of Matchstick Men”, which has very quickly established itself as a live favourite.

The CD has been on sale from the band at gigs since October. We’ve uploaded it to Bandcamp for those who wish to download it. We hope you enjoy this little taste of the recordings to come as well as one or two special tracks and alternate mixes.

By Idle Hands Posted in News

Recordings and remixes

As we continue the countdown to the Carpe Noctum gig on 3rd October, there is a lot of studio activity in the background consisting of mixing of the forthcoming album, further recording which will surface as part of an EP and more interestingly, remix work of existing recordings.

On the subject of remixes, we are delighted to announce that DJ Cruel Britannia has completed a remix of our song Smoke and Mirrors and we think it sounds great!

We gave him some rough mixes of the forthcoming album and asked him if he would be interested in working on a remix of a song. He chose Smoke and Mirrors, we passed him the raw tracks and he went away and created the remix.

In his own words “rather than me going to town with the drum loops, samples, synths & the usual technical fuckery I indulge in, I went for the ’12” club remix’ approach instead, opting to leave as much of the original track intact, but a bit longer and shinier…yes, it took a shedload of will power to stay away from the gadgets”.

Well, we would have been happy however many gadgets he used and we are really pleased with what he has achieved. Many thanks for a fantastic job.

There is also another potential remix in the pipeline which will surface at a later date, more news on this later. We are always up for having remixes performed on our music, so if you would like to contribute then please feel free to get in touch. Make it as radically different as you like. Full artistic license and credit will be given naturally.

Work on the album continues unabated. As previously alluded to, we were hoping to release this on 3rd October and whilst there is still a chance we may do, we don’t want to make any promises, which is why we have not made any big announcements to this effect. The recording work has been completed. However, there is a lot of production work which still needs to go into it and external circumstances are not currently on our side. Martin Hawthorn has been immersing himself in the project and taking every opportunity to work on the mixes. What he has achieved so far is sounding amazing to these ears and he is certainly pulling out all the stops to complete as much work as possible. However, he is adamant that we should not release it prematurely for the sake of releasing it as it needs to be right. We do apologise for any inconvenience and we accept full responsibility for any misleading announcements.

That said, we are keen to release a CD at the gig, so an EP is being readied which will comprise a single from the album (as yet undecided), the Cruel Britannia remix of Smoke and Mirrors, the original 2013 Voltage Studios recording of Smoke And Mirrors and something else we have been working on which we are not yet in a position to announce.

Stand by for further news on both the EP and the album.

To listen to DJ Cruel Britannia’s remix of Smoke and Mirrors, visit the Soundcloud page.

By Idle Hands Posted in News

Studio diary #4: So close we can smell it!

In the last 3 months or so, we have been ploughing away both rehearsing for the autumn gigs and conducting more recording sessions. All of the music is now fully recorded for all 10 songs.

Vocal recording has been taking place under the production of Martin Hawthorn and is now over half way done. The band FANS have very kindly allowed us to use their rehearsal space for this, as and when we have been able. It was originally built as a recording studio and has a vocal booth. We’re very pleased with the results so far. The aim is to finish recording over the coming weekend so Martin can start the mixing in earnest.

Scheduled release date is 3rd October to co-incide with our next gig at The Library. We’re hoping to have CDs and merchandise available on the night with digital downloads available in the weeks following.

We’re itching to get back out playing live and also to get the album released.

Carpe Noctum: (03/10/15) Rhombus + Dead Eyes Opened + Dawn of Elysium @ The Library, Leeds

This 3rd October, we are extremely pleased to be returning to West Yorkshire’s premier goth and dark alternative club night Carpe Noctum. We’re very happy to be sharing a bill with Rhombus and Dead Eyes Opened.

We are fans of both bands and were fortunate enough to perform with them last September at the first Library, Leeds based Carpe Noctum. At this show, Rhombus were on as the stripped down acoustic-esque outfit, Grassby and Walker but this time, they’ll be performing with their full line-up.

This show is scheduled to be our album launch night so we are aiming to have CD’s and Merch available for the first time (more news on this later).

Carpe Noctum is always an early start for the bands and since we’re on first, we’ll likely be onstage at around 7.30pm. Admission is £5 on the door all night.

It will be our first gig in quite some time so it would be great to see a few faces early doors!

Studio diary #3: Big sounds afoot

This last period has seen a combination of recording and writing.

After the gig at the end of March, we have gone into full hibernation mode. Our rehearsal time is not plentiful (two of us play in other bands), so it has been good to be free of live commitments. We have had a few enquiries about playing in the short term but have had to be steadfast in saying no at this time.

As for recording progress, all of the keyboards are now laid down and around 95% of the bass guitar on the 8 tracks we have been working on so far. We have also made some headway with guitars (both electric and acoustic), with 6 of the songs now having complete guitar tracks and sounding very big!

The writing of a brand new song is also well under way which we are all very excited about. We intend to develop and record this very soon as well as continuing with writing more new material. Our goal is 10 tracks for the album.

There is still no definite deadline for the album release. We’re aiming for autumn and with the progress we are making, it seems achievable but we’re hesitant to make any promises at this stage.

Until next time …

Studio diary #2: Steady as she goes

There hasn’t been much of an update for a while on the recording front. Most of the whole of February was taken up firstly with the Leeds University gig and then various other issues which rendered us unable to rehearse or record.

We had made a little progress laying down some guide tracks and a small amount of bass and keyboards right at the beginning of the month and as March struck, we continued with this in earnest. There is currently no guitar or vocal content apart from guide tracks but we’re already getting a picture of how the finished article might sound.

We have decided to record the backbone of it using the Tascam DP32 and then transfer the information to Garageband for editing and mixing. This approach makes for a quicker and slightly more natural feeling recording process. DAWs/computers are very powerful and useful tools but not always the best to use on the fly, especially with the additional hardware required.

Presently, there are 8 songs being recorded. There was a 9th but we felt it did not really fit. There are barebones ideas for more so you never know.

One thing we have learned is that we can’t rush this. It will be ready when it’s ready and our previous ideas for a deadline were perhaps a bit over zealous. We would obviously like it to sound the very best that it can. Things are progressing steadily but definitely and the lessons learned from this process will ensure that we can get a song from the initial writing to fully recorded stage more quickly in future.

We’re currently still light on the gig commitments for the rest of this year. Our next outing will be at The Black Swan on 28th March with Luna Reign. We do want to keep a light calendar for a while to allow for recording and more writing but as always if something comes along, we are usually more than happy to play.

Studio diary #1: The journey begins with a single step and a large boot!

As everybody emerges, bleary-eyed into 2015, we are turning our attentions to all things recording.

The last thing we recorded and published was the single song Smoke and Mirrors back in the summer of 2013. Apart from this, there are no existing recordings which are representative of the band’s current sound. And so we felt it was long overdue for us to commit something to disc. Therefore, we have resolved to self record and release our debut album in 2015.

We are delighted to have the involvement of Martin Hawthorn, who has kindly agreed to produce the album with us.

Martin was the bassist and founder member of 80’s and 90’s bands Excalibur, Loud, PADD and Hardware and he has worked with such production luminaries as Simon Efemey and Killing Joke’s Jaz Coleman, amongst others.

As we unboxed the the new studio equipment last night, pre-production began in earnest. The first stage is to strip back the existing songs and take a good look under the bonnet as we’ve never done to this extent before. It’s amazing what you find when you put everything under the microscope.

Apart from inevitable tweaks and reworks, there’s more writing work to be done and pending ideas to be developed over the coming days and weeks. It’s going to be a very interesting and busy period!

We are curtailing seeking any live work for the time being but as always are receptive to any offers.