I am delighted to report that we made Great strides last week with the recording of my second album.
The session took 
place at the wonderful Grouse Lodge Studios in Co. Westmeath (Ireland). Situated pretty much in the middle of nowhere and reachable only by navigating a network of winding roads and dirt tracks, the studio boasts some incredible sounding rooms and a collection of microphones to do these rooms justice! Previous bands and artists to have recorded here include Michael Jackson, Muse, Snow Patrol, REM, Manic Street Preachers… The list is long and impressive. It was a great honour to record in the same rooms as these great artists.
I was joined for the session by Italian producer Filippo Gaetani and some friends and members of my live band.
We arrived early on a Tuesday morning and worked (for the most part) pretty intensely until late into Thursday night, heading home in the early hours of Friday morning. We squeezed in a whole lot of recording in this time!
The first song we worked on was “The Composer”, which is sounding pretty groovy, faster than the original demo version, and mostly electric-guitar driven. Gerard Toal put down some cool Cello stuff on top too which sounds Great!
The next song I think was “Abstract Man” which again is a little more up tempo than the original and quite a bit heavier, lots of dirty electric guitars on this one, lovin’ it!
We also worked on “Twisted Freak” a song about that little voice inside your head, hypnotic grooves on this one.
The more mellow tunes we recorded were “Eternity” , “When You Can” & “Sleepless Street”. Really lovin’ “Eternity” at the moment, most definitely the nicest acoustic guitar sound I’ve ever had. Beautiful. “When You Can” I recorded piano and vocals in one live take late at night (after watching my beloved Tottenham being soundly trashed by liverpool, still hurting!) and Ger & Cani overdubbed some really great Cello and double bass parts. Sounding pretty magic! For “Sleepless Street” we put down Drums, upright bass and some electric & acoustic guitar parts, this is another of my favourite tracks on the album. It’s clocking in at over the 7 minute mark ! I’m also considering “Sleepless Street” as the album title…
The last song we worked on was “Moan & Complain” which really occupies a different world to the rest of the tracks. Kinda of a drunk singing in the corner of a saloon type feel. I recorded this in a live take on upright piano…
So that’s pretty much it, from the horse’s mouth so to speak,
still got some bits and pieces left to do (strings, vocals etc.), I’ll keep all updates on here.
Video Footage coming soon 🙂
Best
PD