nbc@INF.RL.AC.UK (12/01/89)
I have not seen love-hounds digests for several days - hope this
does not go into a black hole or repeats what someone else has
already posted.
Part 2 of the article in International Musician
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Misty Business
The next track, The Fog, finds Kate once again exploring
atmosphere and emotion through music; like a lot of her material,
the motivations and expressions behind the lyric and the way the
track is recorded are inseparable. One very clearly dictates the
other.
"That started at the Fairlight. We got these big chords of
strings, and put this line over the top, and then I got this idea
of these words - slipping into the fog. I thought wouldn't it be
interesting to sort of really visualize that in a piece of music,
with all these strings coming in that would actually be the fog.
So I wrote a bit of music that went on the front of what I'd
done, and extended it backwards with this bit on the front that
was very simple and straightforward, but then went into the big
orchestral bit, to get the sense of fog coming in.
"Then we put a drummer on, and Nigel Kennedy, the violinist, came
in and replaced the Fairlight violin, which changed the nature of
it. He's great to work with - such a great musician. The times we
work together we sort of write together. I'll say something like,
'what about doing something a bit like Vaughan Williams?', and
he'll know the whole repertoire, and he'll pick something, and
maybe I'll change something. By doing that we came up with this
different musical section that hadn't been on the Fairlight.
"So when I got all this down it seemed to make sense story-wise.
This new section became like a flashback area. And then I got the
lyrics together about slipping into the fog, and relationships,
trying to let go of people.
"It sounded great with the Fairlight holding it together, but it
just didn't have the sense of dimension I wanted. So we got hold
of Michael Kamen, who orchestrated some of the last album, and we
said we wanted this bit here with waves and flashbacks. He's
really into this because he's always writing music for films, and
he loves the idea of visual imagery. So we put his orchestra in
on top of the Fairlight.
"Again a very complicated process, and he was actually the last
thing to go on. I don't know how anything comes out as one song,
because sometimes it's such a bizarre process. It does seem to
work together somehow."
Stepping Out
However, some come quicker than others, like track four, one of
my personal favourites, Reaching Out.
"That was really quick, really straightforward. A walk in the
park did that one for me. I really needed one more song to kind
of lift the album. I was a bit worried that it was all sort of
dark and down. I'd been getting into walks at that time, and just
came back and sat at the piano and wrote it, words and all.
"I had this lovely conversation with someone around the time I
was about to start writing it. They were talking about this star
that exploded. I thought it was such fantastic imagery. The song
was taking the whole idea of how we cling onto things that change
- we're always trying to not let things change. I thought it was
such a lovely image of people reaching up for a star, and this
star explodes. Where's it gone? It seemed to sum it all up
really.
"We did a really straightforward treatment on the track; did the
piano to a clicktrack, got Charlie Morgan (Elton John's drummer)
to come in and do the drums, Del did the bass, and Michael Nyman
came in to do the strings. I told him it had to have a sense of
uplifting, and I really like his stuff - the rawness of his
strings. It's a bit like a fuzzbox touch - quite 'punk'. I find
that very attractive - he wrote it very quickly. I was very
pleased."
Kate's always used a wide variety of musicians on her records,
but drummer Stuart Elliot seems to have been there from the
beginning, even though he sometimes shares the drum stool with
Charlie Morgan.
"He's the only one that's worked on every album - he's lovely to
work with. I think it's good to keep that long term relationship.
He's so easy to work with because he knows what I'm like.
Occasionally I even ask him to use cymbals on a track now! He's
been through that whole stage where I just couldn't handle
cymbals or hi hats. Now that I'm actually using them again he
can't cope.
"I always found them something that we used too much. I felt they
were leant on too much. It held the music down in such a specific
way. They're very marked. Not using them is just a way of opening
up the music, I think. I learnt a lot from it. It's always been,
'this is the drum kit, so let's use it.' I always found that
extraordinary. But I think now that I've taken that break from
it, I see it very differently."
Even though both Stuart and Charlie get to contribute on most
tracks, The Sensual World features more programmed drums than
earlier recordings.
"We replace a lot, but there's a lot that's still there. We used
the Fairlight for the drums this time, and because the quality
was so much better we could keep them all. It's just the last
album, with the Linn patterns, they had to be much more disguised
because they sounded like a Linn machine. We had much more
finished drum tracks to work with - that caused some problems.
They were so good that I didn't want to get in and replace them
at an early stage like on the last album. I had to be quite
brutal and get drummers to just get in there and throw bits of
the Fairlight away, just to give it different levels. On the next
track, Heads We're Dancing, it was all based around the Fairlight
pattern that Del did, which is the basis of the whole song. The
only thing I think we replaced was the snare."
Why bother?
"Because I think it gives it a human feel, even though he's got
to stay in with the machine. There's still a certain amount of
movement, and there's all this human energy. I even believe that
the sounds a drummer makes can be part of the track - they all
make sounds, sing along while they're playing, grunting ... It
puts air in there. It's nice to get someone else's input as well.
"I like to use real musicians - it's so exciting. Machines are
great but you can get such great feedback from people when they
think they're working on something intimate. Things you'd never
think of. Like Mick Karns' bass on Heads We're Dancing puts such
a different feel to the song. I was really impressed with Mick -
his energy. He's very distinctive - so many people admire him
because he stays in that unorthodox area, he doesn't come into
the commercial world - he just does his thing."
Not a totally different position to her own.
"I suppose so, but I take an awfully long time to do it. What I
admire about people like Mick is the way they travel from one
environment to the other, but keep themselves intact. For me, I'm
so used to being in my own studio now, that if I'm put in another
one I actually get so nervous. I suppose it's finding a balance.
When I did work in commercial studios all that time, I did find
it very uncomfortable, because there was so much pressure, and so
many distractions. I love working at home so much - though it
does leave me quite vulnerable when I go outside."
Sentiments which must have inspired the next track, Deeper
Understanding.
"It's about someone being trapped in the city, in isolation at
work, where they just spend all the time with this computer,
actually really developing a relationship with it. Which a lot of
people seem to do - they talk to it. So the idea is in sending
off this programme for the lonely lost; they put it in and this
sci-fi being comes out and says 'I know you're lost, but I'm here
to help you, we love you.' This person doesn't have human contact
any more, he's just kind of addicted to the machine. I suppose in
subject matter terms I really do see it visually.
"So I had this thing and started to write it on the Yamaha piano
at home - one of the old CP90s, which is still great. I asked Del
for a rhythm, and he put down this very mechanical rhythm on
Fairlight. I put DX7 over the top, John Giblin did the most
beautiful bass - though it took a while. It always does when I
work with John - the main problem is that he just makes me laugh
so much."
Deeper Understanding is also the first track to feature the Trio
Bulgarka.
"That song was sort of finished when I got involved with the
Bulgarian singers. I just thought of all the people to represent
a being that exudes divine love, it had to be the Bulgarian
singers. The idea was to put them in the chorus where the
computer was singing, so that they'd have this ethereal sound."
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to be continued ...
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Neil Calton UUCP: ..!mcvax!ukc!rlinf!nbc
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, ARPA: nbc%inf.rl.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX JANET: nbc@uk.ac.rl.inf
England Tel: (0235) 821900 ext 5740