what's it all about?

tricky one.  the title comes from two places really.  one is a poem by f w harvey called 'i turn to ducks..' which for me is all about those times in life when it all gets just a bit too much and you need to take inspiration from a lifeform who seems to have so few worries in life.  in harvey's case; ducks.  (this should really be called 'the day of a million penguins' which are my favourite improbable animal of all time.) 

until i then read an article in that most sublime of journals; the Fortean Times.  there was a story about the Chinese government trying to solve its increasing locust problem.  things had got so bad, that one plan was to release a million ducks at the time of invasion to sort the pesky winged ones out.  the freaky part was - they actually did it!!!!!  there is a truly wonderful and inspirational picture in FT of this entire plain filled with ducks off on their locust fest.

two things occurred to me.  nothing is so bizarre in concept that if you have the will to do it, it can't be done. and just when you think life is strange - something always tops it.  there's no point in worrying in this life, there's always something to marvel at.

so i wrote this chill-out piece as a homage to charles fort and f harvey for both stopping a while to sniff the flowers.

instruments & tone sources

the guitars here are a return to an old old favourite, my battered but loved westone thunder 1a, still the best blues guitar i have and great for doing these mike oldfield-y type sounds. processed through the POD and an old sansamp gt1.

all the synth sounds are jv, including, bizarrely, some of the guitar sounds.

101 bass is jv and real bass the washburn through joemeek's wonderbox, the vc3q.

drums are zoom 234.

production comments

a good friend of mine just commented that the main theme in this piece reminded her of the theme from 'buffy the vampire slayer'.  for any prs folk out there - this was definitely not the intention!!!! 

this was the first track i ever write entirely on keyboards.  the JV has some really nice evolving sounds on it, and the one that forms the backbone of this track is particularly nice, though it was tweaked a bit for tempo.

using the JV gave me the opportunity to write some guitar parts that i could play on keyboards instead just as an exercise in self-restraint.  much od what sounds like a rolled jazz guitar here is actually a guitarist playing guitar patches on keyboard!  the sounds fitted in really nicely, i didn't have the GR out to trigger the JV so i thought i'd have a go.  it was a good discipline.  the actual real guitars which are fly through an old zoom 2020 player are mainly providing rhythm that is not being provided here by drums.

this track marked my first attempts down that slippery slope called synths and so i wanted it on the album.  even now, i very rarely record the midi performance of keyboard parts, i get the sound i want right from the start and then practice and practice the part till i can get right through the take without mistakes.  again it a discipline thing.  i prefer working that way.  drums are about the only thing that get recorded in midi for editing later.