Category: music

Post-Jazz Festival review.

I had an absolute blast of a time at the Cork Jazz Festival. Definitely a weekend to spend in Cork – there was so much music everywhere. From buskers on the street, to free gigs in venues around town, to the ticketed gigs each day too. I spent the day times wandering the streets enjoying the food stalls and listening to some great jazz bands playing for free in the outdoor stage set up beside the Opera House. Found some great places for coffee, but none better than Cork Coffee Roasters, which also boasted the hottest barista I saw all weekend too as a special bonus.

Méadhbh was working every day over the weekend, which was a pity, but we got to hang out in the evenings instead. She was singing with me at the gig in the Legends Suite of the Festival club, and we got to the venue early to grab some food and a glass of wine before soundchecking. I don’t think I’ve met nicer people than the folk we had to deal with that evening – everyone from the Guinness contact to the sound guy to the waitress. Despite the fact that it was right in the middle of a weekend of long working days for them, everyone was warm, welcoming, friendly and professional. It made me feel completely relaxed and at ease before the gig.

The piano they had in the venue was a gorgeous Yamaha grand piano – between that and the Yamaha I recorded the album on in the studio, I think my opinion of Yamaha pianos has been completely changed this year. Gorgeous sound from both the upright and the grand piano, and those bass notes on the grand were an absolute thrill.

This is the only photo I have of the gig – which was taken just before we went soundchecking. I think Méadhbh has a few more though. But at least you can see the most important thing – how beautiful that piano looks:

This was our set list:

  • The Bliss Returns
  • Codail Sámh
  • Keep Me Here (new song. not on the album)
  • Romance
  • Phoenix
  • Comfort Of The Keys (non-album track)
  • The Score (Sarah Slean cover sharing lead vocals with Méadhbh)
  • Galway Rain
  • Strive (new song. Not on the album)
  • Glory Box / Wannabe (Portishead / Spice Girls cover. Méadhbh on lead vocals)
  • Helen

It was originally this:

I had a few others lined up that I skipped on the night, as we had just about an hour of a set, and I wanted to try out some of the newer songs as well as singing stuff off the record. “Wet Feet”, “Rerun” and non-album track “House On My Back Door” were all on the list too but got kicked off for time.

I’m back in Galway now, and back working on the last little things I need to sort to get a physical Cd into my hands, and then into your hands, and I’ll let you know how you can do that in a later update, but it will be available in some of the wonderful new indie record shops that have been popping up around the country.

Mastering, gigging and a free download

Mastering is an interesting art. I was able to attend the mastering session for my record at Wav Mastering in Limerick, and experienced the recordings gaining more definition and going from being a bunch of tracks that I’d recorded to being an album that made sense to listen to. I find it hard to explain exactly what it’s like without resorting to a bread analogy – so imagine you’ve made 12 loaves but baked them just as a round of dough on a tray. Now, imagine all those 12 loaves were baked in the same loaf tin instead. They still will taste the same, but they’ll look more uniform as a result. I guess that’s how I see mastering. I don’t know if that even makes sense – but it works in my head and I hope in yours too.

I was due to play at Song Cycle in Whelan’s last monday, as a sort of prep for myself to road-test some of the really new songs I’ve never played to an audience before. However, the mental floods in Dublin that evening meant that the evening didn’t go ahead at all, so apologies to anyone who may have braved the weather to make it in.

I wanted to play those songs live before playing them at the Jazz Festival gig tomorrow, but alas, they’ll just get their first outing at that gig instead. So, if you’re around Cork for the weekend, drop into the Festival Club on Sunday evening, and I’m playing in the Legends Suite.

I’d been hoping to have the record ready and out there before the Jazz gig, but various things always seem to crop up to add to the delay. But that’s really helped and added to the whole learning process. These last 6 months have been one big learning curve for me, and comparing the demos I was doing at home before going into the studio with the finished album I have now is mindblowing to me at times. But I wanted to be able to start sharing some of it with people, so here’s a track called “Helen” which you can listen to and download for free via Bandcamp. I hope you enjoy it, and spread it around. The full album will be available in November, all things going to my now re-adjusted plan:

A little piano track, mastering and some gigs.

fund:it, the crowdfunding service I used to raise cash for my album recording has been going now for over 6 months, and they’ve released a video about what was achieved over their first 6 months. They asked me if I had any music that they might be able to use for the video, and as it happens I had recorded one of my piano instrumental pieces on the last day of the piano & vocal tracking in the studio recording sessions. I’d an hour or two to spare and ended up knocking out a live version of “I Wish You Were Here” as well as the piano instrumental piece.

The song has ended up on the tracklisting for the album, and the instrumental is planned as a bonus track for the digital version of the record going out to those people who funded my project. But, now you can hear an edit of that track used in the video about Fund:it’s first 6 months, which they have entered into the “Better Together” competition in the hope of winning some money towards helping to develop and improve the service they provide. Please click on the link and consider voting for their entry, which will help enable other creative projects happen through the use of crowdfunding.

Here’s the video:

I’m heading off to get the record mastered later this week, having gotten to the point where I have final mixes that I’m happy with, and a record that I’m quite proud of. The artwork is still being developed with print artist Grace Mitchell, and I’m excited to see the work she has been doing all coming together to result in the final packaging for the record. We are planning to hand print and make the packaging for a limited number of the records, and everyone who bought the cd through fund:it will be getting one of those copies. I’m looking forward to having a finished product and I really hope that people who hear the record like it as much as I do.

Later this month, I also have a little gig on the 24th at the “Song Cycle” showcase night Upstairs in Whelan’s in Dublin, and the Cork Jazz Festival on the 30th. So, if you are knocking around either city around those days, drop in and you’ll get to hear some of the songs from the record before it is out, as well as some of the material I’ve held over for the next one, and newer songs I’ve been writing more recently.

Jazz Festival, more mixing, and a Swede

I’ll be playing a set in the Festival Club at the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival this October 30th. The time isn’t confirmed as yet, but I’ll update some more about that when I know later on. I don’t believe I’ve ever actually played a gig in Cork before, now that I think about it. I’m looking forward to showcasing some of the tracks from the record along with some of the other songs that didn’t make it on to this record, but are being held over for a later date.

I’ve also been writing again recently, reworking older unfinished songs, polishing off mostly finished song, and writing some brand new ones too. I’m really happy with some of the newer material and a little part of me wishes I could just jump right back into the studio and knock out a second record this winter, as I have enough songs that I’m happy with to go and do that. But I still have work to do to finish off this one first. And who knows what other songs I’ll write in the meantime.

I was back in the studio for a day a week or two ago to do some tweaks to the album mixes, but I think I now have mixes that I’m happy with of the record. Some little things niggling at me about the track sequencing at the moment, but I took a break from listening to the record to go back at it with fresh ears and sort out the part of the sequencing that I’m not happy with. The next stage will be to get the record mastered.

I’ve been spending a lot of time playing piano again – the digital piano is set up in my room, and I’ve been able to play away on headphones. However, I’ve been snatching time at the acoustic piano too – though it is in dire need of tuning and some minor repairs. Hopefully that’ll all be sorted out next week when the piano tuner comes to call!

One of my best friends is visiting from Sweden for a few days next week too. Last time she was here I had just bought my first little protools recording setup, and we had a ball recording some covers and little things on that same piano that I’m getting tuned next week. Nika plays in two wonderful Swedish traditional folk groups, Sheik and JONI, and as well as having her own solo output, and studied classical piano with me in Maynooth a number of years ago. If you’ve never listened to any Swedish traditional folk, any of those three links wouldn’t be a bad introduction, in my opinion. One of the songs I learned from her, Vargsången, I ended up arranging for SATB choir and performing with the NUIG Choralsoc last year, and is one of my favourites of my own arrangements.

Here’s Annika singing a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Conversation” on my piano a long time ago now. It’s quite quiet, but I had just one microphone that was on loan from a friend, and the actual recording session itself is lost, and we just have mp3 copies of those tracks left. But she did a really lovely version of this song:

annika hammer – conversation by misterebby

I’m a sucker for songs with choirs.

Seriously, it’s like crack to me. I think I can probably blame my parents for this one quite successfully: my dad has always sung in the local church choir, and my mother introduced us all to the wonderful songwriter Melanie, and this song in particular:

It can seem cliché to throw in a choir for some extra emotion, but there’s something really rousing about a group of different voices coming together as one. The combination of all those different vocal timbres creates something very special indeed. Even if they’re just singing in unison, there’s so much power in a group of voices.

I’ve been in choirs since I was really young, and have a major soft spot for choral music as a result. Last year I was conducting a choir for the first time properly – previously I’d set up a mini choir for an amateur production of Sister Act that I arranged all the music for. That’s a long story for another time. But, it was my first experience of properly arranging music for a group of other people to sing, and I was completely hooked. I think I arranged about half of the material I got the NUIG choir to sing last year – stuff that varied from Elvis songs to Swedish folksongs.

Speaking of Swedish music, one of my favourite guilty pleasure songs with choirs is by the Swedish band The Ark, who some people probably remember mostly for their Eurovision entry in 2007. However, I remember them mostly for a Swedish friend of mine who was rather obsessed with them and introduced me to their music. This particular song is one that has stayed with me since, mostly for the choir entry in it. The song itself is pretty straight forward and quite emo lyrically, but the interplay between the choir and the lead singer in the last section of the song is absolutely stellar.

And I must take a moment to thank @donalmulligan, who reminded me of this great track that I first heard on the Pet Shop Boys “Back To Mine” compilation. Incidentally, you may also have heard it recently on the Channel 4 show “Sirens”, which I recommend watching btw. I lost that PSB compilation in the Great Hard Drive Crash of 2011, but I’m glad that youtube is there so I can still find these tracks to listen to. Try not to dance in your seat as you listen to it.

I had a playlist on my old iTunes that was dedicated to “Choral Awesomeness”, as I put it, but alas it’s something I’ll have to rebuild from scratch again now. Not all the selections had such bombastic choirs – some were more serene, like Kate Bush’s “Hello Earth” which quotes the Georgian folk song “Tsintsharo”, featured in the Werner Herzog film “Nosferatu”. Or Thea Gilmore’s amazing “Sol Invictus”, which quickly became one of my favourite midwinter songs ever. I’ve also previously posted about one of my favourite choirs, Scala, who do gorgeous choral versions of popular music.

But it seems pretty obvious that the love of choral music, and the years spent either singing in or conducting choirs, would have some effect on the kind of music that I write. That certainly does seem to be the case, listening back to the mixes. I realised that I have 10-part harmony at one point in one of the songs, and there’s a definite choral feel to that particular song. However, it’s definitely a different thing to be layering up different vocal lines with your own voice, and working with a choir. Maybe I’ll put together a little choral group to sing live with me so I can really get those vocal textures live that are on the record.

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