10th December, 2010
Michael has been putting down guitars and vocals as well as some other bits and pieces to complete five songs from his archive. The songs are “Broken Horses”, “Real”, “I Never Knew”, “Believer” and “Buried”. “Buried” is a different version of a song previously released on Sour Pop. Michael says, “this version was originally tracked at Karmic Hit and features Tim Powles on drums in contrast to the heavier Sour Pop version with John Butler which was recorded at Sony in East Sydney. This version was just sitting there on tape for years but it sounds great”. It also features some newly recorded Hammond organ which adds a certain gospel feel to a story of biblical betrayal.
The new recorded parts have been tracked to the last remaining operational Studer A827 2 inch tape machine at the facility. Engineer Andy Beck, who demonstrated considerable expertise in the lost art of the tape punch in, engineered the session. The songs have been mixed by Tim Powles through the Neve desk in Studio 1 to half inch two track tape on a vintage Ampex machine.
Michael says, “Using tape like this as well as all the other old gear means that this record will not sound like anything else around at the moment.”
It seems that Michael’s project is the first one to record to tape at 301 this year! Sad but true.