2FM Session, Bandcamp, trips to the shop, and "Echo"

I went into 2FM there a few weeks back and recorded some songs. Got to play a piano on one of them, which was great, a Steinway grand, no less. I suppose this means I'll have to make my peace with the TV licence fee.

Dropped in to Ed on Monday and he told me that there is real-live hard cold cash money in the Bandcamp ether from sales of the EP. Will wonders never cease? Paying for a download? Whoever you are, thank you so so so so much, lovely people! Thus heartened, I betook myself to Freebird (in the Secret Book & Record Store), The R.A.G.E., and Tower here in Dublin and stuck in some copies. Even to have them on a shelf somewhere is good.

But the biiig biiiig news is that yesterday we finished mixing the album.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Big huge thanks to Joe, not only for all the help, advice, amazing mics to record on and all that... To leave with a bit of a beginner's knowledge of Protools, and a rake of beautiful new plug-ins, well, that's the cherry on top of the seven-tier cake.

Digital Release on www.bandcamp.com

The "Cusp" EP is available now on www.niamhdebarra.bandcamp.com. Pay what you want, or nothing at all. There are a few different formats available too; mp3, FLAC (for better quality without taking up as much room as a wav), and a loada more esoteric freeware formats like the delightfully named Ogg Vorbis, for instance.

Choir Practice

Tonight I had a practice with seven of the singers for "Lying in Bed" off the EP. We'll be performing it a capella at the launch (all going to plan...). I'd been fairly stressed about it for the last few weeks; not constantly, but every so often a wave of it would wash over me. What if, what if not, etc etc, the usual torture we put ourselves through. Tonight's practice reassured me though. Twelve different voices, eh, it'll be quite something, I think.

In other news, today, I have been mostly laughing at this;

http://clamnuts.com/the-joe-duffy-soundboard/397

A few words about words

Words in music - yea or nay? Well, that's a stupid question, especially if you take into account the spectrum between Stravinsky and wee djs to Elliott Smith and any Anticon nerdy wordy hiphop. In general (yoiks!, a gross generalisation!), I could do without it in most dance music. Another horror movie sample/filthy durrrty girl talking about cunnilingus/70s cartoon sample/posh English guy talking about drugs. SNORE.

Although a lot of the music I listen to is free of The Word, I'm big into the words myself. I cut my musical teeth singing in a kiddies' choir, and later writing lyrics and supplying vocals for Ed. And there's all those "My best friend is Rog, He is a black dog" poems from eeehhh last year. The songs on the EP are just that; songs. I take a lot of care with my lyrics, and thus far at least, they're hugely important, so I decided to include them in the sleeve. Writing them out was kinda cool, laying them out Just So on the page. None of this old hat "left to right" nonsense.

I put them on MySpace, but it moved everything all over the shop. Aye aye, so many problems! They'll look pretty nice in that sexy sleeve though.