Week 4 - Ghost Nation

The final week of our intensive was really fun. We were pretty organised with what we were doing so coming in to mix our song was exciting. We didn't have any loose ends we needed to clean up on the day which was relieving. There were some organ parts we ended up tracking on the day just because we had spoken about adding them but hadn't got around to it. So while we were on lunch I played with parts for the choruses that ended up sounding good. The only thing that was hard about the process is you have four creative individuals hearing different things in their heads so trying to find a middle ground for everyone while making sure it's best for the song can be difficult. But I felt we navigated it pretty well.

I think that if we'd taken more time with the mixing stage it would not have ended up too much further from where it is now. If anything we could have risked damaging the song. Thinking on it now we might have played with the vocal a little bit more but it would have likely just involved adding effects to things and just making strange noises. We did speak about the fact that it can often be hard to tell when enough is enough with mixing a track but I think a huge positive with this project was the 5pm deadline. We had to work quickly and efficiently and it also meant that we didn't fuck about with things that weren't essential the song. Everything that needed to be done got done and then only right at the end was there some time for fun.

This is a double edged sword though because obviously you want to allow time to do the creative fun things in the mixing stage. That said it's important to know before hand what fun creative stuff you want to do rather than just making shit up on the fly. Having a clear goal and a clear plan are really important.

So this week I have been listening to a heap of old Australian and Kiwi music from the early 80's. I have a real soft spot for old Australian music from that period. Bands from back then spent time in Europe and the UK trying to "make it" and most ended up back in Australia without having succeeded. They pinched heaps of influence from what was going on there though. As a result there's this period of music from Australia that is incredibly unique and interesting. There are these bands that introduced synths and sampling to Australia and kind of wanted to be Krautrock bands but just ended up being the weird Australian Pub/Euro hybrids. Some of Australia's best song writers were hitting their stride during this period too. Mondo Rock, Ice House, Australian Crawl, Mi-Sex (NZ), Split Enz (NZ) and Mental As Anything and heaps of other bands represent a pretty under appreciated era of Australian music. Mostly because of the garbage haircuts and the fact that a lot of people my age probably remember their very uncool parents playing these bands in the car. Heads up, Ghost Nation was a cool record in 1989 and that drum and bass intro is one of the best openings to a record ever.