overseer

Evolution of a Song (or Three)

May 22, 2008 on 3:26 pm | In Overseer, Wreckage | 4 Comments

This is the tale of one instrumental and it’s torturous path to completion on the Wreckage album…

The backing track was pretty much written in one go back in late 1999, it had the horn scratchy verse and big string chorus. I think perhaps this was my first departure from the faster breakbeats to something more slow and epic, it got called ‘Bighorn’. My then manager suggested Andrew Montgomery (ex Geneva) to finish things off. Here’s the result of that collaboration, recorded on my mini-disc in New York, August 2000.

I loved Andrews vocals but wasn’t sure it was appropriate for the track and some months later I tried putting him on top of a weird Dub thing I was working on - hey presto ‘Aquaplane’ as you can hear on the album.

Sometime later while recording some vocals for the album I played Nick Life the still instrumental Bighorn, he loved it and asked me to give him half an hour to come up with something. This is that incredible something…

BTW the chorus melody that Vicky sings was written by studio assistant Nick. Still not quite happy with the results I moved Nicks vocals over to what was to become Doomsday.

So the track remained unfinished for ages, I remember thinking Morrissey would be the perfect fit but alas the man is nigh impossible to persuade. Eventually Kevin Patrick at Columbia suggested new signing Jakk Frost. Jakk was a gent and wrote the track in front of me that became the version of ‘Never’ you hear on the album.

Take a listen to the finished versions of Never, Aquaplane and Doomsday.

And finally here’s the unreleased ‘New York’ mix of Aquaplane….