THE MAKING OF TIME TO REMEMBER (CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO TRACKS AND FOR FREE DOWNLOADS)

By the end of the 'Different Game' project I had finally got the home studio I needed so I set about recording the demos for what would become 'Time to Remember'. These were completed in the middle of 2004 and then nothing much happened for a while.

Nothing much in a recording sense anyway. My personal life was dramatically altered, which tale will undoubtedly be told in future songs.

Some recording had taken place earlier with my collaborator Matt Exelby at his studio (The Foundry) but the majority of the instrument tracks were recorded at BM's with engineer Ben Morgan during February of 2005.

There was then another significant gap as I spent the summer in California.

The live drums were done at Troubador during September and most of the vocals at BM's around the same time.
Mixing remixing and mastering at The Foundry took until January 2006.

The interesting thing, given that we had worked so long and hard learning sampling techniques,was that the number of musicians involved returned to pre computer levels. A total of 7 on this record (as opposed to 2 on Different Game).

I am proud of the fact that it is really hard to distinguish between the live player and the sample on this work although I must add that without the live performance the sampled one would suffer. Long live musicians !

THE SONGS

1998
Events in 1998 conspired to give me and my family some black days but behind the clouds there was always the sun.
Of all the tracks on the album this one stays closest to the demo.

Love Fades Away
A bit of a rock'n'roll thumper this is the first of 3 songs featuring Pip Harbon on drums. Lyrically a line is drawn through my third and probably last marriage.

Forever
Gone east again. A small tribute to George Harrison who's work and attitude I greatly admired.

Plymouth Road
There's a big city about 60 miles from where I live and I used to drive up and down that road a lot in my bass playing, gigging days. This song was inspired by a drive back home from there when I realized that every turn and every junction held some kind of memory for me.

One Last Time
An anti-monarchial, anti star system rant. This features Pip Harbon on drums, Tony King on trumpet and Coralie Rowbotham on cello.

Winter
As I sit here shivering, at the end of January, I laugh at this romanticizing of the dark season but the underlying message is valid. Matt Exelby provides the guitars.

Small Town Boys
If you think this song is about you it ain 't. If a thought ever troubles your mind it's not you I'm attacking here. An end of the pier show band supports the rant. Matt on wooden frogs and kazoos, me on ukulele. Laugh !

Time To Remember
The title track is a white reggae bash under a lyric that wonders what might have been. Pip Harbon plays drums here which will be a surprise to him 'cos it was rock and roll when he recorded it !

Don't Be Afraid
As previously explained in this series, there is always one track that proves the most difficult, often for no apparent reason. This lullaby for my 2nd grandchild ( ! ) was the offender on this album. It all seemed so simple when I wrote it !

A Perfect Life
This song started life after a conversation with my daughter and somewhere along the line became an epic. String arrangement by Matt Exelby.

THE MUSICIANS

TECHNICAL

No tape was harmed during this production, all recording was made to computers.
Cubase SX and a wide variety of other software were the weapons of choice.
It is a sign of the slowing down of the computer explosion that the same software was easily used throughout the project and in three different studios.

This may explain why this record took only two and a half years as opposed to my usual four and why these technical notes are so mercifully short.

Produced by Matt Exelby

Engineered by Ben Morgan

Orchestral Arrangement on ‘A Perfect Life’ by Matt Exelby

Artwork & Photo by arteden48