NEWS

BIG LOW new album in the making Even though the French are currently enjoying (among other things..) the very fresh and recent French release of The Junction of the Two Rivers, the CD has been around for a while. Pretty much since Big Lows 2010 tour in Oz, the band has been mucking around with noises, rhythms, bits of text, trying to come up with some new material. Come springtime 2011 the time seemed ripe for some new recordings. Joined by friend and fellow engineer Zlaya Hadjic, the band dragged the whole Smoked Sounds studio plus some borrowed mics and gear over to Studio GAM in The Ardennes, Belgium. Between nice meals, late night campfires and lots of sleep, the bones of some 7 songs were put down. In June Dan and Michiel recorded some basic tracks for another two songs. While in Australia in July, Dan managed to convince bush-diva Lucy Thorne to sing some backing tracks with her in some outback studio near Byron Bay. A new CD is far from ready but its brewing for sure.. 11-08-23

CARL CLEVES - SORROW We met Carl Cleves and his wife Parissa Bouas while touring in Oz last year. There was a definite click. It was decided first that Marc and Michiel play some parts on some of their recordings, and later Smoked Sounds was asked to mix Carls album 'SORROW' which was mostly recorded in Australia, and will hopefully be released later this year. Carl and Parissa have also recently released an album called OUT OF AUSTRALIA with the much revered label Stockfish Records from Germany, and they are working on another one. SORROW is turning out quite different to OUT OF AUSTRALIA, darker, grittier, smokier.. mixing is proceeding slowly but steadily, 11 songs down, a few more to go.. 11-08-22

JEROEN KANT - GOUD OF OP JE BEK GAAN And now.. for something completely different.. we have done some Dutch Pop music! Well not all that much pop. More pop than usual on smoked recordings that's for sure. But it was all tracked live in the big hall of Kytopia, which Colin and his crew very kindly lent us when it looked like the recordings were going to have to be done outside because of a double booking in the other room. Of course we took the whole Smoked Sounds setup including the Mackie 24-8 for monitoring, which looked even more like a toy than usual in front of Kytopia's Trident 80 series console. We saw the room for the first time when we loaded the gear in, and were a trifle worried with the 4 second natural reverberation of the room, in which we had to record a full drumkit, several acoustic and electric guitars, rhodes, bass guitar, and Jeroen singing, all at the same time. But we got to work, built quite an effective vocalbooth using some couches, pallets and blankets that were lying around, put a stack of broadband absorbers around the guitar amps and managed to get a workable sound, without too much spill. After one day of setting up and soundcheck, we recorded for two full days and got all the songs down. (Can't recommend this method of working if you want to live to old age..) Over the next couple of months the right takes were picked, some editing was done to clear up excessive rumble and spill, in some cases some parts were cut down or replaced (not much though) and everything was mixed. It was good fun and we hope the record will help to put Jeroen on the map. 11-08-22

PARNE GADJE - KEFI KEFI After Parne Gadje's previous record, MANGUPI, which was recorded in 2006 through a fireface in 16 bit on a laptop with two ribbon mics and some split signals from the stagemics (and sounds quite ok regarding the fact that it was not recorded with a release in mind) some experiments were done to try and get better sounding live recordings. On the next tour in Germany the band dragged the Smoked Sounds setup around to gigs, and got quite good at setting it up; apart from normal soundcheck and carrying all the gear to the stage, we'd need about 1,5 hours extra to get ready to do the gig and record it all. Ah the memories. Like in the Machinhaus in Berlin where we had to drag all the gear up the stairs as the room is on the first or second floor of the building, no elevator. And back down again after the gig long after midnight. One place where Marc slept in the van to guard it. Not his best night specially considering there was a gunfight on the street at some time. Some great live recordings were made but mostly of songs we had already released. So after all that trouble it was decided to record a specific program in a live setting but without an audience. We hired the local Checkers Club building just outside town, and with help from Marnix van de Poll got everything up and going in a day, then recorded pretty much non stop for a day and a half before we had to take everything out again. Marnix took charge of the control room and did a great job making everyone comfortable with their cans, keeping a log, and just being focussed. After the recordings some of the band spent a lot of time going through the takes, and it soon became apparent that there were some very good takes there. Meanwhile the new modular mixing desk with patchbay was getting ready. Once that was set up, mixing was tremendous fun. Zlaya Hadjic mastered the album and provided the perfect finishing touch.