Recording
Recording sessions for the album started in June 1996 at Mayfair studios in London. After the initial sessions, the band left to record the rest of the album in Reykjavik, Iceland, away from the Britpop scene. It was in Iceland that the vocals to "Strange News From A Distant Star", "Essex Dogs", "Beetlebum", and "On Your Own" were recorded. "We just recorded some vocals there," Albarn revealed in an Addicted To Noise interview. "I have a house there and it's the perfect place to write because of the light . Not good during the summer because it's sunshine all the time, 24 hours a day."
Apart from a change in musical style, the band changed the way they recorded. "It was the first time we sort of jammed," Coxon revealed. "We've never really jammed before. We've been quite white-coaty, overall about recording, like in a laboratory. Yeah, we did actually feel our way through just playing whatever came to our minds and editing, which was really exciting." "We just played together for two weeks in a way we hadn’t done since 1991," Dave recalls. "We wanted to purify the sound, to not have anything there not played by us. We reasoned that if we made small changes at the input end, we could effect large changes in the output." According to producer Stephen Street, "Blur had decided that commercial pressures and writing hit singles wasn't going to be the main consideration any more. The mood in the studio was very different to when I'd first worked with them." "In the studio, once we got past those first few days, where I felt everyone was treading on eggshells, there was a great atmosphere. I think it was because they didn't want to be competing with anyone on this record, they wanted to make a record that would help keep the band together." Street had acquired a new piece of hardware, described as "muso-ish to talk about but really useful" which enabled him to sample loops and otherwise cut-and-paste entire sections of the band’s jam sessions.
Read more about this topic: Blur (Blur album)
Famous quotes containing the word recording:
“He shall not die, by G—, cried my uncle Toby.
MThe ACCUSING SPIRIT which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, blush’d as he gave it in;—and the RECORDING ANGEL as he wrote it down, dropp’d a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Self-expression is not enough; experiment is not enough; the recording of special moments or cases is not enough. All of the arts have broken faith or lost connection with their origin and function. They have ceased to be concerned with the legitimate and permanent material of art.”
—Jane Heap (c. 1880–1964)
“Too many photographers try too hard. They try to lift photography into the realm of Art, because they have an inferiority complex about their Craft. You and I would see more interesting photography if they would stop worrying, and instead, apply horse-sense to the problem of recording the look and feel of their own era.”
—Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870–1942)