Recording
Collaborating again with producer Chris Thomas, Procol Harum the band recorded the album at George Martin's Air London Studios in London. According to singer/songwriter/piano player and band leader Gary Brooker the album was recorded in reaction to the two preceding albums which used extensive orchestration. Brooker stated "We made the live album with an orchestra. We'd then taken the orchestra into the studio for 'Grand Hotel'...we'd had enough of orchestras".
This back to basics approach worked well given that there were regular power cuts during the power struggle between Edward Heath's government and the UK unions. The band used an emergency generator during the blackouts which forced three-day working weeks during the so-called "winter of discontent of 1973–74. New member Alan Cartwright joined on bass freeing up bass player/organist to devote himself full time to organ which returned to a prominent role in the band's sound.
The album features the song "Butterfly Boys" written about the founders of the band's record label at the time Chrysalis. The band were unhappy with the terms of their contract and expressed that frustration in song.
Read more about this topic: Exotic Birds And Fruit
Famous quotes containing the word recording:
“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)
“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)
“I didn’t have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from the celestial recording room. Weary, I would beg for a break, an intermission, time enough, let’s say, to go to the toilet or take a breath of fresh air on the balcony. Nothing doing!”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)