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:
“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)
“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)
“Write while the heat is in you.... The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)