Acing the Bass!

30th Aug 2020

Our bassist Simon turned up to session 9 tonight to lay down some stunningly groovy, creative basslines with a brand new (to him) Status Shark Bass.

His grooves on two of these tracks in particular are just essential, we wouldn’t want any other approach than Simon’s.

Awesome work!

For the love of Bass

Working out some bass lines for these
songs back in Summer (see insta post below)

At the time of writing, two songs on which I play bass, yes bass! ..are due out tomorrow, or if you are reading this on or after Valentine's Day 2020, you can enjoy them right now (see videos below!).

Tim Lee is a wonderfully talented songwriter of moving, heartfelt music who I've had the pleasure of sharing stages and recording studios with many times. He knew that I was really getting into bass playing and was kind enough to offer me the chance to perform bass guitar on his to-be-released album 'Tulpa'. 

Back in mid-summer; myself, fellow bassist (and another close collaborator) Rob who is also playing on the album (and, I understand,  made the video for 'Love is Easy', below) joined Tim and producer Glyn from Collossus Productions who are releasing the whole thing, for a recording session which I blogged about here.



In a sense, these songs represent my bass debut, so it's an exciting moment for me, though in reality , I have also recorded a solo album of songs in which bass features very heavily some two summers ago (though this is now on the release back burner for a number of reasons, not least because of the new recording project with The Blue Yellows which is now underway). In fact, so excited have I been about my new favourite toy, the bass guitar, that many of the songs which will be on my next solo album have been written on bass, and are very bass-orientated in terms of groove and rhythm. On the experimental ‘Raflessia Dreams’ I ‘played bass’ on the lower strings of a standard guitar, or did a vocal bass thing, and then EQed it. It seems almost impossible to pick the bass up without coming up without coming up with new grooves. Maybe I'll even get to play bass live some day, who knows?

Anyway, enjoy these two great tracks!

Hatching a baseline.

Today I’ve been involved in bass-playing capacity to do some tracking on Tim Lee’s next album, along with partner in musical crimes, Rob. Top producer in these parts Glyn Sutton of Colossus Productions.
The day started unusually with a 2nd brood of chicks requiring some help to get off the bow of my boat and into the canal with mum (where 2 of them has already made it). Thankfully this proved easy, and the recording session that followed proved just as smooth, unflappable, without too many quacks.
I know Tim likes a quick turnaround from recording to release, so I imagine this will be out in a matter of months.
Should be good, some great songs on there!

Rob (left) and myself.