During the first covid lockdown (late March 2020 in the UK), I found myself with a couple of weeks of free time to complete an album I was co-writing with singer/songwriter Gerry Griffin. I had already managed to ‘shoehorn’ in various creative and performance techniques studied during an undergraduate course at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. That said, there was still much left to to do to finish the record – I decided to put this newfound spare time to good use.
Having already recorded and written much of the backing instrumentation, the final job would be to tidy up audio tracks (vocal takes/edits/tuning, etc.), record any additional instrument parts (some, such as trumpet parts were recorded remotely by other musicians), and complete the final mixes in Logic Pro.
I will post links to some of my academic work – focusing on various ideas used when writing and recording (in lockdown), and, when I find it, a PDF copy of the physical booklet (art photography) that accompanies the recording.
You can learn more about how we made this album in this podcast episode recorded with singer Gerry Griffin:
The finished album – Plan-K: Memory Palace, is available on vinyl (contact me for a copy), and on various digital streaming services: