Crows, Rooks and Ravens - the songs

Crows, Rooks and Ravens

A year in the making, but it’s finally here. Crows, Rooks and Ravens is the album I co-wrote with singer-songwriter Andi Neate, released 19th March 2009. We started work on it in January 2008, and wrote/recorded around 25 songs, of which 10 appear on the album. It was a fascinating process, because Andi was in Edinburgh and I was in Bath, so we wrote all the lyrics online using Google docs, meaning we could update a lyric file separately or simultaneously. Inevitably it’s been a challenging journey, not least because Andi has never collaborated on a whole album before, and I have never written ‘remotely’ like this, but we both got a lot from it, and we’re proud of the result, and I think there are some finely crafted songs on there (but I would say that, wouldn’t I?!). The recording sessions took place in Bath and Edinburgh, with hard drives and musicians traversing Hadrian’s Wall by Parcel Force almost every week.

Burnsong 2007 - BBC Glasgow

Andi and I started working together during the Burnsong project in November 2007 (see previous posts on the Vox blog) and decided to write and produce the album together a few weeks later. The demo process was as follows;

• Initial MP3 vocal/guitar idea or lyric fragment emailed
• MP3s backwards and forwards for a few iterations
• Lyric sheet developed as a Google doc and edited throughout
• I make a backing track and email MP3 to Andi
• Andi sings a vocal straight to MP3 recorder, with the backing track in her headphones
• Andi emails me this dry vocal MP3
• I sync it up with the original backing track and create a demo, adding my own BVs and other instruments (and never pitch correcting - Andi is a fine singer and always does another take rather than let me ‘go digital’ on the vocal!)
• We repeat this process a few times until we’re both happy with the demo, then we agree via email that the song is complete, and move on to the next one.

Sometimes we had three or four songs on the go simultaneously, which made things easier if a song wasn’t working, or we wanted to put one on the back burner for a while.

Here’s a video we shot during (a break in) the Bath studios sessions – an acoustic version of our song ‘Come Back Home’.

Andi Neate - Come Back Home

Comments

[Sara Spade]

[this is good] Hey Joe, Great to hear what you've been getting up to.   I enjoyed the video for 'come back home' (nice song) and watching Chris bouncing around on his control central chair in the background (Lol)!   That is Chris right?  Anyway I've been writing loads since the CASH project last summer and found the experience of learning with you and the others utterly inspirational.   Been working on some upbeat 'pop' songs!   Going on tour in my camper van in the summer so could do with some gigs in Bath (any suggestions)?   Best wishes and hope to bump into you some time.  Sara. x

[Joe Bennett]

Hey Sara,

Great to hear from you - and thanks for the kind comments about the song and the workshop too! There are lots of great venues in Bath. For a solo acoustic set, I'd suggest you start with the Porter, or possibly Moles - for either, see http://www.moles.co.uk