During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, Yelly and I (Yelly is my beautiful Dutch wife) had just moved back to the UK from Prague where we had lived for seven and a half years. We found ourselves in a noisy, rented flat next to a busy main road—and I mean noisy: 1,500 trucks and cars an hour driving yards away from my bedroom/study—while we were waiting to move into a new-build property, which, because of COVID, was not built yet. To be honest (as for many of us) it was a depressing 18 months and (like many of us) I began to dream of new projects once all the COVID nonsense was over. I began to think about recording a new album, revisiting—and in many cases rewriting—some of my songs (having bought some life-saving, noise-cancelling headphones).
additional vocals
Having at long last moved into our new house and installed studio monitors in my home studio (I called it ‘Britannia Studio’ on the album sleeve notes as we live in Britannia Road) I realised that it was a great recording space, particularly for acoustic guitars and vocals. So I began track-laying and sketching out the songs, enlisting the help of my old friend Martin Neil, a phenomenal percussion player (check out the video below) whose playing (and encouragement) was inspirational. Such great grooves!
A year or so later I contacted my Czech friend and musical partner, composer Daniel Kyzlink (we had worked for five years on The Rock Mass together), and he kindly agreed to help with the bass and string arrangements and—in the end—in the recording and mixing of the album. Without the help of these two extraordinary musicians I’m not sure Good would exist.
For a year or so, Martin and I were bouncing files between each other (he was working in Wales) soon to be joined by Dan as we worked remotely on pre-production ideas. Guitars, percussion, and vocals were recorded in the UK, then we had an intensive recording week in Brno, Czech Republic in the wonderful Reset Studio, working with the very talented Roman Kašník. (I am especially grateful to Dan and Roman because just before the recording and mastering sessions I contracted a virus which left me deaf in my left ear. Not great when you’re trying to mix and master an album! I had to rely on Roman’s and Dan’s ears. (Probably a good thing as I suspect their ears are much better than mine on a good day!)
As I mention on the album credits, I am grateful to all the musicians who contributed. Here in the UK I was joined by the phenomenal vocalist Jules Rendell. Not having worked together for a number of years it was great to reconnect with her—and her great voice! Czech musicians included Peter Korman (double bass), Petr Sládek (bass guitar), Zdeněk Svozil (violin) and Alžběta Poukarová Rolečková (‘cello), Petr Supler (drums on Let There Be Light), and my old friend, Ondřej Malina (electric guitar on Let There Be Light). Such great players! And finally, I am particularly grateful to Pavol Hoďa whose soprano saxophone playing is, in my view, up there with Branford Marsalis. His contribution to the meditative ‘Your Name’ takes it to another level. Thanks Pavol!
