This album was a treat to be a part of. It begin 13 years before I got involved. I’ll let Eddy tell the story:
“In 2003 my father died as I was traveling sacred pre-Christian sites in Ireland. Over the trip I wrote an album’s worth of songs dealing with loss, impermanence and grief. Started putting the album together and tracking in early 2004 then experienced a severe breakdown, and scrapped the project.
On Sunday, June 4th,2017, 14 years later, after losing both my brother Michael and my dear friend and longtime musical partner Brad Clarke earlier this year, I recorded the whole thing in one epic session; 13 songs altogether; 10 originals plus covers by my dearly missed friend Van Lawton, The Cure and PJ Harvey.”
Needless to say, this record has ghosts. We tracked the record in one day at The Halo Studios in Maine. We got Eddy’s guitar and vocal takes in about four hours, then spent another three or four recording tin whistle and backing vocals. There were a lot of room mics on this album, pretty much all the overdubs (whistle, backing vocals) were recording with ribbon room mics, where I had the performer stand in a different spot of the room for each overdub. For multiple takes, it sounds like a room full of musicians playing when you add them all together.
For the technically minded, this is the first album I’ve ever mixed using the Harrison Mixbus 32C DAW. This is a great mixing platform based on the open-source Ardour DAW, but with Harrison’s emulation of their famous 32C analog console bootstrapped on to it. I really like the workflow, and especially the sound, in mixing this way. I definitely plan to continue using Mixbus for mixing.