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"breathing space" - daniel prendiville

(or "what was I thinking?")

Daniel Prendiville tells the story of this album.

"I had a very naive masterplan for my musical 'career'. I was going to release an album called GOOD RIDDANCE in the early 1990's, and being very conscious of the 'difficult second album' syndrome, my idea was to come up with an experimental album to act as a 'breathing space' between GOOD RIDDANCE and whatever the 'proper' second album would've been. In hindisght, this was a totally bonkers idea, but I was so desparate to get a deal at that time, that I really thought this would've been a good idea. Not an R&B covers album or 'hits from the shows' - no, a mad album of experimental electronica was going to keep my slavering fans satisfied between No.1 albums.

"I only came across a tape of the album recently, and played it, half-expecting it to be much worse than I'd imagined. But it's not. Sure, there's a lot of cheese onboard (some of the tracks have dated quite badly), but other tracks sound very fresh to my poor old jaded ears. I thought I'd revive the album and restore it's role as a 'breathing space' between albums

"WHAT'S FOR LUNCH is a very synth-driven piece of MIDI funk. I had a slight taste for that Eurofunk that was in vogue in the early 80s when groups such as Simple Minds and Spandau Ballet were (briefly) quite good. I always loved the muscular take that the European groups took on funk as against the cologne-scented slick productions coming from the States. I actually wrote lyrics to go with this track, and I have very vague memories of actually recording HOW THE FUNK SHOULD I KNOW?, but thankfully I can't find the tape of the song, so thankfully you've been spared that ordeal at least...

"MIANAMI came about as a result of an experiment where I was messing around in the garage with voices on my old DX100 synth. I came up with this tremolo voice, and just as I had, my elder daughter Amy (four years old at the time) came into the garage and started messing with the keyboard. I liked the results of the 'messing' and decided to develop an instrumental piece. There's a little bit of 'live' mixing going on towards the middle of the track which involved me playing with the volume and reverb settings of the tambourine voice. I like this track a lot, particularly the way the percussion builds up and breaks down. I seem to remember reading an article praising Vince Clarke for the way his drum tracks 'coiled' and 'uncoiled'. I wanted to recreate that effect on this track. And that's the first and last time you'll see a mention of Vince Clarke from me. No offence, Vince...:-)

"CHANT OF THE EVER-CIRCLING FOOD STYLISTS is the demo version of the track that featured on GOOD RIDDANCE and the vocal from the BREATHING SPACE version is used on the GOOD RIDDANCE version because I knew I'd never be able to recreate the vocal improvisation. That caused me severe problems on the GOOD RIDDANCE version, because I'd recorded delay with the vocals and I couldn't get the tempo of the backing track to match that of the vocals. But that's an old story.

"YOU'RE SOME TULIP is one of the first things I recorded on Portastudio. If you don't like noisy electronic experimentation, you might be best advised to FF this track...:-)

"I HATE SURPRISES is my first and last attempt at dub reggae. I love dub reggae, but white guys shouldn't try to copy it, particularly with synths. Still, it was a useful learning exercise for me.

"IMPERFECT TIMING is an example of how MIDI an be used without quantizing. Apart from tidying up my chord shapes, no attempt was made to sync things up nicely. And the live bass playing is probably the longest continuous bassline I've ever recorded. Considering I was playing against a very uneven backing track tempowise, it's a pretty good take. If you can look beyond the concept of the track, the atmosphere created here is rather good, I think. I re-recorded the track with quantizing and a set of lyrics, but thankfully you've been spared the pain of listening to PERFECT TIMING this time out.

"THAT LITTLE THING? is my attempt to recreate a string quartet with synths. The synths are awful, but the arrangement is sound. Imagine it played á la SERGEANT PEPPER and you'll see what I was trying to get at. Just forgive me the synths, OK?

"COCKLESHELL is a real curiosity for anyone who's familiar with my music. You mightn't realise that for a time there I had a bit of a fascination with the evil works of Stock, Aitken and Waterman. While that trio had the sheer affrontry to foist Rick Astley and bleedin' Sonia on the world, they did give us Kylie Minogue (and bizarrely had a hand in the Specials too, by all accounts), so a lot can be forgiven. Actually, it's not the SAW songs that impressed me so much as the backing tracks. There was a kind of languid and studied ease to the tunes that appealed to my MIDI-addled brain - they were just so easy to copy, particularly the drum tracks. I started getting into SAW stuff when I was asked to help a young chap secure a recording contract. He wanted me to put together a backing track for him which he could take into a recording studio and sing a vocal line over. He gave me a cassette of Jason Donovan singing a song called (I think) RSVP and said 'Give me something like that'. And I did. I can't recall exactly whether COCKLESHELL is that backing track. I think I may have done a bit of recycling here. I basically recorded two MIDI tracks - one melodic, the other rhythmic - used them for two different synth voices on the first verse - swapped them around for the second verse and then combined the MIDI tracks for a piano sequence in the last verse. I reallly love this track. I almost wrote lyrics for it, on the subject of emigration (again with the emigration thing), but I didn't follow through with it. Would've made a nice song, I think.

"A SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE (JUST FOR YOU) is my only experiment with backwards recording to date. Well, you've got to give it a go now and then, don't you? The vocals on this track sound like a lobotimsed ogre reading a training manual for car-clampers in Norwegian, yet. I played the track the right way round for the first time in eleven years while re-mastering the track and it's really quite good, surprisingly so. Suffice it to say that I'm a much happier camper nowadays.

"A quick word about the sound quality is necessary. The actual masters for these tracks are long gone. I worked off an umpteenth generation copy, with loads of tape hiss and volume levels very low. I used Adobe Audition for noise reduction, EQ adjustment and normalisation. The tracks cleaned up quite well, but there is a certain loss in sound quality, particularly in the higher frequencies. You'll also hear one or two artefacts related to the noise reduction process - or did I put them in deliberately?

"Would I record this type of album today? Probably not - but then again one should never say 'never', should one?"

What's For Lunch? - Mianami - Chant of the Ever-Circling Food Stylists - You're Some Tulip - I Hate Surprises - Imperfect Timing - That Little Thing? - Cockleshell - A Subliminal Message (Just For You)