I don't think I've ever worked so long on an album until this one came along. It's taken one year for me write the songs for the album, one year to get from writing the songs to recording them. It will also probably take another year for the album to come out. These things take time, but I'm hoping it will all be worth it in the end.
I wrote the majority of the songs on the album whilst living in Berlin last year. It was the first time I demoed and constructed all the instrumentation for each song without input from a band. After I had demoed the album, I realised the recording process for this was going to be completely different than the last three albums (which had mostly been written with a band in mind and arranged in rehearsals with my then band).
At times, I wondered if I would even need to work with a band for this recording. But after a while, I realised a lot of the songs had an energy that could only be delivered by a band on record. And after living in pretty much isolation for eight months in Berlin, I kind of missed seeing people and the idea of coming back home to Melbourne and starting a new band seemed really exciting.
So in the beginning of this year I put together a new lineup, with Andrew Keese remaining on guitar. Giles Simon from Lowtide is playing bass. Hugo Cran (The Devastations, The Cambodian Space Project, Mick Harvey) is playing drums.
We've been working really hard on the new songs since the start of June and have come a long way since then. I can't believe in just three weeks, we'll be hitting record!
I'm going to try to keep a record of the recording process if anyone is interested in checking it out. If you're unaware, my instagram account is here which I'll be updating with photos during the recording process.
Until next time, happy travels.
xx
Amaya
First day of recording at Phaedra Studios. From left to right Andrew Keese, Giles Fielke and Hugo Cran.