Cities Of Foam

I’m about a year too late on this one I think, but ever since I saw the video on youtube, I’ve wanted to be able to link it from somewhere.

A bunch of crazy Swedes from ‘Barcelona’, and singing a song that’s somewere between a football chant a choir and the Beatles. I still like listening to it and I’ve heard it many times.

I think they were unsigned when they posted on youtube, but now seem to have a very flashy website (great colour scheme), but still the best place to hear them and watch the video, is on their MySpace page.

So we decided on ‘Morning Falls’ - it will make sense if you listen to the lyrics of the track… But still haven’t posted it up on myspace, as not we’re 100% on the mix. But as Pete Tong would say, ‘just like Paddington Bear, we’re on the case’ and getting some opinions from a few more people.

Thanks Nic for forwarding this video. Best thing online all day. Although I think the soundtrack’s been doctored - he’s faking it, I’ve never head a ‘rewind’ like that from vocal chords…

“Definitely got rhythm. Fantastic.”

“Its worth noting that some people like putting fish into the recipe at this stage, sometimes salmon, sometimes tuna. Don’t do it.”

We managed to get a mix down last night. Really pleased with the new lines that Nia’s written - adds another dimension to the track - you think you’ve heard it all and then these sublime voices creep in!

I’m not 100% on the mix, I’ve been listening to it against some of Air’s recordings. This is always a bit depressing, but you have to remember that they’ve spent thousands on the best studios and engineers in the World.

I’m hoping to get hold of Neil Davidge who mixes Massive Attack’s stuff to see if he’d be up for advising on the mix. Bit of a long shot, and he’s probably completely booked up with Massive Attack, but worth a shot.

We were hoping to get the track up on myspace tonight, but we couldn’t agree on a name. Its working title has been Open Wide, but we think it’s a bit too dental. So we’ve been brain storming other ideas, but without success.

Shortlist so far: Morning Falls, Red Spring, Light on Light, Morning Light, Broken Silence, Shine On, Morning Eyes. We spend a lot of time thinking about song titles. They used to be very random, as lots of our stuff was instrumental, but now there are more lyrics you can’t just pluck something out the air - it needs to relate to the feel of the song I think.

So hope to put the new song up on myspace tomorrow. I wonder if anyone will notice. I think you can send a message to your myspace friends. But lots of those are just other bands trying to plug their own music.

I set our myspace to stop receiving friend requests from bands. This might sound a bit up-tight, but we were getting so many, lots from random bands, and it seemed like, what’s the point, ultimate every band on myspace is friends with every other band, which means your friends list is pointless.

Which reminds me I want to add Just Music to our friends list. It’s run by a guy called John Benedict, a music lawyer who helped us negotiate our contract with Dorado, he was really helpful and gave us lots of advice. They’ve got some great artists signed up, I particularly like Jon Hopkins’ material.

I gave Todd a quick intro on posting to the blog last night, so he might pop in soon.

Also made the new header for the blog, image is from Glastonbury a couple of years ago. Might be more appropriate if we were called Cities Of Canvas, but I think it’s better than the black background…

Over and out.

Nia and Todd came over today and we had a go at finishing a tune we started over a year ago.

Current working title is Open Wide, but that’s probably going to change. It’s quite folky, with an open tuned guitar part and a very laid back vocal from Nia . We’ve also dropped in some lines parts from my recently acquired Korg MS20, which is lots of fun. Beat is a little bit hip hop / trip hop.

The main part of the tune was finsihed a while back, but we were never happy with the ending. Today I think we nailed it. Nia wrote some lines that repeat and overlap, and we’ve been trying them drenched in reverb. I never thought we’d get the chance to use a cathedral reverb… but this could be the track!

The reverb sounds a bit churchy, but Nia doesn’t.

We now have three new tracks to mix, and a few in pieces still in production. Todd assures me he’ll drop by the blog soon… If anyone starts reading this, we’ll see if Nia’s up for posting every now and then. Check out Nia’s own projects here, she plays live a lot but I’ve yet to have the chance to see her.

Todd’s coming over on Monday and we’re going to have a bash at mixing it, so there may be some new stuff up here very soon.

We have a blog : )