Studio: Second day

The second morning is the morning of the deep snow when Tim walked 4 miles in the snow to get here, Jayson slithered down the last hill and Justin arrived seemingly unperturbed with a bags of North African percussion. Only 4 other people came into Real World that day.
 
Lila got sorted. Reality got a bit stuck. Took takes. Drums got re-worked. Listening back helped me realise I’d never really liked the bass line but suddenly had a new idea. Even as I sang it to Maja, and she learnt it others were saying we needed to move on to the next piece. How long indeed was I willing to invest in an idea that might not work that or even be that important? But sometimes you know you’re right. I persisted Maja got it. Justin listened to it and suggested missing out the 2nd of its 6 notes. Perfect. 
 
Over lunch we had to make a crucial decision. Stick with the original plan and budget and properly finish 3-4 songs in the rest of the time we’d allocated or simply use the time we had to record as much as possible in the Wood Room. We immediately and unanimously chose the latter. Committing ourselves to the concomitant 2-3 extra days of mixing and mastering.
 
So it was that in the afternoon of our last day in the big studio Blue, Samboo and Dronegeese fell sweetly into place. Maja, Jayson and Paul did a judicious sequence of stirring overdubs and where we’d hoped we might get four songs done max suddenly we had the prospect of seven and the chance of a ‘proper’ 40-minute album!

- Steve Lewis