The Lunacy Board - 3 Albums in 3 Days

This is the news I've been waiting to announce - it's a big undertaking, so we wanted to make sure it would all come together and so far everything is going to plan. As you know, there has been a flurry of recording activity for The Lunacy Board's first album - plenty of details here in posts over the last few weeks, but what hasn't been mentioned is that the soundtrack material for the Stockholm film is also completed, having been recorded alongside the main Board album. It made some sort of sense to release these together, so why not make it a trio of substantially different, yet complementary albums?

Yes, we're releasing three full albums in three days.

Eponymous Debut

The first album will be released on the 13th of July 2008. This is the one with all the songs, including a couple that have been available to download from www.lunacyboard.com for a while now. It has unexpectedly turned out to be a concept album, or at least to have an underlying theme. Full details are available here, including the ability to pre-order a copy now to be amongst the first to hear it.

Difficult Second

The second album will be released on the 14th of July 2008. It will be part of the 'Album-a-Day' project, being written, recorded and published within a 24 hour period immediately following the release of the first album. Sounds like a suitably daft thing to do, but the idea is to open up the improvisational and collaborational nature of the Board so that anybody watching the live webcast can contribute an idea, as well as keeping us well-and-truly on our toes for the day. I can't describe what will be on it, as it will all be inspired on the day, but you're welcome to be a part of it!

No risk with this one - not only will you be able to hear it being constructed, but it will also be available as a free download at the end of the 24 hours. If you really want it on CD, we're doing a very limited run of signed, numbered copies for anybody who pre-orders both the other albums. Further details are available here.

Stockholm

Our instrumental soundtrack album will be released on 15th of July 2008. Featuring almost entirely improvised pieces recorded over the lifespan of the band, which form the soundtrack to the forthcoming animated film "Stockholm", this album travels from rhythm-led rock numbers via jazzy interludes to sinister ambient soundscapes. Full details, pre-order information and downloadable samples are available here.

It's been hard work and a lot of fun getting this all together, so get your pre-orders in and put the 13th/14th of July in your diaries to join us at the webcast!

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Tags: The Lunacy Board, Quintilis, Eponymous, Debut, Difficult, Second, Stockholm, pre-order, webcast

Collaborators!

Over two years ago I mentioned a re-mix that I had completed, but no more was said. Unfortunately the album it was destined for, a special re-mix version of Ninki V's album "We Can Fly", is currently on-hold, so the song, called "Count the hours, Fix the Wings", will appear on our debut album.

The song is based on Ninki V's original solo melodica piece, which has been warped and extended before adding several layers of theremin, guitar, mandolin and vocals. I have now also re-recorded the vocals and added some de Florette drums through the process of xenochrony, and so we now have another Lunacy Board track to add to the growing collection.

Ninki V's style is certainly as eclectic as our own - she composes for a Wakemanesque collection of Casio keyboards, theremin, flute and melodica, whilst her stage show includes playing the theremin with her hair and extensive use of puppetry. Jump over to her website for some samples.

In a similar vein we're pleased to be including our first foray into xenochrony on the album. "Xenochronous Requiem For A Head Laying In A Field In Butler" was based on a bass solo by Board collaborator Doug Boucher and was originally destined for the "Stockholm" soundtrack album.

Since the track fits within the style of the first album so well, and has already been regularly featured on Spellbound Radio, it has been placed where it belongs. Doug has been pretty busy writing new material for his solo shows lately, so a trip to his Myspace page is worth a regular visit as he swaps new material in and out on a regular basis.

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Tags: The Lunacy Board, Quintilis, Ninki V, count, hours, fix, wings, xenochrony, requiem, Doug Boucher, Stockholm, bass

The Album's in Sight

We had a pretty long, and fairly intense, recording session today, getting drums, bass and lead vocals completed for all the remaining album tracks. Since we've done most of these in practices for over a year now it was not a case of learning things anew, but rather laying down the definitive takes. After a slightly creaky start we got well under way, with Sean adjusting to playing along with a click track on some songs - not something we've ever done before, but a necessary evil of doing the initial base tracks that I've been working on over the last couple of months.

We got some good recordings for the three 'big numbers'; "Performance Evolution" where we managed to navigate through several time signature changes and vocal styles, "Fairytale Propaganda" which we've tended to play too fast in the past, but settled on a more laid back tempo today, with a long building introduction partly inspired by Pink Floyd's "Shine on you Crazy Diamond" and the new song "Freeman" which came together quite naturally and took on a new life with bass and drums.

The two atmospheric spoken-work songs, "PKD Dum Dum" and "The Bell Curve" had a few layers of percussion and vocals added, which I'll be editing down to fit into the style of the music. "The Parallel Curve" also started life as a slow spoken-word thing, but we've tried a number of approaches to it over the last year without success. Today Sean started singing the lyrics at a much faster tempo and it fit well, so we quickly pulled together a rhythm part for him to sing along with and we finally had a recording of the song that actually works.

With all that put together, I have some further overdubs to add, then work can begin on mixing, so I'll probably not be reporting back on here until I have some completed songs to comment on (i.e. Hype!)

There will also be some lead-up PR work being done over the next few weeks to let people know what's coming from The Board, including the cover for the album, which is now complete and agreed and the ability to pre-order the album with a special incentive!

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Tags: The Lunacy Board, Quintilis, songs, Freeman, parallel, curve, PKD, Pink Floyd, Crazy Diamond, bell, curve, recording

Winning the Smile

I've just finished off the first of the three songs that have been worked on for the last week or so, 'The Winning Smile'. I ended up taking out all the midi tracks and keeping everything analogue - vocals, guitar, ukulele and the Crumar Performer string section - it sounds totally different to the first attempt.

Then, after posting this and looking through the lyrics to the song it dawned on me that I had missed a whole section out, which explained why the song had ended up about a minute shorter than I had expected.

Currently busy with the artwork for the new album...

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Tags: Lunacy Board, songs, winning, smile, crumar, performer, ukulele

Lick of Paint

In preparation for finally getting this album out, I've given The Lunacy Board website a bit of a makeover. It's not quite as haphazard as it once was, and should be a bit easier to find your way about.

No update on finished base tracks, as I ended up working on three at once, two of which are our longest songs, so are taking a while. The other day I spent a lot of time on the introduction to 'Fairytale Propaganda', which builds up gradually from a quiet and gentle start to a full-blown rocker. When I returned to work on it at the weekend I realised that it was just too ornate and over-orchestrated, so it will need to be stripped back a fair bit.

'The Winning Smile' also had to be changed, as I had set it up with a simple piano backing, but it just didn't sound as good as it had done previously, so it now has a gentle guitar backing to start it off, but is still in the early phase of construction, so will also be getting some bass and strings.

'Performance Evolution' is our big concept number in about five sections which vary in style from ethereal dream-like harps and strings via neanderthal punk waltz and sugary pop to aggressive guitar serialism. Needless to say, this is taking a while to come together, though all the basics are there - it's really only needing drums, vocals and lead guitar parts added. More on this when it's done.

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Tags: The Lunacy Board, Quintilis, Fairytale, Propaganda, Winning, Smile, Performance, Evolution, Evaluation, website, design