DESCRIPTION:
Drums: G Vaughan - Bass: Si Hayden: 'Process' Out Now on Cd & Download.

"On the 3rd of June I found myself in the company of Si Hayden for an improvised session at Tom's UT Design at the arches, Coventry. The session was engineered by Mark Saunders and we achieved a great room sound.
I had a pretty clear vision of how I wanted the output from this session to sound but no real idea of how exactly this was going to be achieved. Now it’s complete, it has ended up sounding how I’d imagined.
It was recorded in 5 sessions over 2 hours, with a cup of coffee and a cigarette in between for reflection of the previous session and a chat for inspiration on the next - before pressing the red button.
There were some very interesting unintended consequences of recording in this way, the most noticeable to me and bizarrely - three of the sessions (although really different in feel) came in at around 14 minutes and to within 11 seconds of each other. Even when trying to break the mould our “conditioning” seemed to point to a completion or perceived attention span of around half a side of vinyl.
Over the last 15 - 20 years or so the recording process has evolved hugely, with mobile studios allowing endless options which has led to a tendency of musicians to be subconsciously flippant at the recording stage, as in the back of your mind you know you are able to mould an adequate session/performance into something resembling a finished product at post production.
The power of the studio and capturing the live session cannot be underestimated. To my mind, studio innovators such as George Martin (assisted by Geoff Emerick) were able to capture the essence of the performance, with relatively basic equipment and in the same way that visual CGI can dilute the atmosphere of film (when done crudely) digital manipulation of music can have the same effect in reducing atmosphere.
There is a lot to be said for collecting musicians in a room for any period of time without outside influence (mobile phones) and this is one of the things we have forgotten or seem unable to do.
So to my mind we have ended up, here, with an organic, improvised mix album, full of fast moving, filthy space funk vibes – reminiscent of the "70 minutes of madness" album, pulled together by Coldcut back in the day and incorporates everything that has ever gone into our ears. There is nothing left on the cutting room floor, every second was used with the only editing being the placing of the tracks in an order which seemed to sit together as a pleasing progression.
We chucked a few cameras up for options and as it turns out, I think this allows the actual performance captured here to be the virtual launch of this Album." (G. Vaughan)