Catching Fire

Live instruments trying to emulate electronic ones can be rather disconcerting.

However, that's our "Catch a Fire" in a nutshell. On this one, we're going for it like it's the '80's and everyone's in Depeche Mode - although I think Martin Gore rarely rammed four overlapping overdrives in one guitar signal chain.

Technology makes things easy

Be as it may, writing this song was a nice little moment for us as a band; it was the first one Anu ever contributed to. When you're bringing in a new band member, you really never know what you got until you start writing together. So I was walking on eggshells for a spell on this first one, especially since (once again) I didn't bring much of a song to work on. Just a bassline and an extremely frail outline for a vocal line, along with my trademark delusions of grandeur.

After much manic gesturing, spastic signalling, humming, strumming and scatting, I thought I'd conveyed the basic idea of this song-to-be to my frightened bandmates reasonably well. Anu got it right away; she immediately came up with the key piano melody for the chorus, and Jaakko & Pekka locked in then and there. In less than a hour the song was done. To this day it's one of our quickest writes. Welcome aboard, pretty synth lady!

I wish recording the song had been as easy. Laying down the instruments was fairly straightforward, but vocally I had this elusive vision to try to make the leads sound like vocorded or pitched. Like, without actually using a vocorder or a pitcher. Little genius me.

As expected, two days later I find myself slumped next to the mic, cursing myself, my pipes and this song to the ninth layer of Dante's inferno.

In the end, we settled for something a bit less '80's disco, although I have to say we're definitely getting a rematch this ditty. In the meantime, I'm getting some semblance of peace and comfort by repeating in my head "it's only a demo...it's only a demo...demoes can afford not being perfect…there is no suck...suck does not exist in this dojo..."

Anyway, when we get there, the album version will rule. Round two is going to be a bitch - 'cause then we might actually use some 'real' electronic instruments.

You see, Pekka's gotten himself some drum pads for Xbox, and we're hooking them up to his kit!

Not kidding. Alan Moulder eat your heart out.

~Markus

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