Hi Everyone,

Sorry for extended radio silence recently, I suddenly realised that I also had a life to run… Yikes!!!

Back now, and so wanted to give you all an update as to what has been happening since we last spoke.

I have been working on Believe with Steve Zodiac and he has been most helpful and constructive about production focus and ‘feel’ for the track. It’s so easy once we become accustomed to using home recording programmes on our computers to lose sight of the central honest focus of a song and it’s message, as we try to go for a particular ‘production effect’ or ‘genre’ with in Logic, Garageband et al.

A wise experienced head like Steve’s is invaluable in preventing this ‘over-produced’ anomaly that can often blight good songs and their clear message. He was keen to keep the song with an acoustic rhythm guitar underneath his rockier lead line, something which the Rolling Stones do very effectively on Brown Sugar. In my attempt to produce something that wouldn’t be out of place in a stadium, I might’ve stopped thinking in terms of my acoustic guitar guide track as being essential, but as he rightly pointed out, it was this and the vocal performance that gave the song it’s clarity and heart. Thanks Steve. Thanks also to fellow Fromee Pierre Shepard for putting bass on the demo track.

Reid Anderson is arriving in Frome tomorrow to work on a couple of songs. I wanted to explore vocal possibilities for 1000 Miles Away with him, as well as looking at Love In A Songand Don’t Give Up. I think that we have some really great unique voices available to us for this album, and so it would be folly not to use them fully to focus the vocal narrative of the songs as centrepieces.

Somebody asked me recently to describe what I thought the finished album would sound like and I had to say that didn’t know exactly, or whether it would be wise to predict too much detail at this stage, as these things need a certain amount of leeway to allow for creative synergy. But what I do know is that there will be moments when the listener will be put in mind of some memorable vocal albums, and other times when there will be reflections of traditional rock, pop, soul and blues vibes to name but a few, though all hopefully realised in a way that makes a satisfyingly and contemporary homage to all of the above.

Jesse and Steph have taken on the challenge of re-realising A Heartbeat Away. I can’t wait to hear what they are going to do with it as I have to admit, I’ve never thought about additional possibilities for this formerly recorded song. Exciting.

All of you should by now have been contacted by Kickstarter as part of the automatic process of collecting pledged funds. Thank you all once again for being so supportive and brilliant throughout the recent weeks. I know it’s in danger of becoming an overused phrase but really, we couldn’t have done it without you all.

I have downloaded all your backer reports from Kickstarter and so know who is entitled to what with regards to rewards. I think I may have mentioned in a recent update that I would try to make myself available to anyone who happened to be in Liverpool for the week of recording but have since been reminded of my duties that week, and in particular, how I will obviously need to be on call 12 hours a day in the studio, so I apologise for letting my enthusiasm to accommodate you all run away with my pragmatism if I gave an unrealistic sense of my availability that week. I will of course be available to all those whose reward entitles them to visit the studio, and will honestly do my best to  say hello at least to everyone else.

Right, I’m off to a screening of our beautiful film in Sussex. I’ll let you know how it goes in my next album update.

Oh yes, before I forget, Team PM member Dodo had a fabulous idea to keep an online Team PM Scrapbook. Any volunteers for overseeing this? If you’re interested, drop me a line and we can discuss best practice and ways to collate any team member images, memories, writings etc. in one place so that everyone can share their experiences with each other as we continue on our collective path to original artistic expressions. Isn’t that a lovely idea! Thanks Dodo!

Very soon…

Love and harmony,

Mark xxx