my piranha by gingerjamesfair

I wrote this record after a break-up from my long-time girlfriend and whilst unimpressed with the world of professional employment in the ‘media’ industries. This is a very traditional time to pick up a guitar. I was in a band as a teenager but I hadn’t played my guitar for years, so it was a very cathartic experience to play music again.
The expression ‘play’ music is very apt here, because making this record was very much a playful experience. I spent ages at my friend Larry’s house and we got lost in creativity. It was a way of getting over a relationship, a way of expressing frustrations, a way of getting my confidence back.

There was no plan of action, as we had no previous experience of recording an album. I had some rough drafts recorded upon a Tascam 4-track recorder and we quite simply began to tackle songs whenever we felt like it. We sometimes tried to recreate the character of the original recordings (like ‘Penguin Feet’), and sometimes went in completely different directions (like ‘In All Honesty’). The rest was a mixture of Larry and I making it up as we went along, and being joined by his younger sister Bethan for ‘We Both Lost Our Way In The End’.

It sounds strange to admit the influences for this album, because they probably aren’t reflected in the recordings themselves. Lyrically I was inspired by Chris Corner’s work in IAMX, whilst melodically it was probably closer to The Moody Blues. I was also hugely inspired by Blur, especially their album ‘13’ and the track ‘Out Of Time’ from the ‘Think Tank’ album.

I have always preferred ‘roughness’ in my work, the deliberate lack of perfection. I think it sometimes gets confused for laziness, but I genuinely believe that there is a sense of character that gets created when the audience can get an impression of the process that went into making something. I enjoyed the Dogme cinema movement for it’s imperfections and refusal to conform to Hollywood standards, and I think this influenced my musical approach too. I didn’t want the dynamic range of the music to come solely from the traditional drums/bass/guitar combination, so we tried to weave all sorts of sounds into the mix, especially effected vocals. This is most evident in ‘We Both Lost Our Way In The End’ or the pitch-shifted melodica of ‘Released’.

The bonus track ‘Stupid Me’ was originally hidden at the end of the CD, and is taken from the rough draft recordings. We didn’t attempt to re-record it as it had a particular character of its own especially with the E-Bow solos at the end. These were recorded almost entirely by fluke, one of the most evil by-products of creative experimentation. Some times you just can’t repeat it even if you wanted to, especially when drafting onto analogue recorders where the mistakes are transparent and difficult to cut around.

I hope you enjoy this record.

James

Just happy to be making and sharing.

jamesfair.co.uk
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