*It Sounds Like A Christmas Single From 1975
No one outside the band (apart from loved ones) seems to have anything encouraging to say about the album so far. It’s a weird time. This is wholly anachronistic, unfashionable music. It’s a bit of a throwback, really. Think how utterly barmy, Queen were. All that extravagantly arranged music built around ham-fisted, dumb rock n’ roll riffs with debatable lyrical content. You’re not really allowed to be that uncool now. Muse has taken on much of the overblown mantle left by Queen but still miss the point by taking themselves too seriously.
Curiously enough, Major isn’t talking itself up as being in any way relevant or on a par with any other band. They no longer feel as if they are a part of anything. They don’t believe they’re special but they do believe they offer a style of something that has been lost. Which is not to say that it is nostalgia. It’s not archly retro music that Major writes. It’s more that it’s carefully constructed, kinetic rock/pop with a sense of its own exuberance. Supergrass, Madness and Ben Folds Five is company that Major would be happy to see themselves in. “Songs you can sing along to without caring too much about the lyrics whilst getting great playing and arrangements into the bargain. Full bloody-stop”, is how Danny puts it.
Moving On is a song of Simon’s that was earmarked as the album closer long before recording even began. Live, it was nearly a seven-minute epic whilst in the recording Dan comes up with a travelogue, vocal ad-lib that ends up referencing many of the other songs on the album. You can’t really imagine anything else following it. The song’s groove is hopelessly unfashionable: a 12/8 lope that stirs scary memories of ‘Black Velvet’ or ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’. Major are aware of the irony but refuse to play up to it. Instead they put a collective heart on their sleeve and have the balls to really go for it, bringing strings and chimes in on the second verse. Somehow, it manages to remind you of being a kid at Christmas time. In effect it’s music with a cheese and cliché quotient that isn’t cringe-worthy but celebratory. It’s not an easy trick to pull off.
In fact, Major are really a very traditional band playing very traditional-style arrangements. What sets them apart is their willingness to really ramp up the drama available to the individual song. Pick almost any second verse from any song on the album and listen to how much they ‘ante-up’ from the previous verse: the huge mellotron choir on Sunburn; the wonderfully 80’s synth on Alibi; the ‘There is so many’ line on So Ordinary as it ricochets between the speakers from three different singers. It’s almost a dying art to the extent that people aren’t used to it anymore. It sounds too restless and disjointed to some ears when actually all it is is a flamboyant repetition- the same outfit is worn but with a colourful scarf as an accessory.
In the end, it takes a few goes for Simon to be completely happy with the middle-eight to Moving On. Once the dramatic combination of the fuzzy guitar solo playing in unison with the strings matches what he hears in his head he signs off on the final mix. It is three days before Christmas 2007 and on a sunny, Friday afternoon, Simon cracks open the first bottles of his home brew whilst he and Miles listen (for the first time) to the completed album. They listen to it twice just to make sure that it’s not actually a dream and because it sounds even better after the third beer. It’s taken almost three years just to get to the point of being able to spin this piece of plastic for about 50 minutes. There’s still much to do in order to say that it’s a finished product but for now it’s time to just crack another beer and, mercifully, talk about something else for a change.
*”Is it just me or does the whole thing sound faster now?”
Michael Carpenter is a well-respected, local artist/producer/studio-owner in Sydney. When the newly minted line-up of Major recorded two new songs for inclusion on The Bliss Domestic in early 2003, it was Michael they chose as producer. He seemed to understand very intuitively what the band was going for on Shake and All Of My Promises and certainly captured the new sound of the band in his mixes. (He went on to produce the very-hard-to-find political-invective single, Liars in 2004) So, early in 2008, Michael is the first person outside the band’s inner circle to get a copy of the new album with a view to offering an opinion on who would be best to master this disparate, hulking beast.
To Miles’ horror, Carpenter thinks the material sounds fantastic but that the mixes are underdone, sighting a dull and masked vocal sound as the main problem. Having, now, some difficulty in hearing the woods from the trees, Miles seeks a second opinion in the form of trusted friend and uber-experienced, record-producer, Martin White. Martin’s resume is somewhat daunting having pressed ‘record’ for such artists as The Cure, Van Morrisson, Simple Minds and Mental As Anything amongst many others. These days you wouldn’t call Martin a huge fan of guitar pop but it is a quality-of-mix call that is required not a critique. He has some interesting things to say:
“It sounds like it’s supposed to sound. That’s the thing with records. They are what they are: a product of the environment they were recorded in. You can’t say that the early Cure stuff was all that well recorded but people love it. They’re not concerned about how good it sounds technically. You’ve gone for that kind of buried vocal sound. You haven’t gone out to make a hi-fi-sounding record and don’t worry; you’ll barely recognize your record after mastering. If you feel the vocals need a bit of help you just ask the mastering engineer to focus on them a bit. You’ll be surprised at what they can do”.
Feeling somewhat better about things, Miles emails Michael that he can see his point; however, there is no way that Major can afford a remix by a professional and since he has already remixed the whole thing three times himself (and the whole band has signed-off on it) then this is the album that’s going to be released… warts and all. Michael writes back wishing the band luck whilst recommending Rick O’Neill at Turtlerock to handle the mastering.
Then, a few days later, whilst gathering quotes from various mastering suites, Miles gets another email from Michael regarding a proposition. Carpenter is about to begin an apprenticeship in mastering at Turtlerock and wonders if Major can be his first serious guinea pig; the perk being that they will get a cheaper rate or can even veto Michael’s work if unhappy with it (on the proviso that Rick will then take over). The combination of such a fiscally sound offer with the band’s inherent trust in Carpenter’s musical sensibilities seals the deal. Major have a meeting to decide the final running order (along with any inter-connecting track ideas) and then hand over the files to Michael.
After one solo, six-hour session, Carpenter gives a ten-track progress CD to Miles and Simon. Back in Petersham, they sit down for a listen through. Simon’s partner, Lydia, had put up with fourteen months of Sundays where the Major boys would trudge through her house in various states of anxiety, sobriety etc. She had heard all the false starts and tantrums through the walls and knew more than anyone just what had been sacrificed to get things to this stage. Once the shined-up chorus to I Know A Place kicks in her eyes light up: “It just sounds so clear and bright”. As the fade-up to Sunburn begins everyone is grinning from ear to ear. It sounds like a big, world class, wide-eyed record; dreamy where it needs to be and punchy where it should be. Even Simon’s misgivings about the actual pace of the songs (“we recorded them too slow”) are quelled. Champagne is called for and duly dispatched.
Go To Part Six