Yet another interview from Michael’s recent radio crusade in eastern Europe. Of the dozens of interviews we had in Russia, this one is probably the most memorable. Although tightly squeezed in between two other interviews, one to Radio Nostalgie (Ukraine) and one to Radius FM (Belarus), Michael and Ekaterina spent over an hour with the charming young DJs of Red Radio. Unlike most programme hosts, these were very well prepared and generally fun to speak to. Exactly the kind of silly jokes we like. The building also left a long-lasting impression – a grim-looking old Soviet factory block, inhabited by all sorts of bizarre ventures. At one point, when Michael asked for a place to wash his hands, he was led two floors up the stairs into a bathroom where he found a naked man taking a shower. The programme director asked for a quick hand wash, but the showering man angrily objected. Michael ended up wiping his hands with a cash receipt he found in his wallet. We truly cherish memories like these.

Listen here (Russian): http://obschaya.rpod.ru/164989.html

Michael was in St Petersburg in late May 2010. He was only there for some 18 hours, but managed to give three radio interviews. Here is one more. It was recorded when Michael and Dreamgale’s Russian agent Ekaterina were having coffee with the station DJs at Espresso House on Nevsky avenue. Here is the interview (in Russian): http://golospitera.ru/2010/specialnye-inostrannye-gosti-proekt-dreamgale

On May 22 Michael was guesting the St Petersburg based radio station Radio Baltica for a Saturday afternoon live show. Russian-speakers can listen to the interview here.

As it tends to go with us, it’s been a while since our last post. However, we hope you have enjoyed the spring in spite of this.

This time we decided to break some rules and jump over a number of steps, so what we are presenting to you this time is in fact the complete backing track of our upcoming song. Well, technically it is more than a backing track. It is basically the whole song, but without the lead vocals. All the other instruments are there, including some background vocals by Sofia.

As you can see, the structure is a little bit different on this one – after the intro we have a verse and a chorus that is followed by an instrumental part inspired by the chorus (1:37-2:15), then comes another verse and a second chorus. Then, there is a slow instrumental piece based on the main hook which is succeeded by its strong counterpart that concludes the track.

You will notice that the vocal melody is absent from the verses and the choruses in this version. This we did on purpose, as the melody is only going to be sung and won’t be supported by other instruments. The somewhat simplified vocal melody you can hear in Stage 1. As far as we can remember, this is the first time a Dreamgale backing track leaks from the studio.

The lyric is still in the works, and so far the song will go under the working title “On the horizon”, although it is subject to change.

While Come Out And Play is still in the mastering phase, we’ve started working on a new track. As you could guess from the name of the post, we don’t even have a title for it yet. This time we want to make the arrangement very simple so that we have a chance to finish it while the idea is still fresh.

Here is a rough sketch. We haven’t recorded any vocals yet, and the vocal part is played by a toy synth, so never mind its sonic quality for now

As Sunday evening wears on, it’s high time to present the latest revision of Come Out And Play. In the last weeks, we’ve come through water, wind and fire working with this track. First, of course, was fishing the equipment out of our ex-studio, but that is no news to anybody these days. Then, after the guitar parts in Chorus 3 were published in Stage 19, we had a long period of discussions, at times dangerously violent, as of how that part should be elaborated further. As it often happens, we had separate and quite complete ideas about the sound we wanted to achieve, and it took a great deal of time and energy to sort things out. On top of that, angry neighbours came banging on the door as we transformed Dmitry’s kitchen to a guitar amp recording facility, which made capturing the perfect take extra tricky.

And so, the first major update is Chorus 3 – we re-thought and re-recorded the guitars. Both the first and the second parts are re-made. Only the final passage from Stage 19 is still there, recorded differently. Also, we re-mixed the backing vocals to remove the jazzy “aah… yeah”, as suggested in an earlier comment. Well spotted. We were unsure about that one ourselves, but got used to it in the end. For Chorus 3, check out 3:11-3:53.

The second major update is Outro, a rough version of which you’ve heard in Stage 16. The arranged version spans between 3:54 and 5:12. The bells at the end (after 4:47) will be faded out in the final version.

Apart from that, we adjusted the end of Verse 2 (3:05-3:12) to make it sound wider, in the wake of one of your previous comments, and made a couple of fine-tunings here and there. All in all, we feel that the additions to Chorus 3 turned it into a good culmination part, whereas the sound of the new Outro confirmed Come Out And Play as the most stylistically wild Dreamgale song to date.

Here is the latest complete render of the song. What do you think?

So, it’s been about a week since we evacuated what was left of our equipment from the sinking ship that used to be our studio. In order to be able to continue working, we arranged a temporary setup in Dmitry’s apartment. Below is the first piece conceived here – the third chorus. It is still not finished, there is some experimental stuff here (especially the guitar on the first half – we’re not quite sure about that one yet). Anyway, listen and tell us what you think – the end of the song is drawing near…

As we were approaching the end of Come Out And Play, our Stockholm studio is approaching the end of its existence. This cold winter has been too much for the water pipeline in the studio facility. Yesterday evening we were alarmed that a water pipe had burst inside one of the walls, and the whole studio complex (which is based on the cellar level of the building) started to fill up with water. Some hour later the plumbers manage to stop the leak, but the moist damage hazard was so high that we had to evacuate the whole area, dismounting and carrying out all our equipment and furniture.

Today an inspection should show how grave the moist damage is in the walls and floors. The risk is high that all the wall isolation will have to be torn out altogether, meaning that years of careful furnishing and refinement of the room interiour and acoustics will come undone, leaving us with a wrecked dungeon facility completely unfit for music production. The reconstruction of the facility, which until today housed four music producer teams and five studios, may take months, if ever intended. Of course we hope for the best, which would be that the walls somehow can have remained dry on the inside. In that case this Armageddon should take some weeks at least.

This, of course, will affect our production pace. We will have to set up a temporary studio in Dmitry’s flat. We will not be able to record anything there, but at least we will finish the editing and can still continue with the remixes of “Come Out And Play”. Unfortunately this will delay the start of the production of our next planned song, “Until It Dies”, which we were just about to announce.

Below is the 18th stage of “Come Out And Play”. It’s at the final mixing stage now, so please listen carefully and let us know what you think about volume levels of different elements, if some vocals or instruments do not sound good enough etc. If we get the studio running at home tomorrow, we may be able to get to the end of the song at last.

We’re finally in the studio, actually at this very moment. Some of you suggested that the melody in the first part of the chorus could be improved. So we decided to play around with it a little, and we’re quite happy with the result. The basis change is in the chord sequence which we have made more diverse. Do you think this version is better than the original? You’re most welcome to comment back while we’re still in the studio

Apologies, everyone, for such an unprecedented delay! Dmitry was in Minsk for two weeks, Sofia is in Los Angeles and Michael is all over the place, closing the financial year, getting interviewed by Russian radio stations, pitching television projects and producing a new secret music project. Honestly, we haven’t visited our studio for over a week. But now Dmitry is back and full of energy and Michael is not, but he’s glad for Dmitry, so we’ll get our butts over there as soon as possible and take this thing to the next stage.