Factory Yoyo gets his Irish up: "Aphasia", featuring Cian McGovern

Wow--what a great collab!  Nice!  :-)  Great tune and very well done, as usual. 

That's pretty cool :-) I love the fretless. Cian's vox are awesome and you mix is loud and clear, incredible actually. 

ok...now I'm all ears...great tune!! in the front end of the tune the vox sounds like the "Saw Doctors"...but soon get better..MUCH better..love it..I love the shift @ 1:17...very nice work. Love the bvox...what a great tune...

you guys hit gold here...fresh yet familiar....had loads and loads of character throughout...which really is the defining difference between a song..and a great song...

the is a GREAT song...

A++

I'm floored... great tune, and terrific performances.  Sounds just great to me.  What a juggling act it must have been producing/mixing this.  I think anyone with less than your amazing production skills could have blown this in the mix, but you nailed it solidly.  What a way to start the year... congratz.  Great job, James!

AWESOME tune!
James, this is a STELLAR sounding mix on my end. KUDOS!

Kev

Yeah...  what they said.... !

This is good work!

Got my head buried between the speakers and this just sounds stellar!

Great singing/production/playing/mix...it just gels together soo well.

All I can say that's it's one good song!

Larry

This is fantastic.   Cian is superb.  Guitars are lush.  Nice and bouyant mix (it could easily have gotten bogged down if anyone but James was at the steering wheel.)  It moves from start to finish very smoothly and packed with sonic candy.

Thanks for the cool comments, folks. This was really the first collaboration I have done in quite a few years (as opposed to getting others to sing my finished songs), where all I did was the music and let the vocalist do his thing. It was a great time.

Anyone else up for it? I have about twenty 75% or more completed songs that I wrote last year waiting for some love!

Janet:
Thanks so very much, and Happy New Year.

Robby:

That is no fretless. It is my Jazz Bass. I had to take out all the top end to make room for all the guitars.

James SMB:

TBH, I still think the mix has a lot of issues. But thanks for the kind words.

Tom:

A lot of the credit should be going to Cian for coming up with such a strong melody. He was great to collaborate with.

Mark:

I guess I hear that REM-like trill in Cian's voice.  I didn't even know there ever was a song titled Aphasia, but leave it to those crazy Euro-rockers!

Phil:

This was one tough tune to mix (though I guess I should be careful saying that as often as I do! I do like to challenge myself on unfamiliar styles).  The layers of guitars are just so dense that I lost the clarity of several of them, but they are noticed when taken out of the mix.

Gary:

That change after the chorus was supposed to be a guitar break, but Cian wisely took it on with that interesting cadence.

DSKev:

Thanks, bro.

Dean:

Initially, I didn't totally get what Cian was doing when he sent me the rough cuts. But I came to appreciate his genius for melody. Especially after listening to it a hundred times!

Herb:

What I said above!

Larry SMB:

When I sent over a bunch of tunes to Cian to consider, I thought this was the weakest of the bunch. Shows how little I know.

Paul:

The streak continues! This is def a grower of a tune.

Rick:

Thanks bud.

Scotty:

The mix is far from perfect, but finished is always better than perfect.

And Aphasia screamed in vane... 

Alegria


The U2 flavor is alive and well in the intro. The vocals are stunning (tone/performance) on the speakers (nice work Cian!). The short dissonant passages are a nice touch. Very catchy music. The mix is superb. Amazing production James. Bravo to the both of you!

Thanks, JC. Almost finished with another U2 flavored one, so I would be interested to hear your take on it compared to this one.  Though, unfortunately, I am singing, not Cian!

Great job with the guitars.  Great mix on a very catchy song.  Great singing by Cian.  Overall excellent song composition: good balance of instrumental parts, singing and the sequence of the melody.  Excellent work!

wello i thought i had commented already on this, but obviously not! great tune, and great job of not making it sound U2-alike - i know myself, you call up the 'edged with you' patch (or whatever it's called) in GR4 and next minute you're playing second-hand riffs...this one doesn't, like the key change in the chorus, and Whack's voice is excellent, gives the vocal an edgier suond. mix is of course top-notch. i may have gone for a slightly more present snare sound myself, and given how bright my Behringer Truth monitors are i'm guessing the top-end sounds perfect on most people's systems! well done guys, and James, hmmm, i guess i prefer your work in this style rather than the electronic one!

Mark:

I kinda like the style better, too, it just takes so damn long to do compared to the electronic stuff! BTW: I started using POD Farm tones pretty much exclusively the past year and think they are head and shoulder above GR4 (which I also have)

Philip:

I liked Aphasia for a title since the condition has to do with the inability for the brain to communicate; seemed to be a great topic for a song, since I often write about the troubles of communicating in relationships, and in society in general.

As for the lyrics: those, as well as all the melodies, come from Cian. Though IIRC he had a different line there and I suggested he change it to the current form!

I liked the layering. I almost wish you wouldn't have compared it to u2, now, I'll have to come back and relisten when u2 isn't in resident memory...

Overall, this is quite good.

The lead and backup vocals are dreamy. And he made this up without any direction, just the music? Now that's talent!