Hey y'all!
 
We're currently in the midst of recording a follow-up to our last album, Comfort, which was released September 2016. This is the last track from that album--Nico (the Dark Divide). 
 
Banjo and upright bass and drums and fiddle recorded simultaneously in a temporary setup in a borrowed house on Bainbridge Island in Washington state. drums and bass in the living room (with a couch baffle between the two), banjo on the porch with full glass visibility, and fiddle upstairs, the cabling running through air ducts in the ceiling. room mics in various exciting places (pointing at a framed painting at the top of the stairs, entryway of the fiddle room, etc). the cello and glock overdubs followed that evening, and the vocals were overdubbed later that week (both simultaneously) followed much later by the third vocal part (our friend Alma, from my previous band Landlord's Daughter).
 
Hoping to capture this same relaxed vibe on our new album on at least a few of the tracks.
 
All tracked to and mixed in Sonar X1 using an array of free plugins! 
 
Hope you enjoy!
 
https://summerjanuaries.b...k/nico-the-dark-divide

Very cool. It has a very haunting quality to it, at least to my ears. Loved the fiddle parts. Actually, I liked all of it. Vocals sounded great. The whole thing was just very organic. It was refreshing to listen to something as unique as this. I enjoyed it a lot. Great job.

One of those songs where the melody carries you away and you make up your own story with the lyrics. Well done.

Nice song, very melancholic and well recorded. It was nice to hear a minimal track that holds together well, a lot get carried away with this type of thing and think they need to use a gazillion channels.

That was just great Sean. Loved everything about it, but especially the song itself. I wish more people would record banjo on ballads. You guys keep doing stuff like this and we'll be saying, "We knew them when...."
 
Bill

Absolutely lovely ... dreamy and great idea .. best of luck with it.  

Very delicate and intimate.
I very much enjoyed it.
 
T

Thank you for the very kind words and thoughtful comments, everyone!
 
Leadfoot-- glad you liked the fiddle parts. We had a good time working up the solo beforehand--not the entire solo, but the basic feel and (I believe) the first few measures. Rachel (the fiddle player and co-vocalist) changed the fingerings on a few segments of the solo to eliminate the string crossings, to give it a more exotic sound (as she'd have to slide up to the destination notes). Made it sound a bit like an erhu (the two-stringed Chinese "fiddle". We busked at Pike Place Market all the time and there were two erhu players down at the market every morning, so we got some exposure :)  )

BioDiode--glad it holds together for you! It's interesting to listen back to this now given where I'm at in the current project, wondering what I might have done differently now. I'm pretty happy with the subtlety of some of the mix features that might have been overbearing without some careful balance (for instance, the cello on the outro is actually doubled, along with the two really far house mics we had on each take. something that I would normally avoid, but which gives it a really nice texture here, in my opinion anyway).

Bill--I'm with you--banjos on ballads! It's a good base to work from. No long sustaining notes to eat up all of your space right from the get-go. Was really happy here with the banjo/pizz fiddle combination.
 
Thanks again! Looking forward to hanging out on this forum more and hearing all of your songs.

Excellent!  The harmonies are great, and I really like the melancholy, minimalist sound of this song.

Wow...   unexpected, and soooo nice.   Love the overall dreamy quality, which is kinda weird with a percussive banjo part being the backbone.   But hey, it works!   And yeah, those slides gave the fiddle a nicely eastern touch which I thought fit so well.