Tristesse

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 2009-12-06

Label: Make Mine Music

Album info:
"Tristesse" was originally meant to be a six-track 12" vinyl EP for the French label Alice-in-Wonder. Whilst working on it, I was asked by the label to add two more tracks to the original recordings to make it an acceptable length for a CD release, instead. I really wish I'd dug my heels in and released it as a six-track 12" because it just didn't work as a CD album. The album's title was kind of a joke - the label's owner had complained to me that all of the bands on the label were releasing albums with depressing titles. I told him that we were calling ours "Tristesse" and it kind of stuck. Not my best decision, in retrospect. The CD booklet should have been printed as two separate pieces of card, so the listener could choose whether to have the 'standard' sleeve image or a nice, swirly, red abstract image, but the record label cocked that up as well.

Recorded at home in Stafford, UK, to Tascam 788 8-track digital portastudio. Mastered at home by Jon Attwood of Yellow6.

Track notes:
Silence, Slow Motion – Written specifically for our John Peel session in August 2000 and re-recorded for this release. I really like this song, but it shouldn't have been faded in at the start. Originally, it had a much longer introduction, but it was edited out at the mastering stage due to an audible glitch that we just couldn't get rid of by any other method. A rare occasion where I do backing vocals.

Even the Sun – The wrong mix of this track was included on "Tristesse", in error. An alternative mix with much louder vocals should have been used instead (the 'proper' version can be heard on the "Gone But Not Forgiven" compilation). When we were recording this, Rachel kept singing Joy Division's "Atmosphere" in place of the original words. Perhaps we should have made it a medley...

Tristesse – My first use of an Ebow, something I'd wanted to employ since hearing Robin Guthrie and Robert Smith using them in the early '80s.

Eclipse – One of the two tracks added later to 'pad out' the release, this was a re-recording of an early Portal track. It's not a bad little instrumental, but it was done in too much of a rush and suffers from a bad mix. There's a really nice guitar part near the end of the track that you can hardly hear in this mix. I have no decent explanation for how that was allowed to happen, so I can only apologise.

Soundwaves – The first results of playing with a sampler that I'd been given, speeding up and slowing down guitar loops. There is, of course, an intentional nod towards Seefeel on this track. The track could really have done with substantial editing before it was committed to CD, but that's the result of rushing things...

Breathe – Rachel and I had been working on a song for ages, but it was going nowhere and it sounded like "just another Portal song." I decided to sample and loop part of her vocal and re-write the music around it instead. The results were much better and they became this track. A remix improved it even further, and this later version was released on the Alice-in-Wonder compilation album "Alice Will Never Surrender". The drum pattern is a small tribute to The Cure, incidentally.

Half-Light – This tracks started life as two separate tracks that were fused together digitally, somewhat messily, I think it's fair to say. Imitation acoustic guitar too.

Pulse – My one and only recorded lead vocal on a 'proper' Portal album, and it was always likely to stay that way. The lyrics were never meant to be kept - they were a guide vocal, taken from a song I wrote when I was about 16 or 17, but I never did come up with any alternative words that fitted as well. "Pulse" was really good fun to play and record with its ridiculously noisy guitars, feedback galore and skittering drum 'n' bass style drum programming.

Free download from:
http://portal-archive.blogspot.com/

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