Options

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 2009-12-06

Label: Make Mine Music

Glen Johnson appears courtesy of Future Conditional
Ben Holton appears courtesy of Epic45 and My Autumn Empire
Angele David-Guillou appears courtesy of Klima

EP info:
After "Waves & Echoes", I was unsure whether I wanted to do any more music. For a good while, my life happily and willingly headed off in other directions, my time being largely spent with my partner and baby daughter, full-time paid work as a disabled students' advisor, walking, and doing landscape photography. During this time, I occasionally dabbled with writing new music, purely for fun, some of which I uploaded to MySpace under the unlikely pseudonym of Hannah & Kate (it's still on there, if you want to hunt it down). Eventually, this, along with the encouragement of friends, led to me thinking that maybe I should do another Portal release, but make it very different to anything I had done before. In particular, I wanted to make reference to those artists whose music had first made me want to do music myself - New Order, Depeche Mode, The Human League - and perhaps change a few people's ideas about what Portal was in the process.

Music recorded at home in Saltaire, West Yorkshire, UK, on laptop computer, using Ableton Live 6, various freeware VST effects and soft synths, and Fruity Loops 3. Vocals and additional music recorded by the respective singers and musicians.

Mastered by Bruce Wood at Touchwood Audio, Leeds.

Sleeve design by Scott Sinfield and Jeff Teader.

Personnel:
Scott Sinfield – Fender Telecaster guitar, Squier Stratocaster guitar, Peavey Milestone III bass, Hohner melodica, soft synths (triggered by MIDI keyboard) and programming.
Glen Johnson (of Piano Magic and Future Conditional) – Vocals on "Options"
Ben Holton (of Epic45 and My Autumn Empire) – Vocals and additional guitar on "You're Building Over My Childhood"
Lorraine Lelis – Vocals on "Slow Burner"
Angele David-Guillou (of Klima) – Additional vocals on "Options - Future Conditional remix"

Track notes:
Options – This track had its origins in a song that I was working on pre-"Waves & Echoes", that was dropped after Rachel complained that it was "too eighties." I still liked it, though, so decided to revisit it now that I was using music software that seemed to lend itself to doing more electronic music. I knew the track had something, but I also knew it was lacking something substantial. Glen and I had been friends for a good while, so I sent him the track to see if he had any ideas what it might be that it needed. He very kindly sent it back with his words and vocals recorded on it, and they were exactly what it needed. Glen and I are of the same generation, and we share many of the same influences, so he knew where I was coming from with this song. "I hope you don't mind me saying that it sounds a bit like New Order's "Your Silent Face", a few people have said. "Really?" I reply, innocently.

You're Building Over My Childhood – Another happy, if rare, occasion when the music and words just flowed. I had the title for the song before anything else, and wanted to write a song about how I had seen the city of Leeds, near where I lived at the time, grow and be spoiled by thoughtless developers whose prime aim was clearly profit rather than aesthetics or people's welfare. I tried and failed to do the vocals myself, so asked Ben whether he'd be willing to have a go. I knew he'd appreciate the song's sentiment and that he'd do a grand job of singing the words. Ben surpassed all expectation by not only delivering what I think is his perhaps finest vocal performance to date, but by also adding a guitar part at the end that took the track to another level altogether.

Slow Burner – Lorraine and I had spoken a number of times about collaborating on some music, since we first met in about 2000 through our music (Lorraine sang and played guitar in the US band Mahogany). For various reasons, it had never happened, though. Eventually, I sent Lorraine a basic track to work on, that I have to admit was a bit of a goth dirge. Lorraine's words and vocals on the track were stunning and it was clear that I had to totally re-write the music in order to do them justice. I spent a good few months coming up with several versions of the music, one of which appeared on the "MMM050" compilation as "Prana (Slow Burner), before I finally settled on the version you hear here for the EP.

Options (Future Conditional remix) – In addition to adding words and vocals to "Options", Glen also kindly sent me a remix of the track, inspired by Soft Cell's "Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing" and The Human League's "Love and Dancing" remix albums. I couldn't have been more happy with it.

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