H

We're now at my favourite stage of the album. All the hard slog, pressure and neurosis I feel during the jamming and arranging is over (for me!). We have fabulous things recorded and we can now spend time adding the overdubs and vocals which will bring the music to life. I finally have enough time to live with the lyrics and add/subtract further thoughts.

It's a time for honing and for adding sparks to the work. All I have to do now is sing all the vocals (which I usually do in the evenings) and - even better than that - shake the shakers and tambourines, tinkle the dulcimers, and maybe hit the occasional bells and glocks. Lovely. Rothers is right - it's sounding fab sonically.

Mark

Now the backing tracks are all but finished I've retreated to my home studio to experiment with sounds and parts while the guitars and vocals are worked on in the Racket Club. I like working at home where I can really try stuff without feeling that Mike is waiting with his finger on the record button.

When I've got something I'm happy with, I upload it onto our server, give Mike a call to let him know it's there and wait for him to call me back to tell me he loves/hates it. This morning I grabbed a track called Planet Marzipan off the server. One I've been looking forward to working on, so I'd better go and get on with it. I'll shoot a little video so you can see how my end of things work here once I've tidied things up a bit!

Steve R

Back in the studio again today. I've been recording guitars on a new track "Planet Marzipan". I think this album is a huge sonic improvement on Somewhere Else. Mike's done an excellent job in capturing the magic of our initial jams. I've been using my adrenalin pedal again today. It's probably my favourite bit of gear to use at this stage of the recording. Very inspirational. I'm still working on the Wishing Tree in my spare time.

Pete

Just got back from the studio. I have been overdubbing bass on one of the very new tracks we have called Planet Marzipan. at least that is what we know it as for now. the title may or may not change. It is a really good piece of music with two very different parts to it. It sounds quite different for us but still has lots of Marillion in it. This makes it a very strong track.

I have played bass on most of the tracks and probably have four or five left to play bass on. It all has a good feel and there is a bit of a nod in the Marbles direction at times. Again having two discs of music means we can bring lots of influences and explore many musical places, that there would not be room for on a conventional CD. Thanks for being part of the experiment with us. Hopefully we will be able to play you a couple of snippets soon so you can hear what on earth I am going on about.

Ian

NEWS FLASH There is definitely a mouse somewhere in the studio, and its Jed's (studio dog) life mission to catch it... Of course he never will, but it is very amusing watching him diving into cardboard boxes etc.