Get your FREE DOWNLOAD of the song 'In Gold'!!
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In Gold was written in November after a long walk in the autumnal forest where the morning sun was rising, making the 'dead' leaves on the ground look golden. It was recorded in Chennai, India, where I traveled to record local carnatic musicians, famous for their work with award winning Indian composer A.R. Rahman (Slum Dog Millionaire) and produced and mixed in London by Paul Wilkinson (Duke Special) for the Gallop E.P.
I’d been listening to a lot of Middle Eastern and Asian music and fell in love with an instrument called the Santur. Can read about it on Wiki here… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santur....
I was messing about with a made up tuning and trying to mimic its sound with my guitar. This is the rolling sound you hear at the beginning and end of the song, which was meant to create an image of leaves falling. The chords and song structure leapt out pretty soon after and the rest of the song (melody and lyrics) came pretty much in one go, which is always a good sign!
A few months later I found myself in a small studio, hidden away behind tall palm trees in the city of Chennai preparing to record the song on our last day of recording.
Sennu arrived with his Santur which he unboxed in the small live room and began tuning carefully to my guitar while the studio engineers, Timmy and Sean set up the mics around him. Rosalyn was outside reading a book under a palm tree under the sound of tropical bird song in the heat of a very different golden sun.
I had originally planned to have him play just the intro and outro of the song, but after the first initial roll of the Santur in the opening, each chime sounded so sweet and felt so right for the track that we decided to work on a simple riff that could follow the chorus line. After a few takes where Seenu became familiar with the song structure by heart we went for a full, improvised take where he played right from beginning to end. This is pretty much what you hear on the track, Seenu performing with his eyes closed, lost in the music and feeling his way through the song. He has performed on countless Rahman recordings, (about a hundred...and counting!) so it was a real honour to have him play. You can see footage of the very same take here…(see video above).
The song is now available for FREE DOWNLOAD by clicking here.
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J0N
