Someone I’ve known for 30 ish years, Paul Frazer Clarke: ace producer, has been back around my life for a couple of years now. I’ve co-written a library album (out some point soon) with him, and he messaged me a few weeks back asking if I’d be up for mixing a track from his new EP.

The reference points were very much up my street: Air, Portishead, Zero 7, and I loved the song, so was happy to jump on board.

I like to put myself in a time and place for mixes….approaching it with parameters as guardrails. In the case of this mix, it was the 70’s…all analogue type processing.

It was a lesson to me in going round the houses to end up in the same street: I did a fair bit of live bass playing to replace Paul’s synth bass…..then tried some other bass synths. In the end we went back to the original….’ta-dah’…clear as a bell the original bass was the right one. Still, it was worth scratching the itch.

I added a few effects here and there: some old drum machine samples through my Watkins Copicat, and a couple of subtle Solina and Mellotron pads at the very end.

From the drums point of view, it was all about dead tea-towel type snares and warm kicks..both through Neve 1073 type preamps driven just enough to add that pillowy loveliness. Plate verbs on the vocals , and a load of micro automation on those lead voices….rather than rely on compression for the levelling, I wanted a more natural un-squashed sound. They sound gorgeous.

There were a couple of places that needed some pace, so I added some bits of percussion to push the track along.

After a few email exchanges to land the detail..in a very methodical fashion….it was done. Happy with how it sounds.

Check it out here