Band: SkyQuaker - Queen Kong
It has to start with a screenshot of the Pro Tools Session right? Yes, yes it does!
Mike was aware of SkyQuaker for some time, Mike has worked with Steve and Ben both directly and indirectly for years, but being engaged solidly on other projects, Mike struggled to find the time to dedicate to the song… Until October anyway when Steve Hope-Wynne finally caught his attention with a demo mix and asked if he would engineer the song. A drum and additional guitar recording session with George McFarlane was already setup at Echo 7 Recording Studios in Ewell, Surrey for the following week and Mike attended. After a successful session Co-Producing and generally having a good laugh with everyone at the studio, it was down to work on the mix, master and release.
Production Timeline:
Initial: Using EZ Drummer as an initial guide, Steve had recorded the majority of his vocals, backing vocals and together with Ben and Andy, they had recorded bass and guitars. To contextualise the track, Steve also added sound effects and voice over track of Vladimir Bukovsky (See Footnote).
Echo 7 Recording Studios: Just before entering the studio to record drums and additional guitars, George McFarlane had already recorded the incredible Saxophone performances by Talisa Yorke which acted an an integral rhythmic section throughout the song and worked amazingly well in the mid-end section where Ben and Talisa solo’s gel together.
Drummer George Rekul was incredible, he had only listened to the song a handful of times before sitting down at the kit. Given the guide was on point, there were crucial mix issues in the track he was monitoring, none of this interrupted his performance. We gave George some dynamic instructions voicing integral points in the song where we wanted the hits to be high in velocity and then we just hit record. We left with around 4 takes of George playing all the way through and when it came to the editing, very little comping was needed. Thumbs up George!
When it came to the guitars, Mike was aware from the initial mixes that the band had been experimenting with heavy panning and felt the track was missing a consistent, stereo rhythmic guitar. Because of this, we had Ben perform the rhythm twice, panning one take hard left and one take hard right. This alongside Talisa’s Sax helped to bring power to the song.
Leaving the session, Mike had his work cut out for him and Georgie Mac knew it with his final parting words to Mike as he was taking the session away being “good luck mate”.
Aurora Eclipse Studios & Beyond: The session had gone through 3 different Pro Tools sessions, with our systems being the 4th. The first thing we had to do, was establish some order in the session and figure out where all the integral takes were! This included renaming and colouring every track, making any guides inactive, deleting, cleaning and removing any unused audio and tracks before creating our own sub-busses for the mix to starting taking shape.
From here, we re-recorded some of Steve’s main vocal takes and added some additional backing vocals to help support the main drive of the song… We also (at Mike’s initial fear), added two female backing vocalists; Sofia Sivitanides and Abbi F. Jones. This fear was unfounded as it added power to the choruses alongside Steve and took the track to the next level helping to fill space in the audio spectrum.
The final turnaround was tight! The final mix was completed at AEPL on the 17th November 2019, the Master was completed on the 18th of November 2019 and we released the track worldwide on the 19th November 2019 in remembrance of Vladimir Bukovsky as his funeral was also on that day…
SkyQuaker - Queen Kong
Queen Kong is now available to buy and stream worldwide!
Footnote: Vladimir Bukovsky is the Narration featured speaking voice of Queen Kong. He had been recording documentary material about his life as a Russian Soviet Dissident for Queen Kong and another Ambient music project with Composer and Producer Michael W. Bell and Stephen Hope-Wynne for a forthcoming AEPL release in between bouts of hospitalisation. Vladimir died of complications arising from years of ill health while in Soviet custody. His latest book newly translated into English is available as “JUDGEMENT IN MOSCOW” published by Ninth of November Press - https://www.vladimirbukovsky.com/bio
Aurora Eclipse Productions Ltd & SkyQuaker offer this record to acknowledge the life of Vladimir Bukovsky.
