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Inside A Wall - The Huge Sky · Aug 11, 05:38 AM

As the reader of this blog probably knows, I am releasing a CD’s worth of new material October 19th. There’s a fair amount of history behind some of the lyrics of these songs, some curious technical details with regard to how they were recorded, and some interesting people have performed on the disc. So between now and the release dates, look for blogs blathering background information, technical trivia, and biographical detail with regard to the guest players as well as myself.

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The Huge Sky

My earliest memory of playing through the chord sequence, is on piano in one of the dance studios in NYU’s Tisch building, sometime in 1985, night, a storm rolling by, 2nd avenue packed with passersby looking for restaurants and parties.

I also still have the cassette recording from the board at CBGBs perhaps a year later, with full band. Evidence of the song’s venerability, and a recording that might stand up to some editing and remix if I get a spare moment plus inspiration.

The lyric, as is the case with all the poetry on the disc, is drawn from a small notebook I had during 1983, a book I was encouraged to keep by my then writing partner Lisa Lowell. They’ve had extensive revision over the years, moving from a sort of retelling of specific experiences to a more general sense of yearning.

So now the song evokes (for me) journeys made through Holland, mostly away from Amsterdam, and the peculiarly intimate interaction, interdependence yet simultaneously at war feeling between the water and the land, as you watch boats sail by on rivers and canals higher than where you stand then and every few metres cross an irrigation strip… flat fields, water, trees, and the endless sky…

THE HUGE SKY (Northern Town)

People housed in farms 

Dream on
All safe and self assured

You’ll hold your love though leaving

In the townships of the north

It always seemed so easy there amongst the farming lands
There’s something of nobility 

On days you work with hands
In the huge skies of a northern land

The heart will understand

How the water claims the land
The waterside, the laps of shore,
Where dijks stand tall and grey

I drove out through the fog and mist on 

An early winter’s day

Now I’m back in the huge sky

And the journeys that I made
I’ll show you where my memories are

And the love you have will stay
Back in a northern land

The heart will understand

How the water claims the land

BASS: Tom FitzPatrick
BACKING VOCAL: Tess Savigear
LEAD GUITAR: Kevin McLeod
SPOKEN VOCAL: Lize Lotte Pitlo

The song caught my attention again around 2008, and it was then that I created the lush, almost stately synth and voice/string pads, working exclusively with the Korg Triton sounds and sequencer. It wasn’t until early 2010 that they finally got imported into Pro Tools and I began adding ‘real’ instruments and vocals. The song then became almost epic in scale, with live and handsonic udus entering the percussion fray, 12 string guitars as well as treated electric (a Roland Splitter specifically as well as the usual space echo etc), all recorded using an SM7 mic through an ART pre as indeed were my vocals, and the lead guitar parts by Kevin McLeod, who is one of three guest performers on the track.

I think Kevin brought his SG that day, and used my Peavey practice amp set relatively dirty. I’ve used very little in the way of amp sims (Eleven and the like) on this album, and this track was no exception. Not that other in-the-box effects weren’t used — delays, compressors, and in this instance auto-pan as Kevin plays out the final measures with an almost seagull like insistence.

Draped around this are beautiful wordless syllabic vocals from one Tess Savigear from South Wales, a wonderful singer I met through her work at Alonetone.com where she appears as Sister Savage.

The third guest on this piece is Tom FitzPatrick, who came over one afternoon with an eccentric looking Gibson upright bass, and laid slinky sinewy woody sounding parts that I never would have dreamed of, yes, almost river like as the notes flow around the harmonies, elusive yet somehow binding the song into a whole…

Lize Lotte is better known for her dancing, but contributed some secret spoken word….

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