|
|
|
First You Build A Cloud
|  | |
Rare Records(UK) has released First You Build A Cloud.......a unique collaboration between The Police guitar ace ANDY SUMMERS and classical guitarist Benjamin Verdery. The high-profile return of The Police to the world stage in 2007, brings their guitarist Andy Summers and his new album into sharp focus. Summer's guitar playing was always at the musical heart of The Police, and when the band split up in the mid 80's, he went off to make music outside of the rock mainstream. This brand new album is further proof of his wide ranging talents. Recorded in collaboration with Ben Verdery - described as 'One of the classical guitar world's most foremost personalities' by Classical Guitar Magazine, 'An American original, an American master' by Guitar Review Magazine, and 'Iconoclastic' and 'Inventive' by the New York Times - the new album perfectly illustrates both their innovative and eclectic musical careers.
Andy Summers - electric guitars
Benjamin Verdery - classical guitar
Tracks Listing:
01. First You Build A Cloud
02. Skywalking Woman
03. Fez
04. Bring On The Night
05. World Piece
06. Love In The Time Of
07. Now I'm Free
08. Stone Town
09. Fingertips On Earth
10. Girl From Reykjavik
11. Low
12. Sarabande
13. Brotherhood Of The Grape (Bonus Track)
First You Build A Cloud is available in Europe as a cd in stores and as a download. In North America, it is available at Amazon as an import and as a download at iTunes, Artist Direct, Rhapsody, CD Universe etc.
EQ Magazine Online Edition
The science and art of recording acoustic guitar
String Theories
By Will Romano | August 2007
ELITE LITTLE SET
Composer/guitarist Ben Verdery (chair of the guitar department at Yale University School of Music) had written a three-part composition that appears on Places Between, entitled "Peace, Love and Guitars," and recently recorded with Police guitarist Andy Summers, a longtime friend and one-time recording partner of Etheridge. "All four of us met in London," Verdery says. "I was playing there [in '05] and met with John Williams and John Etheridge to get an idea of Etheridge's sound for the piece [I'd write]. Andy happened to be in London on business . . . It was a guitar lovefest!"
After performing an Ingram Marshall-composed, Balinese-based concerto for electric and classical acoustic guitar ("Dark Florescence"), Verdery and Summers began recording their own collaborative effort at Summers' Divine Mother recording studio in Venice Beach, CA. Summers, a jazz man at heart, used an electric Steve Klein guitar to play off Verdery's fingerpicking style, odd tunings, Bach chord progressions, and even the zither-like pings of Thai and Japanese chop sticks striking an acoustic 12-string. "The style of the music we were playing was different than I am used to, which is generally jazz-based music," says Summers, in a pre-Police reunion interview. "The improvisation wasn't necessarily jazz as derived from bebop, although it was liquid. It was more operatic, more romantic and European."
The project, titled First You Build A Cloud (at press time), struck a balance between acoustic and electric, improvisation and structure. "For these tracks I was recorded acoustically using two AKG 440s in a Figure 8," says Verdery, who uses a Smallman & Sons classical guitar. "We played live and we both used headphones to hear each other. The AKG 440s were placed a little to the right, facing sound hole, capturing as much of the sound emanating from the top, or soundboard, of the guitar. There were sound baffles in front of me in a 'V' shape."
Summers used his longtime Mesa Boogie setup and a number of effects, and also dabbled with a National Steel guitar. "I used a TC Electronics 11210 chorus, a Lexicon PCM70 effects processor, and a Klon Centaur [stompbox] for a little bit of dirt if I wanted it," Summers says.
"Given the way we recorded - Andy's amps in another room being miked and my guitar being miked in the studio, thereby not having any "bleeding" issues - there was never any problem with the balance, thanks to engineer Dennis Smith," says Verdery.
Who knows? Maybe Etheridge, Williams, Verdery, and Summers will get together again and, this time, record their soir e. "It's funny: I played with John Etheridge; Etheridge is now playing with John Williams; Ben played with John Williams and has now recorded with me," Summers says. "It's really an incestuous little set going on."
For the complete article go to EQ Magazine Online Edition
|
|
|
|
|
