CHAPTER 1: Our Mother Land

“I just shat my pants! Is the coffee still on?” – Whitey

We returned to our spiritual home, the rolling hills of the north coast, to record our new LP this spring. Our journey began with Shedstock IV – a festival run by our friend Donovan on his farm in Corndale. The rain tried to dampen our spirits, but despite its persistent efforts, we got higher and higher. Well overdue for a detox of the soul, we couldn’t have asked for a better way to kick off a week of recording. Many thanks go to Donovan.

After a sleepless night we headed to the Whitey’s bush hut (aka the wizards den) where we were to spend the following 6 days recording. We set up camp in the back yard, and set up amps in the living room. The first three days were spent recording the bed tracks for the songs. We ended up with 9 tracks; all were recorded to 1-inch tape on a 16-track Tascam tape machine. Day 4 was the day we turned the computer on. With all the bed tracks done, we entered vocals town. For some reason vocals and overdubs always take ages… and for us it slowly escalated until it spectacularly peaked on the final night as Morgan evolved into a wild beast to lay down the last vocal track. Perhaps influenced by the largest spider to ever grace the earth that we found in the bathroom, or perhaps influenced by the acid, Morgan was let loose in the lounge room to get wild. You know how sometimes a vibe evolves into this situation where everything is so damn funny you just laugh at everything? It was one of those times. Needless to say, the vocal take was awesome.

The whole thing was recorded and mixed by Steve Law (at Sunroom Studios) – who would know you could find such a great studio in the middle of nowhere. The combination of the place, the house and the people make it something really special.

Our thanks and our love goes to Steve (for his time, effort, patience and general dudeness), Whitey (for his hospitality, and wizard status), Harry (for the crash pad and the good times) and a personal thanks to Drew for letting me borrow the Wasp.

We’ll be playing a bunch of shows before the year is out, so keep an eye open for gigs dates, and we’ll keep you posted for the release date of the album.