I produced a few Kate Bush songs as part of a project to cover the entire '9th Wave' half of her classic 'Hounds Of Love' album. Whether or not all 7 songs get completed remains to be seen, but here's the finished version of 'And Dream Of Sheep.'
The parts that matter the most (you know, the Ricks!) don't show up until about the 2 minute mark with the fretless bass solo, followed by the wall-of-distortion bass lines at 2:38.
And a big shout out goes to Kathy Zimmer who sang. Here's Kathy's site - check out her original stuff:
Nice. Not often I hear Kate Bush covered. And this was done well.
I actually have a recording of a cover of "Jig of Life" by Catherine Smitko for a tribute album called "I Wanna Be Kate" That was also done very well.
Thanks, guys. It is pretty daunting to walk up to the plate with the intention of covering anything by Kate - especially if you're doing the singing, I would imagine. From a production standpoint, the challenge mostly lies in taking what she's done and putting and interesting spin on it while keeping it within the same level of respectability. I approached 'Sheep' pretty straight fwd, but for 'Under Ice' I'm going a very different direction. 'Jig Of Life' is also on the list - and that's one intimidating sucker! I've got some rough ideas on where to go with it, but making it happen is another thing altogether! My hat's off to Catherine Smitko for taking it on. I'll have to look that up.
Last edited by walker on Fri Nov 11, 2011 12:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Here's an extra bit - I recorded a long intro that was supposed to set up the whole '9th Wave' project, but wanted to keep it separate so that 'Sheep' could stand alone as it's own single, (not to mention stay under the 6 minute mark!)
Very, very impressive, Mark. This is arguably the best recording I've heard on this forum, in terms of performance and production. Now, the questions..... How many tracks involved? What equipment was used (DAW, outboard effects, mikes, etc.)? How long did this take to go from nothing to a finished mix? What made you decide to tackle this particular artist/song? Absolutely great work........ Tom
I could clog the Hoover dam with all the recording data & minutia that went into this project, but suffice it to say that this was a pretty major undertaking compared to what I usually record in the form of my own tunes. Instrumentation used included the two basses, drums & percussion provided by an old Alesis HR-16 drum machine, two synths - a Sequential Circuits Prophet 600 for the spacey sounds, organ patches, and deep basslines, and a Yamaha CS1x for the classical instrument samples, real cello played by Michael Lunapiena, real piano, acoustic guitar, a Charvel guitar wired like a Strat with a humbucker in the bridge position, AND a rain stick. All captured by my Roland VS1680 digital 16 track - this unit is the real work horse in this scenario. Besides providing great audio reproduction, it's full of some pretty decent on-board effects - those that I used most for this recording were reverb, delay, chorus, compression, and amp sims for the guitar. I used Shure SM58 & 57 mics for the vocals, cello, and bass parts. They were helped a bit by the mic preamps in the 1680.
The idea to take this project on came from an enthusiastic email exchange with some singer friends of mine in Seattle while we were professing our fanship of Kate. One of them suggested that the two of them cover the entire '9th Wave' album side, and they asked me to produce and arrange all the music. I was honored and really stoked to take on the project, and told them that I may want to take some of the songs to some new territory, which they were fine with and encouraged me to do whatever I thought sounded good.
I started with 'And Dream Of Sheep'. From the first day of programming the drum parts to the last day of Kathy laying down her vocals, I'd say it took a good 3 weeks worth of work - FAR beyond the time I usually spend tracking & mixing. I can't put an exact number on the tracks, but there were MANY - mostly coming from the synths. Even with 16 tracks, I did quite a bit of submixing on a lot of the parts - the basses, guitars, the rainsticks, the drums, some of the synth parts, and Kathy's harmony vocal parts.
The singer who was originally going to sing lead on 'Sheep' dropped out of the project - AFTER I recorded all the instrumentation, so I have to give Kathy Zimmer major kudos for stepping in and filling in the part, quite nicely too.
Just to offer a glimpse of how nuts I went on this project - I recorded 8 tracks of that rainstick, each through a long delay patch to cover the dead space while I turned the stick over. Then I sub-mixed all that to two-track stereo. My street is a main artery for delivery trucks, ambulances, cops, fire engines, etc. If it makes noise, it uses MY street. So yeah... many a rainstick take was ruined and redone because it's next-to-impossible to get a solid 60 seconds of session-friendly quiet here. And the screaming maniacs next door... *sigh* enyhu - fortunately, most of the sounds made for the recording were either loud or recorded direct.
And the screaming maniacs next door... *sigh* enyhu - fortunately, most of the sounds made for the recording were either loud or recorded direct.
Tell me about it. I used to live in the seedy part of Inwood. It wasn't so much that I worried about becoming a crime victim as it was the 24/7 merengue music that pulsates in your ears at all times you are east of Broadway and north of 181st Street. You would never think it but it's like heaven here in Bed Stuy! It just takes too long to get into the City.
Aaah, yes - the lovely dulcet tones of merengue - and if you're REALLY lucky, reggaeton. Most places on the island north of 125th are a drag like that. Awhile back I looked at some places in south Harlem that were unsettling to say the least, so I guess I feel SAFER here by comparison, but overall a "change of venue" is definitely in order.
I used to live in the seedy part of Inwood. It wasn't so much that I worried about becoming a crime victim as it was the 24/7 merengue music that pulsates in your ears at all times you are east of Broadway and north of 181st Street. You would never think it but it's like heaven here in Bed Stuy! It just takes too long to get into the City.