Everything Is Tenuous saw the beloved Tasmanian band self record an album for the first time ever.
It’s the same old story we’ve heard all year, but COVID changed a bunch of stuff for us. We made a few songs for this record in Melbourne with our engineer Andrei, then when we couldn’t travel we kind of figured out we could make this record at home, with Andrei mixing from Melbourne.
In this process we learnt a hell of a lot – we’d done a bunch of home demo stuff in the past, but this was the real deal. Here’s five lessons we learned from self-recording an album for the first time, written by me, Tyler Richardson.
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1. You don’t need to spend a million hours killing yourself in the studio to make an album: if you don’t want to
We managed to record this whole thing basically in our bedrooms at our own free will. We did drums at our practice space with our long suffering front of house guy/best mate. The rest we did between Pat’s (Patrick Marshall) house and Busby’s (Thomas Busby) spare room/studio: Banana Pig Recordings.
2. This process was so much better for us
We are all so busy in between our day jobs and family that a month in the studio kills us, but this process just felt so right and flexible and was just so much more bloody enjoyable. Normally the studio is quite tense. Having Pat’s daughter CC running about and “helping” makes it so hilarious.
3. You can do a whole lot more than you think you can
We filled the knowledge gaps with YouTube and calling in a heap of favours/picking the brains of mates. It’s helped us to understand this all so much by just going in the deep end, we developed a heap by doing this.
4. Having time helped us shape and figure these songs out
With the freedom to break songs apart and on our own timeline, it feels like we got to know these songs heaps better and make the most cohesive record we could. With Everything Is Tenuous, we are the happiest we have ever been with the record as a whole.
5. People suck
Towards the end of the process, some pricks came into Pat’s house and stole all the gear our label bought us to make the record. LUCKILY we were all done and insurance bailed us out.
Luca Brasi’s fifth album, Everything Is Tenuous, is out on Friday February 12 through Cooking Vinyl Australia. Score a copy here.