Our pre-production process has speeded up. A lot. And it’s hard to even comprehend ourselves, let alone writing about it in a way others can relate to or understand.
Our aim was to record an album that was authentic, true to ourselves. And that is why we hired Francis Dunnery as our producer. I have been bracing myself for the recording process, knowing that I’d probably be torn to pieces to find the true Maaike inside. I have been in this business long anough to know that that’s how it works. To get to the truth, you must let go of all your walls and tricks. And that can be painful, intense and horrible in the process, but fulfilling and rewarding in the end.
Francis has already started his quest. We had our first production meeting last Sunday through Skype. It took about 17 attempts to get us all connected; we blame Mercury in retrograde, about which we have already written a song that was widely discussed in that conversation. Not because of the subject, but because Francis had already working on that one and he loves it. The whole conversation took about an hour, and went from very practical questions (‘do we need to rent a car?’) to aligning our expectations (‘what do you guys want from this album?’) to discussing the process (‘how are we going to use the time?’) to our personalities (‘Remco, brace yourself for working with this woman, because she is like Madonna: she has the same energy and drama, but also the iron discipline’). There was also time for a good laugh (‘I will pick you up from the airport in my chariot, because a car won’t be good enough for Madonna’).
The next day, Francis sent us his own take on one of our own songs. It was so different I had to listen to it a couple of times before I could comprehend what he was aiming for. I was helped by about 8 messages with music I had to listen to. Francis had sent them to Remco with the words “Can you forward to Cleopatra?.
Yesterday, Remco and I both were in touch with Francis seperately. He is clearly trying to push buttons to see what our response is. All in a good way by the way, but it’s quite an emotionally draining (yet fulfilling) process. Meanwhile he has given us a bunch of homework; I am currently soaking myself in Laura Nyro’s anthology, while Remco has been told he is now a keyboard player and no longer a drummer. Today in an interview for my other project Dreaming of Kate, I was asked what style our music was and all I could say was that we thought we were an artrock project, but we’ll have to reconsider that statement once we have finished the album.
We’ll see what happens these next couple of weeks/months. I’m still grateful for the opportunity, and I love the adventure!
