New AA album - Facebook updates

[Ross]

Thought it might be good to have all of this in one place rather than scattered about.

Gaz and Enrico Berto mixing tracks in Venice

Known songs:

We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal:
Gaz playing bass
Weller adding piano
Brian Hopper, ex-Soft Machine, recording sax - also recorded sax for 'Money to Burn'. Weller 12 string acoustic session recorded.
Ray Fenwick puts down some guitar
Rough mix of the unfinished track. Comments suggest this is still waiting for some more bass recordings; also Gaz hints at longform singles to promote the album!
More rough mixes in progress
Intro including some nice new synth work
Rough string arrangement
Recording the strings Facebook live videos: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
The track is confirmed to be the first longform single from the album, due April 2019.

Mantra:
Gaz has been at Paul Weller's studio for him to record vocals.
Rowetta Satchell records vocals in Manchester and Gaz waxes lyrical about the city where FSOL formed.
A rather daft video for a portion of 'Mantra', which appears to be finished
The track is confirmed to be the second longform single from the album, due early-mid 2019.

Whatever I Do, Don't:
'Whatever I Do, Don't' clip, with vocals from Dolbro Dan, plus a lovely story about the writing and recording of the song.

She Listens to the Sun:
Demo mix including vocals by Stephen Chadwick, who has also done a vocal take for 'I Don't Give a Damn About the Man' (if anyone can remember that video recorded in Gaz's car).

Money to Burn:
Paul Weller playing piano on 'Money to Burn'

All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace
Early studio demo / improv

I Don't Give a Damn About the Man
Demo

Unknown:
Nick McCabe of The Verve providing guitar for another track
Two new songs begun in September 2018... just as the main album is nearing completion.

Lots of tracks have been demoed so there's plenty to work on - both Gaz and Brian have hinted this will be a song-based album rather than one of instrumentals. Currently every song is looooong, and Gaz has hinted at the possibility of a double album. The record is currently due "mid 2019".

I'll update this post with more info as it comes in.

[Ross]

For the record, I hate Paul Weller and I wish they'd stop working with him.

For the record, I hate Paul Weller and I wish they'd stop working with him.

As long as he provides only a few guest vocals somewhere mixed behind in some chorus I'm OK with it.

Are there any informations on a release date? Will it come this year? *fingers crossed*

[Ross]

Here he is playing piano on a track called 'Money to Burn'. Least I don't have to hear his voice this time.

[Ross]

More Weller, adding piano to the previously-heard 'We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal'

[Ross]

Long post on Facebook today - have a read. Includes a video of ex-Soft Machine saxophonist Brian Hopper recording an improv for 'We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal'

Thanks for the links. Very exciting. Just to say Weller is the man.
He has still got it and working with Gaz and Brian. Perfect.

[Ross]

Gaz on Manchester and Rowetta's vocals.

[Ross]

New demo on Facebook.


Er. I still like The Isness.

Gaz ramblings:

On my psychedelic travels ...

As if drawn by irrepressible magnets I get sucked straight back to Madchester...

Having recorded vocals several months ago with Rowetta Satchell of the Happy Mondays at Marley Music Studio , the owner Karl Power aka ' Fatneck ' had fortuitously entered my world.
After the session , he'd kindly spun me round town on a whirlwind nostalgia trip & insisted on pressing a cd into my palm of local band 'The Backhanders ' who he'd been managing since his retirement from an illustrious photo bombing career!

Rowetta had loved a new track ' She Listens To The Sun ' by The Amorphous Androgynous that I'd played her, quickly writing down lyrics and improvising a song on the spot .

Weeks later , listening to her vocal in one ear, with Fatneck pestering me on the blower in the other, insisting on a response to 'the Backhanders' CD , I finally relented & listened and It suddenly occurred to me that the singer 'Chaddy' Stephen Chadwick would be the perfect male accoutrement to Rowetta's vocal so after a coupla phone calls with all and sundry, here I was back by dope demand in Manchester .....

Ro was sunning herself in warmer climes which was a shame since I'd
imagined us ALL convening together in perfect harmony to nail the song but still, It felt right to be here ...them magnets never lie & haven't let me down once in these here 5 months of sonic misadventure so I don't question anymore ....I just suspend thought & follow ... I'm a believer ...

CHADDY, it turns out, is one of that rare breed of vocalists , an
urban spaceman completely free and burning within to spit out lyrics , rhymes and melodies on the spot and by the time I caught a train outta Manchester Piccadilly early evening , we'd written two whole new vocal tracks and re-vocaled another song I'd written and initially sung , a howling mutant psych blues number called ' I Don't Give A Damn( About The Man) '
He didn't seem fazed in the slightest by my instruction to 'howl like a rabid prairie dog about to be put out of its abject misery by a
possessed preacher wielding a blunderbus at dawn.'
He duly obliged ....Unblinking , no holds barred ... Awesomeness ....

Having the idea to mash together the two completely different ,independently recorded versions of ' She Listens To The Sun ' by my cosmic brother and
sister, Chaddy and Rowetta has gotten me a little excited , it shows that with a little more synergy
between the two , melodically and lyrically & in unison at points things could well turn molten , choc-a-bloc and overflowing with the righteous spirit of Manchester ...

I'm on it , the irrepressible magnets are pulling me . . . .ONWARD.....new drums , bass and plentiful wah to follow.....

..... LADIES AND GENTLEMEN .....
' She Listens To The Sun ' ...( a studio outtakes mash up demo kinda vibezzzzzz )

Er. I still like The Isness.

OK, the sound quality is awful. I have faith, the underlying song beneath this mashed up mess seems to be pretty cool actually. I instantly got some old school 60ies Monstrous Bubble podcast vibes from it, I like it.

Gaz on FB:

"the album is forecast to land sometime around the end of the year .. Xmas hopefully"

[Ross]

Er. I still like The Isness.

OK, the sound quality is awful. I have faith, the underlying song beneath this mashed up mess seems to be pretty cool actually. I instantly got some old school 60ies Monstrous Bubble podcast vibes from it, I like it.

Maybe, I suppose it's just not quite my kind of thing. I love the very British whimsical, slightly over the top type of psychedelia - bands like The Idle Race and The Move, albums like Magical Mystery Tour and Mr Fantasy - that Amorphous successfully tapped into on stuff like Mello Hippo, Goodbye Sky, It's a Sunshine Day, etc.
This kind of thing I'm less fond of. I'm also a tad worried about the number of guest vocalists. I like Gaz's voice and I find the more lead vocalists on an album the less consistent it sounds.

[Ross]

Here's a really beautiful one. 'Whatever I Do, Don't'.

On my psychedelic travels .......
I visited the bard they hail Dolbro Dan in Bangor , Ireland bringing 4 songs I felt resonant with his rich Irish , universal tone ranging from the Donovan-esque to the Paganist to the cowboy-esque .
As it turned out , they all worked and this Amorphous Androgynous album is sure as 'heaven is hell ' forming into one hell of a Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble of influence !
Several years ago while licking my wounds in France during one particularly harsh winter ( without oil and therefore heating cos the lorry couldn't get up the long muddy sludge driveway ( after weeks of heavy rains ) which runs on an incline up to le petit chateau ) I'd penned a song for my daughter intended as a father's ' in absenteeism ' nebular message of love and encouragement, trying ,( without preaching ) to pass down whatever gobbledegook wisdom I had accrued during my earth orbits .
It didn't amount to very much apart from
' whatever I do , DON'T ...
whatever I say WILL , won't '
encouraging her to have the strength to go her own way but I obsessed about distilling this message for her over several intense days .
I'd been at a friends house who had a lovely piano and after several hours I had worked out the chords to Saties ' Trois Gymnopedias ' which I duly recorded . I laid down some twangy cowboy guitar and once back in France , left the instrumental on rotation while I prepared for bed . Having cleaned my teeth like only a man scared to lose another tooth truly can, I lay on the bed to listen and must have drifted off for I awoke several hours later ,confused , hearing this music from the floor below wafting up through le petit chateau . A melodic idea immediately came into my head and I reluctantly went downstairs in the buff ( thinking it would only take a minute ) to record it . One thing , led to another and two days later I was still downstairs, still in the buff agonizing over every syllable of what had developed into this message of love and support for my daughter . I cried a lot and laughed maniacally in equal measure & at one point deprived of both sleep and logic , danced naked in slow motion in the 6 acre grounds as the tune wafted out across my emotional wasteland in a bizarre reenactment of the original nude initiation dance that had inspired Saties piano piece almost a century ago .
So here I was now explaining all of this to Dolbro in Bangor ,his soft eyes glistening as I told the story , emphasizing my attempt to pass on wisdom in absenteeism to a loved one
' live your life to the full , that's what you've gotta do , yes these words are the words of an old fool , your daddy's not making sense at all
whatever I DO , DON''t whatever I say WILL , won't .... '
The bard duly stepped to the mic and delivered . The following day we switched our attention to the DONOVAN psych funk of ' Look Up To See ( what's goin ' down ) '
but that's another story for another day.
As a nice postscript to the story I played ' Whatever I do , don't ' to my daughter some months later driving somewhere and she was silent throughout before uttering the words that made it all worthwhile ' again ' she said , and then ' again ' ..... the power of music eh ? All that love and maths can do .....
So ...anon and on we go in multidimensional splendour .....
gaz x

[Ross]

'We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal' seems to be finished.