|
|
|
|
The following text was written by Julianne in January 2003, when Frank Jaro was doing an email interview for the German magazine Sonic Seducer. Enjoy reading on how Iceland came into being ! - webstuff by goony - |
||||
Basically, Andy and I were talking about how awful most Christmas albums were.
Just having a casual chat really. We then talked about how it would be if we recorded one,
but if the focus was on the 'atmosphere' of the season rather than any nonsense about
Father Christmas and Elves und so weiter. (That would be just what some people would
expect from All About Eve...I know there are still a few people who think that we live
in a magical grotto and sleep in duvets made of dead fairie's wings or whatever!)...
It started off as a bit of a silly idea and then we began to take it seriously.
Anyway, we decided that it would amuse us to cover Last Christmas by Wham ( George Michael ) and so we bought a tacky Christmas album and listened to it. We had forgotten how very VERY pop it was and how 'uncool' it was and so it was a real challenge to make something beautiful out of it. The first thing we did was to change the key signature of the song to make it into what we call a 'three', you know, like a waltz rhythm but without the Bierkeller vibe, not like a drinking song... This immediately changed the mood of the song dramatically. Instead of the light and poppy sound of the Wham version, this had become very melancholic indeed. It was sad and moving and the lyrics, that I never really thought much about, came to life for me as a tragic 'lost / unrequited love' kind of story. To make it a bit more seasonal, we layered up a lot of acoustic guitars and made them chime a bit like bells. I think it woke up the dead children in me and Andy, from winters many years ago when all you had to do was believe and things happened... There were no bills, and no tax-man and no worries... We just then got very lost in the whole idea. We bought Christmas lights and put them up in the studio. It was only late September ! We drank glühwein ! Then we thought about our own song December which had been a top 30 hit many years ago. We decided that we should simplify it and take away some of the pomp and bluster of the original version. We made it more reflective, again, allowing the lyrics to breathe more. It is more delicate than the original and more subtle. It seemed that any 'winter' album we did would have to include this song. If you have a song called 'December' then it has to be done! I much prefer this version to the original. At the time, I loved it, but, after all these years, it sounds very 'soft rock', like Heart or someone. That was OK for then but not for the early 21st century ! 
We seemed to have upset a few people with our version of
Walking In The Air
( the theme song from a great animated film called
The Snowman ) because we heavily
processed my vocal. We put it through a rudimentary vocoder and got a ghostly and icy effect.
You can't really tell it's me singing but that doesn't really matter because what
we were trying to do was to evoke a feeling of a world blanketed in snow where all
sounds seem to be cushioned and semi-absorbed by the snow. We did this not only
through the disembodied vocal sound but also through the loop / rhythm we put down.
It sounds like when you step into thick virgin snow. People have since argued that
when you have a 'proper' voice and can actually sing, then you shouldn't mess
about with it, shouldn't interfere with it. I can't agree. I think there is a
place for this in small amounts.I'm not the first to do it. Kate Bush, Goldfrapp,
Marilyn Manson, Air...they've all done it and have not disappointed me by doing
it but have rather excited me. It brings a further dimension to your music,
another colour on your palette.
The song Melting is a new composition, written especially for this album. The Christmas lights were flickering, the red wine was flowing and we just let it all happen. We wrote and recorded it all on the same day / night. We wanted to make a 'city' snow song. I think that the city is as beautiful as the countryside when it is covered in snow. The lights, the traffic, the umbrellas, the nostalgia... Someone told me that this song makes them think of Ally McBeal episodes where she walks home at night in the city snow, lonely / contented / melancholic - whatever her mood is... Whatever, I think it is a really romantic song. Cold is an instrumental track and there's not a lot I can say about this as you have to interpret it in your own personal way. It is a piano piece, very simple, very atmospheric and very linear. It is supposed to hypnotise you and relax you and make you feel that it is OK to feel blue. 
I am a big Queen fan. They were the first live band I ever saw. We took their
song A Winters Tale and made it
more simple and emptied it out to simply a string and vocal song.
The voice is very untreated and exposed and naked and
so should make up for anyone that was pissed off by the processed vocals elsewhere.
The lyrics are very naive and beautiful and great to sing. I was playing it to some
friends a few days after we recorded it and we were talking about what a shame it was
that Freddie Mercury died and suddenly, the volume on the stereo went sky-high !
No-one was anywhere near the stereo and the sound just rocketed !
I think it might have been Freddie giving his approval...(!)
We ended the album with a very radical re-mix of December, with an almost 'dance' loop under it. Whatever, it makes it really move somehow. We took away most of the lyric and just left in a few key phrases and took some parts of vocal and spun them in at certain places for greatest effect. It is a case of 'less is more'. We've had a very positive response to this track and it got quite a bit of play in clubs. I am really happy with this version. It encapsulates the whole idea of the original meaning of the song which was about nostalgia and how the memories fade over time... This is now like a ghost of the original song, as if the memory has faded and we are left with a new version that is transparent and only has the scent of the old version like perfume on a pillow. So what started out as a fun idea, became something that we really put our hearts into and now love and are proud of. Of course there will be people who think we did it for some cynical money-making reason, but it's not true. Ask my bank manager ! I think this album will be relevant every winter, timelessly. It's never going to be a big seller, it's never going to have EMI knocking on the door... We made it for us and for the people we hoped would like it.
|