In the last article I told you about the Bunker and the five songs. This is the moment they left the room and came back with a rhythm section.
Fabio on drums
The drums are played by Fabio Alessandrini, the drummer of Annihilator's current rhythm section. He received the five tracks, the maps and the clicks, and sent back thirteen separate tracks for every song, one per microphone, at 48 kHz / 24-bit, ready for the mix. Not a copy of my programming: his own reading of it, with his hands and his instinct on top of my structures. When the first stems opened in Reaper, the songs started breathing in a way they never had before.
Rich on bass
Then came Rich Gray, the other half of that rhythm section, from Cambridge. I did not want a copy-paste bass line. I gave him full creative freedom: fills, counterpoint, embellishments, wherever they serve the song. He recorded on top of Fabio's final drums, so that bass and drums would lock together as a real rhythm section, not two strangers on a grid.
Small detail that made me smile: Rich's favourite of the five is Fucking Kalashnikov. Fabio's is Sirens.
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