Band Recording - no comments

Nanoworld guitars

Nuno and I spend all day recording "Nunoworld"...ops, 'Nanoworld':)
Linx wrote all the lyrics in the afternoon and again it's a great vocal work, hard one to sing...
At night Mike and I finished 'Flesh & Bones'.

Today it's another recording marathon, great!:)

Phenotype

I was recording 'Racing the Hours' with Nuno until 15 o'clock; then we jumped into 'Nanoworld' drum tracks in the afternoon and finally at night Linx recorded amazing vocals for 'Phenotype' - we're on our way to a monster album!

Magic path - 18 December report

Yesterday Mike, Sam and I jammed on 'Mind Over Matter' ideas - we're still inspired after the 'Nanorworld' experience; we nailed an intro very quickly, then we picked the bass riff from Nuno and Linx' stuff and got a basic structure that we recorded to work later on...it's another great track on the making.

In the afternoon Mike recorded his parts for 'Phenotype' and for 'Flesh & Bones' - tremendous organ sound from his Oasys for the chorus and final section!!!
We got out of the studio very late, so here's my morning post and I'm on my way to the studio again.

Final Week 2006 - writing

There's already a Christmas feeling in the air and everyone shopping for the celebration night 24 to 25 December...well, at least our wifes were:) We've been deeply focused on the studio since 11th November and we have a personal deadline at 22 December (we have 5 more days of writing ahead).
This week we will record everything that's still missing, write 'Mind Over Matter' and maybe even another track...

Here goes the tracklist so far:
-Racing the Hours
-Doppleganger
-Flashback
-Outside In
-Pinpoints
-Phenotype
-Flesh & Bones
-Nanoworld
-The News
-The Hill
-An Outer of Body Experience

-Mind Over Matter?
-.....?:)

Nanoworld - final chords written today

Just a few minutes ago the final chords of Nanoworld were written!
The song has about 12 minutes lenght and 6 of them are one of the best instrumental extravaganza we made so far...
Mike and I went to the studio in the morning to work the unisson section, then Sam joined us in the afternoon to make it until the end.
We all left the studio with a big smile on our faces;)

Invited Guest - Nano instrumental

Today we were visited by Mr. José Carlos Maltez our dear friend and the webmaster at Burning Suns Fan Club(www.burning-suns.com).
He was the first to listen the new material we wrote since 11th November and the first once to see how we develop our ideas on the spot - thank you JC for your patience today:)

Sam, Mike and I jammed on Nanoworld riffs and got some cool stuff going on; tomorrow Mike and I will start working the guitar/keyboard arrangements for this one.

At the end of the day Joax and I recorded 'Phenotype' guitars (with JC listening) and also 'Flesh & Bones' - only the guitar solos still missing on this song.

Mind over Matter - first impression

Yesterday we had another pair of busy hours at the studio; in the morning Sam was doing the drums for 'Racing the Hours' (one of my fave) and we made some improvement on 'Phenotype' structure, now sounds even better.
I got some time with Joax to make some minor changes on the mixing for 'The Hill'.
In the afternoon, Nuno and Sam recorded their parts for 'Phenotype' demo, it's one of the most catchy songs of the album - without a doubt!:)
Nuno and Linx recorded their ideas for 'Mind Over Matter' before leaving and then Sam, Mike and I got really inspired and worked the chorus plus one of the riffs for the instrumental section - another high FS moment my friends:)

Tomorrow there will be more posts with crazy pics, don't miss it...

Said and done - Phenotype (Garden of Creation)

3 hours around the new riff, some glue here and there including the time to pause and reflect about it, also to record the basic idea while we were writing and performing, a final mental stretch to make a progressive approach for the end of the song and...it was done.

The small idea that Mike played on piano in the previous day gave us another powerful mini-track with 3:50 lenght but with an incredibly 'Mr.Heavy meets Mr.Cool' energy...Linx is now developing the lyrics for this track in the next few days.

Today we will have the mix of 'The Hill' ready has a demo and we will be developing more instrumental for 'Nanoworld'. There will be more recordings for Flesh & Bones eventually.

I'll make a late night post with the de-briefing, c'ya there folks.

An Outer of Body Experience

Yesterday we jammed on the instrumental section of 'Nanoworld' and got more steps ahead in the song, it's really hard to play because the cold weather frozens our fingers...fortunately our ideas & riffs are colder than ever:) - Nuno on the image...freezing!

Great work from all members on 'An Outer of Body Experience' - this track has the vibe of tracks like 'Routine'(Fiction Edge album) or 'The Final Sentence'(Snooze album) but it has all the ingredients of a classic Forgotten Suns piece of music for the future - deep lyrics, great singing; melodic chords and out of control mood for guitar solo; high quality production on keyboards à la Mike 'Merlin', solid bass and a bass solo with a jazzy edge and splendid work of Mr.JC Samora on drums - fantastic tom section between the 7/4 intro!
A word for the brave José Machado 'Joax' for doing a great recording and mixing work on the last few days of recordings.

While I was closing my guitar case I heard a great sequence of notes from Mike, who was just walking his fingers on his grey beast...immediately I told him to repeat the last notes and I believed we have now the basics to another great track - we both agree that it would fit the concept for a new track called Phenotype(Garden of Creation).

Let's see what today brings...

Time for a snack - don't disturb (band working)

Another nice day of creativity flowing on the studio, we jammed on 'The News' instrumental section and now we have a good block of solos (keyboard vs. guitar) and a fine link to Mike's chords to end it. When our heads are hurting at the end of the day it means we had a good time and we're on the right path:)
Well, you can see us on the 'pause for our little snack' - yes we spend all days until sunset and after on the studio. Also Linx writing more lyrics for 'An Outer of Body Experience' - great lyrics my friend!:)

sunday report - a new week begins

Yesterday we didn't jammed because I was the only one at the studio, the guys couldn't make it so I used my time to listen all recorded ideas and work some new riffs out.
The instrumental section for 'The News' will be improved, right now it only consists of a keyboard structure so it need some hours of writing (guitar, bass, drums) to be perfect.

A new week begins, it's 8:32 a.m and I'm on my way to the studio...we have until 22nd December to finish the writings for this album.

I'm sure that this album cuts with the sound from our previous albums; it's more 'in your face' and 90% of it it's prog-metal attitude and sound. Everyone is doing a great work and we're almost near the target (14 songs) so then we can have enough room to decide which ones fit better.
This album will be a thick wall of sound and it's not a concept (that's the 1st cut with the past).
It will reveal a more personalized band because the sound of tracks like 'Doppelganger', 'Flashback' and 'Racing the Hours' will turn them to be true classics - i'm 100% sure of it!:)

I believe that we will pick the instrumental section for 'Nanoworld' in the morning and record guitars for 'An Outer of Body Experience' (AOBE) at the end of the day.

Sunday at the studio - new ideas

We'll be jamming and preparing work for the following 2 weeks we have left so we can finish the writing process on 22th December. I'll be doing a late night post today with some results
and new ideas.

Recordings

Just a quick note to make a briefing from yesterday's work at the studio: Sam recorded the drums for 'Flesh & Bones' and so did Nuno. Mike recorded keyboards for 'An Outer of Body Experience' this way we have advanced some recording work.
This weekend I'll be on studio with Linx to analyse/record and make more lyrics for the created songs. I'll be working on the guitars for 'Flesh & Bones' and 'Racing the Hours' too.
Next monday we will be writing new material, there's an instrumental section for 'Nanoworld' to be made and there's many riffs for 'Mind Over Matter' that we need to put in order to make a brand new track!

Racing the hours - the demo

A very prolific day at the studio. We started by listening recordings of Nuno and Linx and then we started the hostilities by recording all drum tracks for 'Racing the Hours'. There was also time to mix 'Doppleganger' with Joax doing a great job while Mike was creating some cool riffs to 'Nanoworld' instrumental section. We will re-start the writings next week to get more or less 14 tracks ready (to choose the best ones for the new album) until December 22nd. Sam and I went to a fast food later at night and we had a cool chat about the future songs and what we want to achieve with this album as a band. We have the belief that with the 3rd FS album we will be kicking some ass off:)

Writing

Today Nuno wrote and recorded his bass lines for 'The Hill' and 'An Outer of Body Experience' instrumental/vocal sections.
Mike and Linx are writing and arranging their own parts for the other songs.

Doppelganger

A big smile on our faces as we listen to our recordings of Doppelganger...it's still a demo but sounds fenomenal!This song has many cool stuff (metal edge, progressive, back vocals from all of us, great crunchy guitars, huge balance - no guitar solo:)
We are moving on the right path for a great album, and we love this new direction!
More news next Thursday...

"Doppelganger: I was yours, now you're mine"

Recordings for demo

We have been recording bass parts for 'Nanoworld', 'The Hill' and 'Doppleganger'.
I've recorded my guitar parts for 'Doppleganger' and 'The Hill'.

Tomorrow there will be more recordings on drum tracks, guitar and bass.
Linx and Mike will be recording their own parts for all new written songs until the next week-end.

All is sounding pretty good, really heavy, emotional and progressive - the way we like!:)

Mind Over Matter and Nanoworld

Yesterday we were jamming around the riffs of 'Mind Over Matter' though we were kind of unispired and didn't get any conclusive structure. Nuno has 2 great bass riffs and Linx has many
vocal ideas - all are really good and we must write this song with extreme care; it's one of those tracks that is developing and not a 'in your face' direct music. We also had time to record 'An Outerbody Experience' drums tracks has a demo.We defined that Nanoworld will have a strong instrumental section - this will become one of the best Forgotten Suns songs ever, I bet on it!

Today we will be working more recordings and maybe some writing too.

Forgotten Suns at Aula Magna - the photos

Here's the link to the website of Nuno Lourenço - our official photographer
http://www.nunoaovivo.blogspot.com/


Have a look at some cool FS pics both in S.Alquimista and Aula Magna

Making of Nanoworld(3001)

Bad weather in Portugal today; according to our schedule this was the last day of the week to write more material so we spent our time around Nanoworld concept and we decide that we go for a mix of a movie script and a strong instrumental section.
This is the time when I got my feet on earth and start asking myself "where the hell do we get all these music, all these riffs and sounds?" - creativity, it's a ray of light through pouring rain.

We have a solid structure until we start the instrumental section, and again a great balance between guitar and drums. Mike is doing great keyboard and Nuno's approach on the chorus reminds me Rush and U2. Linx is still working the vocals, he did a great chorus line and he actually doubled the chorus to got a funny Smashing Punpkins feel on it. It works!

Next week we have the instumental of 'Nanoworld' and 'Mind over Matter' to write.

Nanoworld(3001)

This morning Sam and I jammed on 'Nanoworld' riffs; we got some interesting passages though today we didn't focused on writing but instead in record more ideas for written tracks(Doppleganger, The Hill). Linx is working on lyrics for many tracks (Racing the Hours, News, Flesh&Bones, Doppleganger and An Outerbody Experience) while we are working 'Nanoworld' and 'Mind over Matter'.

While chating with Mike on our way home he was telling me that after so many good vocal parts for the album now it's time to work our arrangements to get more instrumental parts and have our technique and 'madness' out of our fingers:)
We have at least 4 more tracks to be written (6 with Nano and Mind over Matter) so there's plenty of room for it!The challenge is made...

9th and 10th

Yesterday we were working on 4 tracks at the same time - We re-shaped 'The Hill' a song written in June and we added a guitar solo that was written by Mike and I 13 years ago!!!It works great and gives a extra push on the song.
The second part of the song is called 'An Outer Body Experience', fantastic ending - is all I can say...

Then we layed our hands on 'Nanoworld(3001)' a very cybernetic track, great ideas from
Nuno on bass for this one!It will be another killer live.

With Linx on studio we worked some riffs for 'Mind over Matter' and had some time to re-shape the end of Pinpoints...

lots of work on the studio as you can see:)

Writing Days

21st November 2006 - on the studio today I got some free time to watch in detail the DVD that our dearest VJ (Marta Machado) got us with backstage, sound-check and concert clips of Fish' opening at Aula Magna 10 days ago! I got all chicken skin with our Angels' Embrace version and how Linx dedicate it to Fish...it will be in our memories forever!!!

There's an huge distance between how we write our songs today compared to what we did on the Fiction/Snooze days; we tooked several months to write those albums (because of our lack
of experience but mostly because we lacked stability in our line up as a band).
Today we can write 4 tracks in a week like we did with 'Racing the Hours', 'The News', 'Doppleganger' and 'Flesh&Bones' while maintainig the fast pace easily!

It's been very rewarding to work on studio since we decided to finish the writing of 14 tracks until Christmas; we are doing some of the best ever Forgotten Suns' music and collecting targets day after day - we're absolutely sure that we found our single of this album on 'Doppleganger'. Nuno layed his bass lines today and it's a powerful track with all the essences we wanted: with FS trademarks but also with a strong sense of heavy futurism and use of technology...

We are now creating new concepts for future songs...we have at least 4 stories in our minds
-'Nanoworld(3001)' ; 'Mind over Matter'; 'In This' ; and to recover a old track called 'Lost back Home' - tomorrow we will start working on a idea from Nuno 'Strap', a very interesting tapping sequence on bass with the ideas that Sam, Mike and I got while we were chatting and drinking coffee. Those ones mixed with an old epic vocal idea of Linx will be a great track!

A funny detail is that for the 2nd time, while we're going home, someone has ideas and we record them on mp3' player/recorder and on my digital camera - it happened with Mike's ideas for 'The News', it happened with me for the same track and happened with Linx today while he was driving us home, we believe those ideas will fit into 'Mind over Matter' in perfection!!!

More tomorrow:)

Flesh & Bones

Yesterday we finished another track - Flesh & Bones, and goes 8 for the album!!!:)
This song is divided in 2 parts, the song and the grand finale which is becoming one of my favourite sections of the new material.
We spent all day in studio to build a solid structure and today we will make a review of all written tracks.
Here's the total of songs by order of making:

-Outside In
-Flashback
-Pinpoints
-The Hill
-Racing the Hours
-News
-Doppleganger
-Flesh & Bones

We have fresh concepts for at least 14 songs and that's the target until Christmas.

Doppleganger - Flesh & Bones

Last friday we finished another track! We got 'Doppleganger' really fast, just in about 4 hours and it's one of the most straight forward songs we have now - a killer live track for sure!!!

In the end of the day, Linx and I started to create another song, it's called Flesh & Bones and it will be completed today at the studio, I see it as a cross between Zack Wylde (Ozzy era), Marillion's guitar approach, Jorn Lande (due to vocal parts) and we are imagining the end with an Orchestra arrangement a la Metallica's Unforgiven...

let's see how it goes today:)

Instrumental parts 4/4 - 5/4 - 6/4

Another great day at the studio!
We re-wrote the 'News' track and shaped it to what we believe is the best structure; this song is an enciclopedia of all bass techniques: tapping, slap, scales, etc etc; Nuno is actually doing a great job!
Linx has already a big part of his vocal lines aligned to work a lyric on it; the 1st verses section has a Chris Cornell(Soundgarden era) approach and we go a little more towards Russel Allen (Symphony X) on the chorus. Depeche Mode and Dream Theater are also big influences on the vocals for this one.

We worked a big section of the instrumental that originally was created by Mike and we're using it on the song. We spent all afternoon creating the best moods; I like a lot the 'Belewish'approach on guitars just before the 4/4 section.

At the end of the day Mike, Linx and I spent some time discussing new concepts for other tracks and suddendly something very curious happened...suddendly, one of the riffs I use in all our soudchecks to test my guitar sound on the monitors made 100% sense with a part of a lyric for a new song.
Immediately I showed it to Linx who started to write a lyric for it on the spot; we had our brains and imagination working very fast and in a question of minutes we had a new structure and a new song. Sam and Nuno will love it for sure.Here I can listen to Ramstein, Metallica, Linkin Park and Jo Satriani influences. In my opinion this is the single for the new album!! It totally rocks and it's called "Doppleganger"!

'News' - new theme on the making

We started the day with Sam and I jamming around the Chorus section for a new track; when the rest of the guys arrived we started jamming around Mike's ideas and in some guitar riffs.
Nuno was really inspired today and so was Linx; we got a good vibe and really got things going fast. This new track is really something very inspired and has a fantastic concept of us doing a newsflash like on TV...so far we have reached the 1st chorus and will work things better tomorrow. Today was teamwork all the way in high level, always great this way:)

here's the pics of the day.

Facelift

What we had yesterday... and what we have on the end of today...a real facelift:)

I brought the question to the studio and we made a general review to the song: the intro was very long and somehow tedious because it's was just guitar and drums and lots of riffs in odd times...
We decide to throw away the weaker parts and to keep the best ones that fit the song better by spreading them all around the music. With this spreading, there is new vocal sections to be written and a new location of the guitar solo (in the middle of the song, instead at the end).

The map of the music is now:

Intro Riffs (shorter version)
Vocal A - "How's your time today..."
Bridge 1 - "Night for day"
Chorus 1
Keyboard solo
Vocal A + altered guitar
New vocal section (Flamenco-prog Riff)
Metallica's approach section
Guitar solo
Bridge 2
Chorus 2
Final section - "Always repeat"

Nuno 'Strap', the bass man in action (picture above)

Back to the writings

Day 1 at the studio after the Aula Magna adventure!
Today Sam, Mike and I arrived early in the morning and we discussed some ideas for the new tracks while we were turning on our machines. Nice concepts on our schedules for future songs folks!
We are now writing a new track called 'Racing the Hours'; this track is half written since the first sessions we had on June, but now we are re-doing it, re-shaping it and giving it a new face:)
Linx, who was also on studio in the afternoon has new melodies and lyrics to work tomorrow when we get into the vocal sections; what he has so far is a killer lyric and a super chorus, we're really anxious to see where this track will lead him on his vocal approach.

This is some of the heaviest and progressive material we write so far in our lives!

Nuno 'Strap' will arrive on studio tomorrow and I will have the pleasure of 'toast' his fingers with the new riffs we've created today:) He will nail it in a second for sure...(wanna bet?)

Here goes Sammy and a friendly 'up the irons' and Mike on keys...mmm, is this the Oasys that will be played by Herbie Hancock at the Coliseu?Great!:)

Aula Magna with Fish

Last night it was special!A night full of happenings and emotions, the venue was packed with 1600 souls and they were deeply enthusiastic. Fish and his band would be performing Misplaced Childhood for the last time and we were the opening act. We knew that among the crowd there will be around 150 Forgotten Suns' fans but the feedback was tremendous and we felt really touched with the applauses right at the end of the 1st song...!We leaved the stage after a 45 minute set and people were stand up, applauding and asking for more!
For us it's part of a dream we had when we formed the band back in 92 - to open for Marillion or Fish. 14 years later it really happened!
All members of Fish' crew and musicians are really nice fellows and it was cool to speak with them on the backstage.

This is for sure a chapter that can't be missed in any biography of Forgotten Suns...

PS: we asked for Fish' permission to use part of the lyrics from 'Forgotten Sons' track - of the debut album from Marillion - and we made an interaction with the audience.
For those who didn't nailed it on the spot, that was the reason why we end up to decide for the name Forgotten Suns back in 92:)...it was another 'momentum' of the night!

Tomorrow we restart the writings of our 3rd album intensively and on a daily basis until Christmas, so prepare yourself for photos, videos and lot of new info for the next couple of weeks:)

Interview Lx Jovem

Last monday, the band gave an interview to Lx Jovem website www.lxjovem.pt. Part of the interview will be aired on internet during the interval of Aula Magna' concert. Linx, Nuno and Sam answered some 'tricky' questions about Fish and our music...I got some pics from Sammy's cell phone, here's the best one:)

Fish Concert at Aula Magna Live on Internet

The Forgotten Suns opening and Fish' full concert will be broadcasted live on internet at
www.lxjovem.pt website; those who can't be there can follow the performances and interviews to both bands.
Don't miss it: 11th November 20:30 GMT

Santiago Alquimista - view from a fan

These photos, taken from a mobile phone, are from a very special friend of the band.
He's the type of person who follows our concerts note by note and this time at Santiago Alquimista he took some shots and sent us via email; we don't care about the quality but
we do appreciate his enthusiasm and friendship about us and our music. Thank you Pedro,
c-ya in Aula Magna!