so to me the story of recording "Rain in Soho" is actually kind of interesting, in this thread I will trace that song from its genesis to its execution https://twitter.com/latenightlevi/status/1252033517648830467

so my files tell me that on 20 December 2015 I recorded the demo. I remember having to do it in parts because I had a contrapuntal idea so I played a pedaling-eighths bass cleft thing first (on a Kawai CE200 -- all the demos for goths were on that keyboard)

the demo shows that I somehow kept those eights going while playing the chord passes, at least at home! when we got to the studio it was a different story iirc but I'm getting ahead of myself

right there at 32 is where the harmony vocals on the first chorus come in -- there are four tracks, the tonic, two low harmonies panned right that slide in & out of unison with each other, and a higher harmony

the rhythm track, meanwhile, is a cowbell four-to-the-floor setting from the Kawai -- using these rhythm presets was one of several compositional imperatives of writing the album; every demo got its own rhythm pre-set.

so that was the demo. back around that time I'd had some success hitting recording studios on days off while on tour, so I proposed to the band that we use a day off in Chicago to work at Electrical Audio

the idea was to do pre-production, i.e., to record songs not with a view to releasing them but with learning how to play them in a studio -- pre-production is a huge luxury, but pays huge dividends

we tracked pre-production versions of "Rain in Soho" and "Rage of Travers," but the thing is, Electrical Audio's b-room is one of the best rooms for recording drums in the whole world

put @jonwurster in a room like that? come on, now. you're gonna wanna use that track, because those drums are gonna sound like Leviathan rising furiously from the depths

I took video of myself tracking the scratch vocal at Electrical, it's around here somewhere, but when we got to @allblackbird in Nashville half a year later, it felt like the Electrical basic tracks from "Soho" were the tracks to beat.

there was a killer bass line from Peter, too, and @MattyBones had done layered saxes that took advantage of the Electrical B reverb...it was a whole vibe, it felt worth building on

by this time I'd brought @djperry1973 on board and asked him to write a choral arrangement -- he'd sent me a demo; he wasn't able to attend the session in Nashville, but we brought his charts and recruited members of the @nashvillesymph chorus to sing the parts.

(That last pic is importing sideways on my screen for some reason, no idea why, sorry.)

Ok. So now there was the question of the lead vocal -- @Faderrider, engineering, felt the "scratch" version was very good, and I had this several-vocal-takes-colliding thing that had happened spontaneously on the demo --

-- from punching in lines and leaving in artifacts on the punch, a sort of several-voices-but-it's-the-same-person sound that always registers as scary and menacing for me --

...and that's when we got the idea to put me in the echo chamber and do a loud-and-aggravated version of the vocal on the third verse.

Let me tell you something, singing at the top of your register inside an echo chamber will make you feel like your brain has finally slipped free of the constraints of reason, order, and structure. like, inside of ten seconds.

all together? it now sounded congregational -- like a gathering of voices and ideas, sometimes in harmony, sometimes joined in combat but with harmonious ends in mind

I remember listening the playback when the whole track had been put together and thinking, man, it's as big as I hoped it would be! It's nuzzling up agains that "This Corrosion" mood! which was the mood I had hoped for, and is why it goes straight into "Eldritch"

anyway that's how that track came together, have a nice day! /end