It was early in November 2005 when I received a call from Tom McConville, he was planning a new solo album and asked if I would be interested in working on the project. My answer, of course, was yes! I’d known Tom for a quite a while through our meetings at the Davy Lamp Folk Club where he’s been a regular guest for many years and he had been at here at Studio One a year or so earlier working on tracks with Allan Taylor and Terri and Eric Freeman.

Some dates were set for early in the new year when we could get together to do some pre-production, which is basically sorting out possible songs and tunes for the album as well as keys, tempos, arrangements, food, drink, women, etc. The second week in January was to be the first of these sessions, with Tom putting down some rough ideas for the tunes he planned to do, this involved Tom playing solo fiddle in the studio which also gave me the chance to work on that all important fiddle sound that he had in mind. These rough takes could then be put onto CD’s and sent off to Aaron Jones who would spend some time arranging guitar and cittern parts. Aaron was to play a major role as collaborator on the album, appearing on all but one of the tracks and as I’m sure you’ll agree, providing some stunning playing, it’s no wonder he was voted Scottish Traditional Musician of the Year.

It was about a month later, in early February when Tom returned to the studio, this time with Aaron to work on the basic backing tracks for some of the songs and tunes and also during these few days some of the more sparse arrangements featuring say, fiddle and guitar or just fiddle and cittern were completed. This, for sure is the best way for the musicians to perform and interact during recording, sitting facing each other, about six or seven feet apart essentially “playing live” in the studio but for a sound engineer it’s quite a compromise to the sound and how it could be mixed later but we all agreed without doubt that this was the only way to capture the feel and the spirit of these performances. It was terrific to see and hear the interplay between these two fine musicians and best of all to see the big smiles and hear the joyful banter that followed a “keeper” take - and there were lots of “keepers”!

During the first week in March I resumed work on the project where my brief was again to provide rough mixes of what we had up to now so that when the lads returned in two weeks time, they could do a bit of fixing and editing and also during these sessions any new material could be worked on. About three weeks later, Tom was in the studio again to add some extra fiddle parts, these were mainly the fills and runs you can hear in the songs. It was during this series of sessions that some of the guest musicians were brought in, they too had been sent rough mixes of the tunes and songs that Tom and Aaron had earmarked for some extra accompaniment. The first being Ciaran Boyle from South Yorkshire, a fantastic bodhran player and real nice bloke. The following day it was the turn of double bass player Kevin McGuire who made the long journey down from Fife in Scotland. Most recently Kevin has performed with Eddi Reader, Karine Polwart and Blazing Fiddles but they say he will be alright!

We were now into the last week in April and Tom had arranged a session with Peter Tickell on fiddle and Dave (Woody) Wood on guitar, two great young musicians and old friends, who would join him for a blast which I would capture with the three of them playing live in the studio, it was all seat of the pants stuff but great fun. The final guest session took place during the first week in May and involved Claire Mann the highly regarded fiddle, flute and whistle ace who with Aaron forms one of the most spectacular duos on the folk scene today.

It was mid June when I finally started the mixing of Tom’s recordings, it was agreed that I would mix the album to my own taste and if need be we could make changes at a later date with Tom and Aaron present. Initially a lot of time was spent listening to takes of the guest musicians because with their time here in the studio being limited we had them doing multiple takes of their parts so I could choose or compile the best take during these mixdown sessions, on the other hand a lot of time was saved because of all of the rough mixes I’d done over the months the vocals, fiddle, guitar and cittern were pretty much where I wanted them sound wise and we were happy with the sounds from very early on.

After these mix sessions I again sent off copies to Tom and Aaron so they could spend some time listening, whereas I chose not to listen to any of the tracks for almost three weeks! As always, when you listen again after a break things that you feel need to be changed become apparent much more quickly and the mixes were tweaked in time for Tom and Aaron’s final visit on the 11^th July. After a few minor changes and some last minute background vocals from Aaron we were convinced we had a great album, all that was left was a couple of days to master and edit the tracks, put them in the chosen running order then make what we call the pre-master, this again is a crucial part of the process before the CD is pressed and released to the public. This process is pretty much how most of the CD’s you hear today are recorded. I’m really fortunate to be doing this for my living, meeting and working with so many gifted musicians.

Thanks to Sandra for keeping us fed and watered throughout the sessions. Thanks to Tom for choosing to record here at Studio One there’s been lots of laughter and a great spirit along the way. All the best, mate.

Ron Angus.

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