Liverpool Session Orchestra with Alice Klar
Live Session: Alice Klar and 11-piece band in the studio
Alice Klar recently performed live with all new arrangements of their songs – written and arranged by Alice Klar’s own Christian Badzura – in the Parr Street Studio in Liverpool. In time with the second single DSCO DANCE, the video is released online as well as the live and radio version of the song as audio only.
Can’t Start The Machine – Gorbachov Debut Album
Listen to the full album
Irish rock band Gorbachov has finally unleashed the debut album “Can’t start the Machine” onto the net-world stage. It can be listen to in full using the Soundcloud player above.
Hildebrand recorded, mixed and co-produced the record. “I’m really into all the sounds and ideas we’ve put onto the record. Keeping it straight forward, but every song has its nuances. My favorites are Friends, Mr Fahrenheit and People Skills, they make such a great middle section of the album. But the more you listen to the album the better all the tracks get. I also really like Brandan’s lyrics, which are all about places, people and situations,” comments Hildebrand.
Interview (Page 1)
Hildebrand explains what mixing and welding have in common and why personality is important in creating a mix, in this interview with Film-maker Tim Brunsden. With Producer Christian Badzura, Hildebrand mixed the first Alice Klar album at Chairworks Studios near Leeds in United Kingdom.
Tim Brunsden: “Just tell me why we are here today?”
- Christian Hildebrand: “Alice Klar asked me to mix their album and we decided to go to the Miloco managed Chairworks Studios in Castleford, because they’ve got a really nice setup. I mixed an EP for Alice Klar before and frequently work with Christian Badzura on other projects as well.”
Interview (Page 2)
Tim Brunsden: “Summarise your style and vision.”
Hildebrand: “Well, with every the projects my vision is to pull it all together – combine it into one concept. Part of that is to mix it coherently and use the same styles across the record, yet still introduce different attitudes in the songs. That is my main aim.
Interview (Page 3)
Tim Brunsden: “There seems to be a lot of choices about all the detail. How do you make a decision on that, because there is so much to choose from?”
Hildebrand: “There is… the details you can dig into in an environment like Chairworks are immense and you can easily get distracted. So it is important to keep focussed on what was the sound originally, what did it intent to do and what can I make better out of it.
Liverpool Session Orchestra with DC Fontana at Parr Street
DC Fontana nurture their passion for classic psychedelic rock. The band asked Christian Badzura and the Liverpool Session Orchestra to arrange and record four tracks, one of which – the very tricky and demanding arrangement for the song Six Against Eight – is presented in this video. Living the rock star life, they locked themselves in the studio for months to create original music together with producer Donald Skinner (Placebo).
Mix on 4hero release ‘Extensions’
Hildebrand mixed the track Sophia of the eagerly awaited album 4hero presents Extensions, which can be heard below. The original track is from 4hero’s Play with the changes album. The Liverpool Session Orchestra performed the strings with Christian Badzura’s arrangement being dynamic and soulful, keeping the sweetness of the original but with a 1970’s funky disco groove driving the rhythm section.
Liverpool Session Orchestra with Erino Yumiki at Parr Street
The single Lost by Japanese artist Erino Yumiki, currently heard on a Japanese TV series, is featuring the Liverpool Session Orchestra with Christian Badzura’s arrangement. You can listen to the track further down the article.
Erino Yumki is a songwriter and guitarist who loves the songs and the sounds of the Beatles. So it was not too far-fetched to turn to the services of the Liverpool Session Orchestra to create the mixture of beatlesque and modern string parts Erino aimed for.
Gorbachov’s racing soundrack
This – I must say – I like. It’s coverage of the Wexican Motorsport crew testing their newly aquired Nissan Laurel before the third round of the Irish Prodrift Series in July 2009.
Hildebrand mixed and co-produced the debut album of Gorbachov in 2007/08, which is now the soundtrack to a loud and fast racing car sport.
The song “Come and Get It” seems to fit perfectly for this video and is part of a strong first album. You can listen to more in the Media Player, read the related post or visit Gorbachov’s Myspace.
So cool to hear the gear changes over the guitar parts…
Liverpool Session Orchestra with Shane Beales at Motor Museum
Liverpool based songwriter Shane Beales has chosen the Liverpool Session Orchestra to perform on his beautiful tracks Missiles.net and Burnt. LiSO provided a quartet to be recorded in the newly revamped Motor Museum Studio.
Both songs have previously been tracked at Evelyn Yard Studio, an EMI facility in London. Using a guide rough mix Christian Badzura arranged the string parts in close collaboration with Shane Beales. “I guess, once a song is written others can find space within that to express themselves. That’s exactly what Christian has done,” said Shane.
Liverpool Session Orchestra with Nate James at Parr Street
The first Liverpool Session Orchestra VideoLog shows LiSO recording ‘Runaway’ performed by Nate James. This cover of the famous song by Loleatta Holloway was produced by David Brand for Nate’s recent cover album ‘Revival’ full of the best soul classics.
Gorbachov – People Skills
It was great fun to have the Irish lads known as Gorbachov over in Liverpool to record and mix their debut album.
Now it’s the turn of Waterford fivepiece Gorbachov, who are trying something a little different, as they’ve announced an official pairing with Wexican Motorsport Continue reading… »
Mixing Nate James – High Times
High Times is a song on Nate James’ second record Kingdom Falls. After releasing the record Set the Tone as well as the EP Funkdefining, Kingdon Falls was a surprise to many with a very different sound and musical direction. Hildebrand was asked to mix the track High Times and give it brash and dirty, yet still popular sonic quality.
“The brief was particular interesting as it was also about pulling the sounds closer together and introduce additional drive. Often the feel for the tempo is changed when mixing a song and obviously the aim in this track is to make it feel faster. So first I introduced a lot of ‘natural’ distortion into the sounds and worked the EQs out so that the drums become a gel between programmed and natural and a unit in the mix. In comes the Manley Vari-Mu and its great bounce together with the bass. Getting that right lays the ground for the whole track and forms the basis for the rest of the sounds”, comments Hildebrand.
Nokia Ad Campaign
Hildebrand produced the soundtrack for one of the Nokia ad campaigns surrounding the Nokia E61 Smartphone, to be seen and heard at www.office-dummy.com .
The German multimedia agency Denkwerk was asked to create an interactive viral marketing campaign for the new phone, which would communicate the slogan “You don’t have to be there, to be there”.
Nokia’s E61 – the first of the Nokia E series – was designed to allow businesses to mobilize their workforce, allowing employees to access all communication through the mobile phone safely and easily. Given the reasonable price of the phone with appropriate provider bundles, this was now made much more attractive to small businesses as well.
What is the Office Dummy?
Denkwerk came up with the idea that if “you don’t have to be there to be there” (in the office…) you may as well create a copy of yourself and place it at your office desk – being most likely a boring place to be for real.
In order to illustrate the idea of building a ‘dummy’ of yourself four comedic viral spots were created by German film producers BigFish and presented throughout the period of the campaign.
The music to the viral spots
Aiming at a market of small and young businesses, including younger generation phone users, the brief for the music was to create an upbeat, rocky feel that would imply having a laid back and leisurely time.
Hildebrand (drums) asked Robert ‘Scanny’ Scanlon (guitar), Christian Badzura (Keys, Liverpool Session Orchestra), Rory Koehler (programming) and Richard O’Flynn (guitar) to come together and jam out ideas live over the video.
Many version were recorded, cut and rearranged. “It was a challenge to realise the ideas and descriptions given by the clients,” comments Hildebrand, “but they chose a great version in the end.”
