Making a record should be a simple process, right?. You get the songs together then you record them and then anyone whose attention is won may have a listen and will hopefully enjoy them.
But making a record is actually like running a marathon just as you near the finish line, which with 2 songs left to finish up is were escape act now are, comes the crucial final steps.
You have to mix the songs to give them the feel and sound that suits them best and then its mastering whereby the record is given its final sonic balance. Other questions arise like what should be the single? What should the cover look like? Video ideas?
These choices begin to happen right at the point when you just want everyone to hear and enjoy the songs and you can lose perspective on things very quickly .
Over the next few months we want you to HAVE YOUR SAY? We will post up songs as we mix them and you can shout which one sounds like a single for us to try and get on the radio with! Or let us know if a song needs a drum solo! etc Tell us which cover idea is great and which one not so much!
The next recording sessions in Gargleblast studios Glasgow, are at the end of September and October. Then it’s time to Have your say!

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Hi,
Just back from my first drum practice tonight ahead of the summer recording dates. (end of June and July)
For an hour the click track was my enemy and then it all clicked (pardon the terrible pun) when i kept things simple. I like adventerous drum rolls and hyper bass drum parts but songs usually don’t!
The six songs i’ve chosen to complete the new record are currently called: Don’t you think we should stop?; We bumped into love; In the meantime; Hungry Vultures; How can i reach you? & Still Here.
I’ve been working at home on these songs over the last few weeks finalising chords and tweaking words, nearly there now with the writing but you never know until you hit the studio.
I’ll let you know how things are developing at the end of June when i hopefully get the bones of the new songs down.

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At the start of the week a couple of days were pinched to go over and make some further progress on the new songs. The songs are, Kevin Drain, Like a wrecking ball, Racing and A dream that wakes you up.
The session was mainly spent finishing vocals on wrecking ball and arranging the other songs. Everything is starting to come together with the new record now and although a lot of work lies ahead a definite vision is emerging which is exciting all involved.

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Hi everyone,

Last Spring after we finished the Balance album project we decided to take an indefinite break. Things came to a natural end with the conclusion of the promotion for Balance and it seemed the perfect time.
In the Summer I started to record new songs with Andy in Glasgow. There are four songs nearly done. Rich has managed to get over and do some singing and glockenspiel and its really fun getting over every few months to work on the project.
As time flies by and our family commitments have changed in brilliant ways Rich and I always saw the band we started eventually morphing into a less permanent group setup and after a much needed break thats what has happened.
So instead of the music i’m working on coming out under a new band/solo name we decided yesterday it would be a waste to not allow it to be escape act music. I hope to put up some early mixes of new EA songs soon. Chris

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We’re pleased to be releasing this excellent video for Salt In Your Eye, lovingly produced by the guys at Melting Point Media:

Click here to download Salt In Your Eye

We asked Director Gavin Randall for some thoughts on the inspiration for the video…
“The initial inspiration for the video came from the song. We liked the song’s themes of overcoming overbearing personalities and not giving up, while the upbeat tempo pointed us towards creating something fun and light hearted. I always felt the idea would be based around two characters competing or fighting. This led us to old style cartoons where the bad guy would set up elaborate traps to catch the good guy but would ultimately fail. With numerous situations and locations in mind, it was the bands name that gave us the idea of a prison with the two characters being the guard and prisoner. We also looked at classic prison break movies such as Cool Hand Luke, and The Great Escape for inspiration.

When starting production we spent a lot of time trying to find the right location. Originally we found a warehouse that we were going to use and make it look like a prison. Then four days before shooting I read an article where a feature film called ‘Screwed’ had recently used an actual prison to film in. After numerous phone calls we secured this location. We spent two days shooting, one at the prison and one at an abandoned hospital that we used for the exteriors shots. With close to 3 hours of footage captured we then spent the remaining three days editing, compositing effects and colour grading before arriving at the final cut.”

Visit meltingpointmedia.co.uk for more Melting Point videos.

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Here’s our short film ‘Striking The Balance’. It charts the making of our second album ‘Balance’ during 2009. [watch on youtube]

The film was screened at ‘So You Want To Make An Album’ an Open Music Media Meetup/Discussion at the Black Box Cafe on Sunday 31st January.

Many thanks to Tim Newell for all the effort and time that went into helping us tell the story.

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Hey everyone. A couple of important Escape Act happenings in the near future…

New Single. Firstly we’re ‘releasing’ Salt In Your Eye as a single, a video is being prepared as I type and we’ll be doing our best to have the whole world hear it over the coming weeks. Visit the wee mini-site we made for it using ‘viinyl.com’ and please tell yer friends they can download the song and more at music.escapeact.com.

The film of the album. This is something we’ve been working on over the last month or so. Our good friend Tim Newell has prepared a short film about the making-of ‘Balance’ during 2009 and its shaping up nicely. Its a nice culmination of this period of Escape Act’s existence, charting what was an interesting, challenging and emotional experience. The film will get it’s first showing at the Open Music Media Meetup in Belfast [facebook link] on January 30th, before being available on more traditional channels such as Youtube and Vimeo. Esteemed purchasers of our superb ‘Balance’ digipak will receive a limited edition DVD containing the film and various interesting extras.

A wee gig. We’re getting involved at the Oh Yeah Music Centre’s ‘Scratch My Demo’ series of gigs. We’ll be performing several songs including some newbies on Tuesday 15th February. Doors at 7pm and its free!

Happy New Year!

Rich, Chris and Ross

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a lovely wee performance of Pressure for the Bandwagon TV guys…

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Jim Carroll of Irish Times and On The Record blog fame had this to say about our recent Hard Working Class Heroes gig:

“muscular, harmonic, swinging indie-pop from a Belfast band who recently swapped drummer for a drum-machine and are not showing any signs of missing him”

more of his HWCH thoughts here

to celebrate, you can now ‘pay what you want‘ for downloads of our new album, and our lovely gatefold CD album is still only £5.99!

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Hi everyone,

Just a short update on what’s happening inside escape act as we head into my favourite season, Autumn.

We are getting some final plans together for the second half of the balance release, a single release with accompanying video and then the release of a bonus dvd edition of the album. Ideas are flowing well between the three of us and we can enjoy the final stage of the process of releasing our second album.

Things have been up and down for us this year. Early in the year mastering the record was initially pretty horrible, eventually though we found Loz Gill who delivered us the mastered sound we were after, a big relief rather than the celebration it should have been. But by the summer we were celebrating which was great.

Simple things became difficult this year. But without spilling any tears we figured it out, the inspiration and energy is flowing.

Chris

Escape Act with Tim Newell at Out of PLACE, 5th June 2010. Picture by Amberlea Neely.

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