Timing and Expectation

 

I choose the title, Timing and Expectation, for my 5th studio album, long before I had written all of the songs. Even though we often have no control over "timing," when reflecting on my life, it always occurs to me that the timing of an event has a significant bearing on the result. The degree of pleasure or pain that you experience from even the most trivial events can be affected by their timing along your life’s pathway. “Expectation” because keeping your expectations in check is one of most difficult and important life skills I have ever had to learn.

 

I kept a copy of the album cover on my music stand to motivate and inspire me during this two year recording project. Timing and Expectation is a collection of thirteen of my original folk-roots songs.

I continue to enjoy writing a travellers tale, and four of the songs are inspired while riding the open road on my motorcycle: Eighty-seven Years, Wilcannia My Darling, Travelling Man and Where the Wind Blows Cold.

 

Falls of Thunder, Can I Dance? and Smoky Bar were inspired by some of the folks and places that have made an impression on me along life's way. My home town of Rockingham in Western Australia inspired Down to the Waterline.

 

Help Me Free My Mind turned up unexpectedly. It was important to include this song on the album as the more we talk about mental health the better the long term outcome will be for everyone.

It's 3am in Studio 453

I worked for hours with my trusted companion, affectionately named Harvey Korg (Korg Harvian 30 Digital Ensemble Piano) on the arrangements for the songs.

 

My vocal and acoustic guitar recordings were recorded in the early hours of the morning, when the town was quiet. All sound checks were completed the night before so we could begin recording with a minimum of fuss. On a given morning we would record either vocal or guitar. We would set the alarm for 1am. Guitar recordings would begin at 1:30am. Vocal recordings would begin at 2am, giving me an extra half an hour to warm up my voice. These early starts took their toll on us and after we had recorded the last track of the last song both me and my sound engineer were very pleased that the recording side of the project was complete.

 

We busied ourselves and created music videos for four of the songs. The music video for Eighty-seven Years was filmed at Porongurup, Western Australia. On Falls of Thunder I used super 8 footage of the falls, taken by my mum and dad. My role in the Down to the Waterline video was filmed on my home town beaches of Warnbro Sound and Mangles Bay. Help Me Free My Mind was filmed late one afternoon, in my front garden, during a covid lockdown.

 

One of my favourite places, on the beach at Warnbro Sound

I would like to say a special thank you to my sound engineer, and life partner, Steve Laws, for the hours spent in my studio, recording, mixing and mastering this album.

 

Sound bites and lyrics are available on my website. I hope you enjoy Timing and Expectation, the album is available for purchase or streaming on all of your favourite music apps; enjoy.

 

My recording studio is made up of the following components:

·       HP Envy 17” (Intel Core i7-4700mq processor, 16GB RAM and 1TB hard drive).

·       Cakewalk Sonar X3 DAW.

·       Roland Octa-Capture Audio Interface.

·       Rode NT2000 Microphone.

·       Adam F7 Studio Monitors.