A mix of British prog-rock band Big Big Train's extraordinary performance of the extraordinary song 'Transit of Venus Across The Sun', recorded live by Telefunken at Real World Studios. 

The mix itself was completed as part of an assessment in 2022 and submitted to the 2022 TAFE NSW-AVID-Innovative Music Mixing Awards. I had less than 24 hours notice before submissions ended, but didn't find myself wanting to tweak this too much thankfully. It hasn't been mastered for commercial release so will be a little quiet, and there's a few things I'd certainly improve in retrospect, but this is the track untouched since submission. 

The multitrack stems were provided by https://www.telefunken-elektroakustik.com/multitrack/big-big-train-multitrack/ and all rights and ownership of the recording belong entirely to their respective rights holders. I am only responsible for this version of the mixed tracks.

RIP David Longdon x

Mix - Transit Of Venus Across The Sun

While we're at it, I finished this cover of ELO's Don't Bring Me Down a few days ago. 

Made life hard for myself by taking a song with very famous falsetto and tuning it down to the point that I couldn't sing it in falsetto, so had to rewrite the vocal harmonies and most of the song to get it to work together. Could've added layers forever but I only had limited time and I'm pretty happy with it. Should've called it 'Don't Tune Me Down', but the artwork is done, so that's that.

Written by Jeff Lynne, adapted and performed by me, all rights belong to the respective right holders.

Don't Bring Me Down(tuned)

I wrote a song about going to a social gathering and not wanting to socialise, and then finding company in somone else who also doesn't want to socialise. 

This is that song.

Music & lyrics: Me. Matt Graham. I did them.

Together Alone

Together Alone - Mix

All rights and credits belong to the composers of the original version: MYGIND A/WERNER M/MOGENSEN N/JANZI A of the fantastic Danish band VOLA.

Link is in the bio, as always. Check out the original here for a comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV71YZluVQc

This began as part of an assignment to rework an existing song. I've loved VOLA and this song years, but had no idea where to start and the first draft was essentially a complete recreation of the original with some acoustic guitars here and there.

I had to go back to the start and redo about 70% of the arrangement. Even still I didn't end up straying from the original in terms of composition, beyond the intro.

It was a difficult process as I was working with time and technical constraints, made some simple mistakes and took shortcuts that I baked into the tracks for convenience in the short term. In the long term it meant that if I wanted to release a version I was happy with I'd have to spend hours working around these issues rather being able to fix them. Which is exactly what I did.

In the end I just had to stop work and let it out of its cage.

Alien Shivers - VOLA Cover

I was listening today and realised I'd uploaded my mix of Together Alone without finishing it for release. This one is a little bigger, a fair bit bassier, and hits a bit harder - in other words it's closer to the kind of sound I'd imagined. I figured I'd upload the Master seperately so there's a before and after for those who care.

I wrote a song about going to a social gathering and not wanting to socialise, and then finding company in somone else who also doesn't want to socialise. 

This is that song.

Music & lyrics: Me. Matt Graham. I did them.

Together Alone - Master

MUSIC: M. Graham; LYRICS: S. Eliot

This one had some dust blown off it a few times. I recorded the music in 2022 - the first metal song I'd written in...10-15 years? Mixing metal is hard as hell, and I restarted from scratch about 2-3 times as I was learning. A colleague of mine (who you can find online as Jackal Crow) lent his incredible lyrical and vocal talents. We worked so well on this that we have a few more in the works.

Took me over a year to get the time to really dive into it and polish it up, and then I decided I was going to release the 4 songs we have almost finished all at once as an EP. And with that single move I created an obstacle so large I couldn't even begin to surmount it. 

So I took 2 months off (not by choice, just entered a fugue state and finished every Soulsborne game), and then came back to it a few days ago and finished it. 

And here we are - the first song from a project called REFINERY. I hope this gets you through your work day.

Blood Red Rust

Music and Engineering by Matt Graham with Lyrics and Vocals by Simon Simmo Eliot A.K.A Jackal Crow. Collectively know as Refinery

Need in the Hay 2024 submission.

Lyrics:
_______
The sky looked down on lovers 
All staring toward its face
It couldn’t tell you what they see in it
They still look despite it’s changing 

It can hide all it wants
Deep within its blankets 
It knows not of our patience 
until finally It faces us 

And still we stare in awe 
Mutual fragile honesty
No matter how long you’re in the clouds
There’s always someone waiting 

With Eyes that just can’t wait to meet you 
When you’re ready to face the earth
And feel this sense of warmth 
When you remember you have worth
_______

Don't Bring Me Down(tuned)

Ambi.ent Matt

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