Colin Masson New Album

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The words of South Australia are from a traditional sea shanty, probably from the late 18th/early 19th century, I sent a leaflet with info about the concept to those that asked for CD's, and it's also on the website, but for those that are interested I'll put a copy of it here too!

About the Southern Cross

This album requires some explanation.  It is at the same time brand new,  and yet 
the material is mostly from 20 years ago.  Famous rock musicians, especially of 
advancing years, very often get accused of recycling and rehashing their old 
material.  I however am in the fortunate position of being relatively unknown, and 
so is my back catalogue.  When I originally recorded this, it was on to a four track  
cassette portastudio, which in the mid 1980s  was the best that an amateur 
musician could aspire to. Recording studios were by and large beyond what I 
could afford.  Therefore I made do with what I had.  It was a great way of getting 
down ideas very quickly, but unfortunately the quality of the recordings  generally 
did not live up to what was required for a professional release.

These days, everybody can have a multi track in their bedroom courtesy of the 
humble computer,  and as  I have a back catalogue going back many years, some 
of which I think still stands the test of time material wise,  I am now in a position 
to release some of this old stuff.

So here for your  delectation and enlightenment is a rundown of what this album 
is about.

The Morrigan (which is the band that I play in), was formed in the second half of 
1984.  I was not the original guitarist, being a replacement for Tom Foad.  This was 
the time when I
first met Cathy Alexander (the singer and multi instrumentalist) who
became my long-term partner.  At the time we 
were both living in
Basingstoke and I had never been further west than Burton Bradstock in
Dorset.  Cathy suggested on one of our 
early holidays,
that we should go and visit the North coast of Cornwall.  I was
completely blown away by the rugged Cornish coast 
and having recently
joined the Morrigan, was having my first real encounter with folk music
at the same time as finding my feet as a 
guitarist.  I was
also very keen to incorporate all the things that were happening around
me into my music.  This is the background to 
the songs on this album.

The Concept

I think the Southern Cross is guilty of being a concept album, the concept 
quite typical of someone in the first flush of youth.  I had the rather 
melancholy idea of two ships separated by a thousand years in time, both of 
which came to a sticky end.  Side one would be taken up with the 
adventures of the original Southern Cross, some time in the 18th century  
(Perhaps a little like the journeys of Captain Cook, but in a strange 
alternative universe).  The second ship was a starship that had an 
unfortunate encounter with a black hole.

This idea rattled around in my head about a year and during this time most 
of the material here was written.  It has to be said that I do have an 
unfortunate habit of straying off the original subject and so by the end of it 
the concept is only fairly loosely adhered to.  But this is how it all began.

The Tracks 

Here is a list of the tracks and some interesting information about each.

Never Come Back

This began life as
an attempt at a traditional song. I was in very much into the guitar
playing of Martin Carthy at this time, and so you 
find detuned acoustic guitars and a somewhat Humpty Dumpty style of playing, along with a call and response vocal style 
reminiscent of sea
shanties.  The four track version is a bit cringeworthy these days, but
the track had a considerable re-work when I 
recorded it this time, including a much more sinister chorus, which seems to have brought it back from the brink.

Sails of Silver

This remains
largely unchanged from the four track version. The two electric guitar
breaks were originally played on a keyboard, with 
the tape turned down to half speed which enabled me to do a fair imitation of Rick Wakeman (which of course was cheating 
horrendously). In the intervening years  my playing on the keyboard has improved somewhat (though I am not a good keyboard 
player). However
for the new version I thought it would be interesting to see if I could
reproduce the keyboard lines on the guitar note 
for note, and that
is what I have managed to achieve.  The bulk of the track is an
acoustic instrumental, in which I am happy to admit I 
was considerably influenced by the playing of Gordon Giltrap.  I still perform this as a party piece at folk clubs on occasion.

South Australia

This track is
named after a sea shanty which was later recorded by the Morrigan on the
Hidden Agenda album.  It is not however the 
same song, it uses
a fraction of the traditional lyrics but unlike the Morrigan version is
entirely original in the composition of the tune 
and the
arrangement  (In fact it predates the Morrigan version by some years). 
It was one of my earliest attempts at an orchestral 
arrangement.  At
the time the only keyboard to which I had access was Cathy's  Juno 6
synthesiser, which I believe was one of the 
earliest
polyphonic synthesisers on the market.  There were no sequencers in
those days, other than the primitive step sequencers used 
by the likes of
Tangerine Dream, so it all had to be laboriously multitracked.  By the
time I used the Juno it had been through the wars 
a bit, but
although some of the woodwork was missing it worked perfectly.  As there
was no multitimbrality in those days, I had to lay 
up the tracks on
the four track, three tracks at a time, then bounce them onto the fourth
track, then start again with two tracks at a 
time, bouncing
them onto the third track, and so on.  Musically the track came out
really well but from a technical point of view it 
sounded like it
was recorded in porridge.  On the current version It got up to 46 tracks
in Cubase,  also these days the keyboard I use is 
a Triton Extreme (things have moved on a bit).

The Wreckers

Those of you who
know the Morrigan's back catalogue will recognize this track, as it
first appeared on the Wreckers album.  In fact it 
was originally
written for the Southern Cross.  So please forgive me for doing it
again.  The Morrigan version was done in a recording 
studio but the
whole episode was  really rushed and the end result did not see the song
at it's best (it was a long time favourite in the 
Morrigan's live
set).  As a result I do'nt feel too bad about doing it again, and this
version finally does the track some justice.  I must 
say a heartfelt
thank you to Cathy for singing it again after all these years. 
Initially she was quite reluctant but in the end I persuaded 
her;
she completely rearranged the vocals and I think she is also happy with
the final result.  We won't be doing this one again!

Compass Rose

A short guitar
instrumental. The original inspiration to this was a combination of
listening to Jeff Beck and getting a Boss distortion 
pedal and
feedbacker as a birthday present.  In the original version, the feedback
came out of a little box.  Now I have a Roland GT5 
multi effects
unit, which I couldn't have dreamt of affording in those days  but which
I picked up three years ago on eBay for £150 and 
which I adore.  It
also has a feedbacker, but this time I went into a padded room and
turned the guitar up, which was much more fun.  
(Many thanks to my employers at the school where I work).

Interlude with Moon Cycles

This is simply a
reminder to those people too young to remember glorious vinyl, that this
is in fact  the start of side 2 of the record, and 
the story of the second ship.  Moon cycles is the name of the patch on the Triton.

Cathy played that while I grumbled. It is mercifully short.

The Heart of the Machine

The idea behind
the lyrics of the song come from the fact that a lot of exploration was
carried out by people escaping from oppressive 
regimes. At the
time of the recording we were living not very far from Stonehenge, and
the year before had seen the 'Battle of the 
Beanfield'.  It is
generally considered that the police used excessive force on this
occasion.  And it did indeed feel very strange and 
intimidating to be walking through the countryside and finding policemen everywhere.  

On a technical
note, I cordially dislike the kind of drum sounds used during the 80's
but I remember that we had recently bought our 
first digital
reverb around about this time and of course, with any new piece of kit
you end up mucking about with it.  On the opening 
section there is
the typical 80's snare drum sound.  But this time it was produced by
climbing up a chimney (quite large) and hitting a 
TDK cassette box
(empty) with a spoon.  Afterwards putting the whole thing through said
reverb.  Now the original four track tape is 
still with me, and
I was able to isolate one of those drum hits and so it appears here 20
years later sounding as horrible as ever, but I 
had to put it in
for old time's sake.  The original version of this track made much more
use of the original funk line, but somehow this 
time it ended up sounding like ZZ Top, (such is life).

Ocean of storms

This is the only
track that is completely new, largely because the original version was
utter rubbish.  The only similarities between the 
two is the title,
and that they both attempt a Berlin school type of electronic sound (I'm
a big fan of Tangerine Dream's early work).  I 
also have Cathy to
thank for some excellent vocals on this track.  They were done on the
same day as we finished the Wreckers vocals, 
but where on the
previous track we had spent many hours honing everything to perfection,
this time we went down the pub and then 
when we came back
she sat and did the whole thing in a single take.  I then did a bit of
editing, and it was finished in about two hours.  
(Mind you I did
spend a while doing the sequences in the first place).  Another note of
interest is that the Triton has a vast library of 
sounds (over 4000)
and when I recorded this track I was able to stick to using patches of
instruments exclusively from the 70's, 
including electric
piano, mellotron, Solina string machine, clavinet, and some sawtooth
waveforms that would have not been out of 
place on a Moog synthesiser.  In fact pretty much the same as German bands of that era would have used.

The Southern Cross

This is the most
interesting track from a technical standpoint. The original echoplex
guitar part that opens the piece is something  I 
wrote as far back
as my days in the Gestalt, a band I played in many many years ago.  The
four track recording that I did of this has 
remained in good
condition and I used it as a technical exercise in learning how to clean
up material from tape on a computer.  As a 
result large parts
of the original recording still remain here. This includes almost all
the bass, the first keyboard solo (once more done 
at half speed on
the four track tape machine), the short piece of vocal, and several of
the guitar solos.  By a combination of careful 
editing and
timestretch, I was able to fit the old parts to new accompaniments.  It
was an interesting technical exercise.  I rerecorded 
this track originally about two years ago, so it was already done at the time that I did the rest of this album.

So
there it is, the story of the Southern Cross.  If anybody mentions
Pirates of the Caribbean I would like to point out that I did it first!