this will make you beautiful again
zru vogue | beautiful again
Written, produced, and recorded by Zru Vogue from 2002 to 2004. All words by Andrew L. Jackson; all instruments and vocals performed by Andrew Jackson and Rick Cuevas.
Notes on the making of the album Beautiful Again – from Andrew L. Jackson
We began in the middle and ended somewhere near the beginning. Or so it seemed. We didn’t know what we were doing, as usual, and we’re still not sure what we’ve done. But we did set down a method for doing it, and it went something like this…
Each song began life as words in my notebook that I wrote there when I wasn’t thinking too much. Then later I came back to them with my Hohner acoustic guitar and some ideas for music. I write songs like this all the time, but the songs Rick and I chose to record for Beautiful Again have a unique quality that set them apart.
The first two songs (“Inside My Head” and “Cut the Cord”) were recorded at a mid-2002 session in Rick’s studio where we sat down together and played through about a dozen new “Andy songs” (with me playing guitar and singing, and Rick at the keyboard). At the time we didn’t know we were starting work on a new Zru Vogue project; we were just recording a couple of my songs. But when we played back the first mixes of “Inside My Head,” the result was truly collaborative, and when Rick and I recorded together in the past, we were Zru Vogue.
As soon as we had “named” it as a Zru Vogue project, we began to look at it differently, to more self-consciously evoke a Zru-ish experimentalism in the production of each track. By the time we recorded “This Will Make You Beautiful Again,” we knew we were really onto something (Rick sent me an email after doing some late night overdubbing and mixing in his studio, saying “I think I’ve created a monster!”). This “monster” song then inspired us to review all the songs we had in the pipeline with an ear for which ones had that elusive Zru Vogue quality.
At our next session we recorded lead vocal and rhythm guitar tracks for “The Illusionist,” “Waited So Long,” “Momentum,” “Full of Emptiness,” “Dreaming I’m Awake,” and “Brainstew.” All of the basic tracks were recorded in one take, and most of the overdubs were first takes also, a technique that helped maintain a fresh, authentic quality throughout the recording process (in some cases, we actually removed overdubs, reverting back to an earlier, simpler mix). After weeks of overdubbing and mixing additional parts when our schedules allowed, we recorded and mixed “The Surrealist” in a final extended evening session. Although the entire CD was almost two years in the making, the bulk of it was recorded and mixed in the first three months of 2004.
For most tracks, Rick engineered as I played and sang my parts (initially to analog reel-to-reel tape), and then later added his bass, keyboard, percussion, and e-bow/guitar overdubs, either to the 8-track analog tape or direct to Roland VS-880 digital. In some cases analog tracks and digital tracks were combined at a later session, “flying in” the best takes from different sessions. We tweaked each song just enough to enhance its unique strengths, always with a Zru ear and sensibility applied.
songs on beautiful again:
The Illusionist, Waited So Long, Cut the Cord, Inside My Head, Momentum, Full of Emptiness, Dreaming I’m Awake, The Surrealist, Brainstew, This Will Make You Beautiful Again
download these songs free (high quality MP3)
website exclusive downloads: > Cut the Cord (alternate mix) |
obscure fact:
As Zru Vogue was recording the album Beautiful Again, Rick decided that he needed to go out and buy an e-bow like the one Andy used on “Do the Zru” back in 1982. Turns out he was right. Rick’s slide e-bow on “This Will Make You Beautiful Again” took the song into another dimension. Then he did the multi-tracked slide e-bow on “Inside My Head” and remixed the song with quirky synth bits on the chorus, a project-you-into-space break at the start of the second verse, and psychedelic reverse reverb vocal effects to bring the song into dimension Zru. You’ll also hear Rick’s doubled slide e-bow at the end of “The Illusionist” and Andy playing e-bow on “Full of Emptiness” (his double e-bow solo is actually one solo that you hear both forward and backward simultaneously, so that it “crosses itself” in the middle).
the exile