I had never really stopped writing songs since finishing my piranha so there was plenty of material to work with on Sagittarius, but both Larry and I wanted to be a bit more ambitious with the recording process. We set up a makeshift studio in a derelict house and camped in the garden at night. Larry’s recording technology had developed loads from the previous work so we began to overlay multiple tracks constantly. This is immediately apparent in So Alone, where the voices are all overlaid to create a choral effect, and it carries on throughout the album. The intention of these multiple tracks was to create a fuller sound and a much more professional project, but in hindsight I think we polished the material too much, and perhaps lost some of the character.
Another difference upon Sagittarius is the length of the songs, which are noticeably longer. This is largely a result of working in partnership with Larry on some of the song writing, as well as a desire to develop the songs further than the ditties that appear on my piranha. Maybe some of the ideas are being pushed too far at these lengths, but I think others benefit from the ambition, especially It Ends Tonight and Tikkel. Bethan Smith also features much more upon this record, largely because we really liked her contribution upon We Both Lost Our Way In The End on the previous project.
The professional completion of Sagittarius is thanks to the patience and dedication of Larry, who engineered, programmed and performed on many of the tracks. This fundamentally essential contribution perhaps leads to my lack of fulfilment from the project, as it didn’t include many of the imperfections that result from my limited musical ability! Personally it feels a little dislocated from the source material. However, it received more praise from listeners than any other musical endeavour I’ve ever embarked on, so I shouldn’t be too negative about it.
The music shared many of the same influences as my piranha, although I wasn’t in the same emotional state when recording the material as when I had written it, except for Balmoral, which is lifted straight from the demo tapes and left untreated.
credits
released November 1, 2007
Performed by James Fair, Larry Smith and Bethan Smith. Music written by James Fair & Larry Smith. Lyrics by James Fair. Produced by Larry Smith. Recorded at Bramleys, 5th – 11th August 2007 except “Balmoral” – recorded at The Tything in 2005.