Recording - final clap

Tuesday, November 2. Last day. Tonight, it will be the last clap of this recording. Everyone will have returned home, except Annack, Salomé and I who will extend the stay until tomorrow morning. And it’s all the better because finding home after so much intensity, it would have been a bit steep. You had to have that little airlock before you could get back to your day-to-day routine.
But this morning, we still have a lot to do before recording So Great. Last night, we cleared it a little more but this morning, it’s a question of refining it, of finding its little box. For more efficiency and because time is running out, we decide to split the band in two (a first in the history of the collective!): in the theatre, the rhythm section with Mya, Jenny and her orchestra. At the pressoir, Suzanne coached the choirs she formed with Annaïck and Salomé. Yes because since last night, quite spontaneously, Salomé our favorite sound technician goes from behind to in front of the microphone, unless it is the other way around, I don’t know (in any case, still a first in the history of the sound technician !)

Decidedly in this project, nothing happens as usual. Everything is created in spontaneity, joy and envy. And obviously Salomé wanted to, so she did and she sings well too, despite her persistent cough!! How delighted I am that things are happening this way, with fluidity and without a priori. And I sail between the theatre and the wine press to set the course, O captain, my captain.
Thirty minutes later, the entire collective was reformed. In order not to waste time, we decided to install the microphones in the recording configuration. Salomé is putting us to work on the installation, now we’re getting used to it. And Salomé’s investments are still very accurate. This young woman, 25 years old, does a very good job with a smile. It’s a pleasure.
I find myself sitting on a chair, guitar on my knees, with the choirs standing behind my back. In front of me, a screen separates me from Jenny’s toy chest which «repeats» in all the microphones (not Jenny obviously, but the multiple and varied sounds she produces;). Our chief trombonist has switched to another dimension: a musical awakener but she seems to be having fun! Salomé has a last-minute solution: get down from the foam mattresses in her room (above the theatre) to matify a bit. She seems happy. So do we. We have nothing to envy to Ferber, THE studio calf head (yes oh good). Us, we unload with two pieces of mattress, three Balisto and a toy box.
Another song that looks great and I already know what its place will be on the album… We end with some sounds that will punctuate the piece. Listen again. We have the right one.

14H17: Collective applause. We declare session 2 complete. JOY.
Last meal together. I open my last bottle of Burgundy, the one I brought back from my first residence A VERY BEAUTIFUL PLACE, just a year earlier. It’s true, I like it when everything makes sense. From a rotten song in Avigny (cf chronicle of May 12) to an album recording, there is only one way: to feel like it and to believe in it.
Before the girls leave, I have one last idea: to cut out small papers and ask them for their ideal set list. Without thinking too much. Hot. They do. We talk about it a little bit. Not too much. That’s my job too.
We kiss each other. Yes, we kiss now.
Tonight, Salomé, Annaïck and I will listen on Mya’s beautiful carpet, folded cables, my ideal set list with a glass of cider and a few hazelnuts. Every song suits me. Everything is good, there’s nothing to throw away, as Georges would say. It’s nice to hear it and to see it. What a great job we have produced. Together.
Tomorrow it will be necessary to finish tidying up, leave this place with the appearance of paradise, resume the road and let infuse in itself what has been done to prepare the future. Because the cake with all the ingredients is far from ready to be savored...

UN ENDROIT TRÈS BEAU part II, it’s over.
See you soon for the third and last part!
See you, always if you feel like it...