Danser Tout le Temps

 We have been recording a new single this past month. It is a funny one that emerged quite naturally right before a rehearsal. I had been sorting through my overly large and needlessly over complicated Ableton Live set and hit a wrong scene and a basic four on the floor kick and hi hat pattern played. The scene had been set at 130 bpm though, which is much faster than most of the songs we play, so it set me to playing a simple octave sequence on A. It had a Kraftwerk-like charm.

 When Isabelle and Dan (Daniel Clement is our new guitarist) arrived I played them the core elements and Dan quickly came up with the arpeggio guitar part, which later came to define the chorus. Isabelle left the room momentarily but when she returned she was singing in French! Why? dunno, but it all felt right. Danser tout le Temps was born!

We jammed on it for a few rehearsals and even tried a super loose version of it at our last Cascade Room gig.  It wasn't fully realized at that point though, and a couple cool things were still to come.

Our friend and sometimes live-band member Greg Hanberry came to the studio a week later and we recorded a conga part that gave the song the human energy it needed. He wasn't content to leave it with just congas though so went thru his percussion case and hit, shook, and played everything that would make a noise. It was great but did make deciding on which fit the song a fun challenge.

Once we had the main instrumentation right Isabelle came in to record her lead vocal.  We even asked a friend to come and help us with the French. I wanted to ensure we were saying something understandable to a French person. (Thank you Nathalie!) With her advice we figured out what we needed to say and even managed to keep it rhyming.  Dan shocked me with his falsetto. You will hear it in the big disco section at the climax of the song, I think it was the highest note he's ever sung. Kinda crazy.

 The mix has been interesting to figure out. Even though it's a dance song we don't want it to be a banger, so finding the balance between song and dance has been the majority of the effort.  I messed with the arrangement for two weeks, and re-recorded my bassline four times. Part of that was finding something that drove the song but also could be played while singing, something I'm conscious of now that we are playing live more.

Danser tout le Temps is seven minutes. We wanted it to be eight, but after much editing and revision it dropped to seven. It might well be a seminal song for Combine the Victorious. Dan's influence on our sound is taking root and we are better for it!

Our plan is to release  Danser Tout le Temps in January. That way we start 2024 on a positive note. 

However, if you'd like to hear it before then please come down to the Princeton Pub on Dec 29th in East Vancouver.  It's Friday night and should be a great party!

Thanks for reading,

Mark