Victorious Combinations

 We are very pleased to announce that we have a new album about to drop!   Paros is a collection of remixes, remasters, and new tracks (including Façon Fashion , the song made popular on the Netflix series Tiny Pretty Things ) being released on Thorvald Records, April 29th. The anthology is curated and directed by Thorvald Record label chief, record producer and impresario Stefan Sigerson .  We have collaborated for over a decade on songs, dating back to our Crumbling Hearts ep, where he co-produced and co-wrote several tracks. His support over the years has always been uplifting and inspiring, so it's exciting to launch this package out to the world with his new label's guidance and assistance!  A wonderful surprise from this venture has been the connection with graphic artist Steven R Gilmore . (famous for branding Nettwerk Records, Steven was the graphic artist on the 1988 After All album, as well as the debut Pure album Pureafunalia .)   He has created ...

Hello! Isabelle here. Just wanted to share a little bit about our song Thunde r from the lyrical perspective.  The lyrics for Thunder were born from an idea sparked at my studio at the shop, the hum of the sewing machine plain to hear in the backdrop of my original voice memo. “I’m feeling you, it’s coming through like thunder” I've often found that as I sew or iron away my mind can drift off into analyzing conversations and moments that have been caught in my head. Last summer we were in the process of moving from our home of 24 years and I realize that I was kind of saying goodbye to that place. It had always been such a safe, protective and creative space. It was like losing a friend. The same as with friendship there is an ebb and flow as we need it and it’s okay when things change, in fact it’s completely natural. As we walk away from an old home I feel no pain because I believe in the new adventure and all that it holds. The cool thing is that I played the nugget ...

 We have been writing away these past 18 months or so, trying not to let the time escape us during this Covid 19 era.  Back in the summer of 2020 Combine ran into our friend Rob Darch, who gifted us an anniversary present of a recording weekend at Hipposonic studios. Hipposonic is located in the exact studio space that was once Little Mountain Sound   (world famous for records by Metallica, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith... Pure and countless other massive hits).  Isabelle and I had started several new songs but weren't too sure which were the ones we wanted to record so I made the decision to go for broke and record as much as possible over that August weekend. We loaded up with 6 songs, ranging from the very moody track we are releasing this week ( Thunder ) to some dance numbers and a couple out-right rockers which have kinda fallen behind.  It was a fun session with two different drummers, a violinist, a trumpet player and everyone from my folkband Farmteam coming i...

      At the beginning of 2021 I took over Ryan Dahle's studio in the Song City building here in Vancouver. As one of the tasks I set for myself Isabelle and I recorded the following song, "The Love Ballad". We had collaborated and written this song for another person to sing back in 2018 but that fell through so the song just kinda sat on a hard drive for the past years. Then, while we were in Hipposonic Studio this past summer (thanks again for the great session Rob Darch!) Isabelle suggested we try tracking drums and other instruments on the demo. In the fast paced session we blasted through 6 songs (including the ballad) and then took everything home to discover what we'd captured.  After much reflection I decided the version we'd recorded was not the version I wanted to present to the world. Nothing wrong with any of the parts we'd tracks individually but the song didn't sound like our own yet. So over the xmas season Isabelle and I rehea...

Well, Isabelle and I have been self isolating for the past month as most of the world seems to have been, and to keep ourselves feeling good we've maintained our rehearsals and writing sessions. In the course of having a month to ourselves I figured I should attempt to tune up the old Baldwin upright piano that I inherited from dearly missed friend Todd Simko many years ago. As I went about tuning the piano it occurred to me that we should revisit some of our early material again. This song, Embrace , was a favorite of ours from the debut Combine the Victorious album The World Over . The album version, which came out in 2007, is a much bigger production with a full band accompaniment and a rather epic crescendo at the peak of the song. We opted for a simpler and more direct approach with this video, something that could be pulled off with only a single piano and our vocals. Last night we set up a camera, a microphone and a light and tried our hand at this song again. It took us a...

The Bolsheviks by Combine the Victorious

When we were writing Autonomous there were several different directions and ideas that were tried over the past year and a half.   Even though some of the songs were re-workings of older songs ( It's Still On is a remixed, re-recorded version of our song Please from the Disagreements ep - 2008) a few of the songs happened all at the last minute.   Happy Girl was one of them. Happy Girl was born of a drum track.  My old friend Leigh Grant did us a big favour and came into the city to track drums on a couple songs, and a few ideas we had.  Back in the Spring of 2014 we had him come in to record at Valt Studio, Jordy's downtown production space.  It was hardly a massive room, and the equipment was simple and effective, but we ended up with a lot of great stuff!  It was during this session we recorded the drum tracks to Hardly Spoken, Happy Girl, and two others that didn't make the album but may still be used one day! Originally I had Leigh track drums...

Here's another new song from our forth-coming Autonomous album.  This one is sequenced as the album's closing track, a sweet way to say goodbye (before starting the whole thing over again!). We started writing Stop Givin Up On Love over four years ago.  It was titled If Not Love and was much slower, with a completely different chorus.  However the story behind the lyrics has remained pretty much  the same.  It's a song I wrote initially about my brother, who was going through a very rough patch, and in it's initial iteration was very slow and a little depressing sounding.  We put it away and hardly gave it a thought for years.  It was written in the same weekend as our song California, which also started out much slower than it's ended up. At around xmas last year I was going though all the various songs that we'd sketched, recorded, or finished, trying to get a feel for what was going to make up our album.   Because I've started writing an...

We are excited to share the first track from the new album " Autonomous " - Real Life Turns Me On .   Started back in 2013, it's a song that has evolved thru several different versions until it arrived at this master. Our good friend Stefan Sigerson was instrumental in bringing this track to life, he was there right at the beginning and played both the bassline, and the disco guitar as well as adding the piano breakdown all on the first night.  It then kind of sat on the hard drives for a while before we revisited it.  At the time we were exploring a different direction but over the course of the year we kept coming back to Real Life and adding things, subtracking others, and finally hit on the robotic vocal effect that runs through out when we figured we had something cool. Sometime in 2013/14 we ran the track past Juice while he was still in Vancouver and playing with us, and he laid down the lead guitar you can hear on the song.   I think it adds a nice counte...

It's Still On (Paul Schroeder mix) This is a very substantial update of our song "Please" (off the Disagreements ep) retitled It's Still On for 2015.  Good friend and excellent music producer Paul Schroeder has given us a gorgeous mix and we felt the need to put it up! Isabelle created the background visuals for this clip, gathered from just about everywhere.  Hope you enjoy it. It's Still On written by Mark Henning, Isabelle Dunlop, Ingrid Schroeder, Barry Flynn Produced and engineered by: Henning (Boutique Empire Studio) Mixed by: Paul Schroeder Mastered by: Craig Waddell (Gotham City Studio) Vocals: Isabelle, Mark Backing Vocals: Ingrid, Barry extra production elements: Paul Schroeder Drums: Kevin Jones all instruments: Henning Lyrics: Waking up, still tired feeling down, uninspired draining out, the hard work washed away GIving up, so heart broken all the dreams, left unspoken see them smile, as we become the same Don't be sc...

Had a great day recording last weekend when Leigh Grant (original drummer from Pure) came in to play on three more songs.  It's been really fun to see how adding live drums to the tracks makes everything come to life.  He's now playing on over half the album. Leigh killed it once again. We tracked drums on Best Tonight, California '15, and Stop Givin Up On Love.    I started with Best Tonight so we could enter it into CBC Searchlight, and I've just finished the edits on the last of the three,  They as sounding super solid.  Very proud of Boutique Empire studio, it's turning out some big sounding songs! Last year Jordy Birch and I had Leigh come into The Valt studio, (Jordy's studio downtown), and he played on four other songs, one of which we later dumped the original song entirely and built a new one on top of his drumming: Happy Girl.   I know we were all hard on each other in our old band back in the day, but man, Leigh can really drum. ...

We've just finished this track, Best Tonight, and are going to enter it into the CBC Searchlight contest, so please help us out with some voting this April!   Combine the Victorious - Best Tonight Produced and performed by Combine  the Victorious Recorded and mixed at Boutique Empire Recording by M Henning Music: Henning, Dunlop, Harrison, Grant Lyrics: Henning, Dunlop, Birch Vocals: Mark, Isabelle Guitars: Don Harrison Drums: Leigh Grant Synthesizers etc: Mark Best Tonight The odds are long but we'll still make it Set a records and then we'll break it We booked a flight and then we'll take it Australian nights and getting naked Short on money, long on soul what we found funny was all that we could not control So we'll travel the world and visit our friends We're putting our dreams together again "Cause nothing makes me happier than music We'll make the best tonight So we'll trave...

Just a quick note today to mark more progress on the album.  We recently rediscovered a song that we'd started in 2011 and have now brought it up to date:  the sample above is a work in progress and just the chorus hook to our new song Stop Givin Up on Love. This song was originally titled If Not Love and was almost a dirge on its first iteration.  However after several years, a lot of development, many DJ gigs and the rest of the album taking a more progressive shape it has morphed into the cheery hook that you can hear above.  Isabelle's voice sounds great on the harmony part and now I need to get  the verse vocals down so I can pass it over to Don Harrison to add some inspiring guitars!  Certainly it runs a counterpoint to the electronic muscle of Stand in Front of Tanks. It's taking us a long long time to complete our new album but everything is sounding better than we've done before so I suspect the process has required the time and we've nee...

Stand in Front of Tanks New instrumental track from the upcoming full length "Autonomous" arriving 2015 Music written and performed by Combine the Victorious Recorded at Boutique Empire Recording, Vancouver, BC, Canada Video features footage from Tianamen Square 1989. Produced by Boutique Empire Edited by Mark R Henning

We are very pleased to share our song It's Still On .   Our good friend Paul Schroeder (Stone Roses, Campag Velocet) has gifted us with this new mix.  Let us know what you think, leave a message here or follow us on Facebook  / Twitter . It's Still On - produced and performed by Combine the Victorious Written by Mark R Henning, Isabelle Dunlop, Ingrid Schroeder and Barry Flynn Mixed by Paul Schroeder Mastered at The Valt Studio by Jordy Birch and MRH Vocals: Isabelle Dunlop, Mark R Henning Backing Vocals: Ingid Schroeder, Barry Flynn Drums: Kevin Jones all other instruments: MRH

I know it's been a while since we'e posted anything on this blog, and I apologize for the delay.  After we got back from Scotland things have just been constantly busy! However, we have a the first of the new material finishing up and we've just completed a reworking of an old favourite of ours.  A song we wrote with our friends Barry Flynn and Ingrid Schroeder back in 2008 called Please, now re-titled It's Still On , will soon be up online.  Just putting some finishing touches on the mix.  We 've even approached the mysterious Paul Schroeder (Stones Roses, Verve, Campag Velocet) to do a mix - still waiting on that one! Tomorrow I we'll start letting a few glimpses of the music out again.  It's been a long time and it'll be great to have our new music out there. Thanks for reading. M

Brotherhood is a song that I started writing in response to a very dear friend taking his own life back in 2012.  Our friend Todd Simko , who I'd played in Pure with back in the nineties, and who later performed with Combine the Victorious for several shows in 2007 and 2008, left us in the spring of 2012.  His death created a disturbing wake of emotions that eventually found their way into this song. Back in January or February of 2013 I remember starting the core idea one afternoon and the song took shape quite rapidly.  The lyrics are personal but I tried to keep them open to interpretation rather than literal; it's been a sad realization that this kind of incident isn't as rare as it may seem.   The truth is all four of us: Juice, Misty, Isabelle and I were heavily affected by Todd's death, and it's been many months of processing.  We recorded this version back in the summer, on a beautiful day in Vancouver full of sunshine and laughs.  Misty is pl...

Isabelle and I were rehearsing in the living room yesterday and decided to record our version of Glasgow acoustically.  With the beautiful summer sun shining in the background we ran through our song with an more intimate version  than the Crumbling Hearts recording. It's interesting to translate our songs from full on productions to something so stripped back.  Makes a challenge for my limited guitar playing but really helps bring focus to the singing! Have a look.

We were busy this past week.  Between mixing several songs for other local groups I managed to fit in a couple excellent sessions on our new song Brotherhood . Last weekend we tracked Misty on the drums, and the bedtracks still make me smile.  There are little subtle noises in the background which seems to bless this song with extra life.  I'd finished my bass part early in the week and then Juice added some expertly played hand percussion to give some polish to the song.  After that we put a guide guitar part down.  It was Juice's idea to track his guitars on two different sessions, the first time to simply capture what we were playing live, giving us a chance to listen back to the arrangement.  That was important because it allowed Isabelle and I to record our vocals to a backing track that had the full dynamics of the song.  One should never under-estimate how important the vibe needs to be before getting a keeper lead vocal.  Seems simple bu...

This past weekend the four of us started recording new material.  I spent the Friday setting up mics for the drums and recorded me attempting various beats with the hopes of getting a good sound and possibly even creating a few loops.  Of course it's always a challenge to engineer oneself on drums.  Much too much time wasted running back and forth between the kit and the studio, adjusting things after you've recorded, trying it out again and then listening back to see if there's been any improvement.  However, on Saturday Misty Ried came in an laid down the law!  We swapped out my dodgy snare for Juice's vintage Ludwig snare and suddenly everything came to life! Misty it turns out is quite a good drummer!  She has been performing drums on one song live, Brotherhood (the track we were recording bedtracks to on Saturday), but I will admit I never dreamed she had such good groove.  I think we recorded at least three killer loops for new song ideas, all...