Victorious Combinations

      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...

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...

We had a fantastic session at the Armoury Studios at the end of May, and after living with the mixes for a week we've submitted them off to Craig Waddell for mastering.  This is our best work yet, with our most complete vision for an album and definitely the most dance floor worthy collection of song yet.  Isabelle and I haven't figured out the final running order yet, and we've been playing with several different orders to see which flows best, but we're looking for a nice long playing album.  Something that you can put on at the start of a party to get things going, and then hopefully put at again at the end of the party to set your night activities in the right direction! Everything sounded quite stunning through the overhead monitors.  It is my favourite room to mix in Vancouver, so good!   We even had the opportunity to record a quick piano part to start our first day.  The middle eight of the song Caught Up To You has a quirky samba kind of brea...

We are really excited to have just booked time at the amazing sounding Armoury Studio to do our final mixdown.  After the months (years in some cases) we've been working on these songs, it feels thrilling to set a date for completion.   The monitoring in that room is astounding.  John Vrtacic designed the over head sound system and it has possibly the best bottom end I've ever experienced.  Really looking forward to the session. Have to say thanks again to Don Harrison and Stefan Sigerson for their contributions to the songs.  Everything is sounding fantastic! Getting closer to completion.  yes. M

We are getting closer and closer to finally finishing our new album.  Back on my birthday we had a listen through to nine out of the ten songs that'll be on the collection.  This little instagram clip is a tiny section from one of the last songs we'll be finishing, Recharge .  You can hear the guitar playing of our friend Don Harrison over the repurposed drumming of Jesse Smith (I grabbed song of his drumming from a song off our debut album The World Over and built a new groove over top).   It's quite an ambient and funky thing we've created and should fit in nicely between the more traditional dance rock tracks and the electro-disco vibe of the others.  Check out it. A video posted by Mark Henning (@boutiqueempire) on Mar 19, 2015 at 9:45pm PDT

Well, we've been working for months now and the album is finally taking shape!  So far we've decided on at least seven songs that will be for the vinyl version.  They are in no particular order: Stand in Front of Tanks It's Still On Hardly Spoken Caught Up to You California'15 Best Tonight Real Life Turns Me On Some of these songs we've written on our own but several have been collaborations with old friends and new.  We can list Ingrid Schroeder, Barry Flynn, Stefan Sigerson, Jordy Birch, Justin "Juice" Kadis, Misty Reid, Leigh Grant, Don Harrison amongst our writing partnerson this album.  It's been really interesting comparing the results of each collaboration, as the songs are all playing together quite nicely. I think we still have a couple really long and hard vocal sessions for the rest of the material we're considering, and there are still so many ideas that we've started in the past that have only reached an ver...

Working on another new song today, one we started in January titled either Humanity or Illuminaut.  Not sure yet.  Anyway, we've had the pleasure of Don Harrison do a very effective guitar part on this song so it's starting to sound really good.  I was attempting to build a more dynamic lift for the chorus and just spent a few hours messing around with a few different synths before finding a good part. This afternoon I dialled in a really nice wide lead synth sound on my novation and suddenly this very Simple Minds - Sons and Fascination era part came thru my hands.  It occurred to me that over the decades I've probably referenced the album and more specifically Mick MacNeil' s keyboard playing hundred of times.  What a great player; some of his parts were so simple to play but they would expand a chorus or bridge way more than the guitar could.  I have always enjoyed the way he could layer sounds or add effects, usually a quick sixteenth note delay or ...

This past week we had the pleasure of Don Harrison (guitarist of Sons of Freedom ) join us in the studio to lay down some tracks for two Combine songs.  One is a reworking of a favorite that sounds dramatically different from its prior incarnation, the other is a new song that we'd kinda pulled off the stove in the summer to regain a little objectivity. For those who may not know Sons of Freedom, or Don Harrison, I feel duty bound to sing their praises!  (here's a link to an early single "Criminal" - perhaps you'll remember?)  SOF was one of the coolest and most important rock bands in Canada back in their day.  Though never a popular as some of the contemporaries, Sons of Freedom were a seminal act with a powerful rhythm section and precise dual guitar sound that could melt your face live (as they just did at their reunion show this past October) but still allow you to have a bit of a dance while they did it!  Don is a brilliant guitarist with chops and sty...

Our new track - It's Still On - has a long history.  We initially wrote and recorded a version for our second release, the Disagreements EP.   It was an ok recording but really in retrospect I always heard it as a demo rather than a finished record.  We'd shared the writing with our pals Barry Flynn and Ingrid Schroeder and it was an exciting moment.  However, the years rolled by and the song started to feel forgotten. We were considering tunes to play for Isabelle's parents Golden Anniversary, and, because there was going to be a piano at the party, I recalled our old song Please .  It was written around a completely free form piano part, with wildly varying tempos and time signatures, very romantic.  Isabelle and I began rehearsing for Scotland and after the first time we tried it just with piano for accompaniment we both felt the excitement again. While over in Scotland, we had the pleasure of driving up through the Highlands and had a brilliant vis...

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

We recently had the pleasure of having old friend and former Pure bandmate Leigh Grant come into the studio and record drums on new Combine the Victorious songs.   It was a near complete Pure reunion that day, as Jordy Birch* was on hand to help with production.  The song in the clip below ( Come Down ) is a track that was co-written with Justin " Juice " Kadis and Misty Reid, we'd started it in 2013 but never completed the recording.  As Isabelle and I listened back to it this spring I could hear where live drums could really add a lot of life to the track. Live drums always seem to have that magic. So we asked Leigh to come down to the studio and put down his magic.  The section of this clip is the very first time Leigh's putting drums to the song, I love how much energy he adds from the very first cymbal crash. Thanks again Leigh, sounds amazing!  As I was messing with the mix a bit I solo'd his performance and found myself thinking of Pureafunalia ,...

I had a lot of fun this past Friday in Bank Vault Studio with former Pure bandmates Jordy Birch and Leigh Grant .  It was the first time since 1994 when we were recording Generation Six Pack that the three of us have all been together in a recording studio!  Leigh came downtown to put down some drum tracks on four Combine the Victorious songs with Jordy helping out with production. The day began as it must, in a music shop.  We picked up a rental kit from Tom Lee after a nice perusal of the Steinway piano room upstairs.  It's an understatement to say it's pretty nice playing on a nine foot grand!  Anyway, we grabbed a kit and went to the Bank Vault and quickly set up.  Leigh is probably even better than he was back in Pure days, he locked in with the songs effortlessly and has really given everything a great burst of energy.  After hearing a couple of these songs for almost a year with programmed drums it was liberating to hear a human take on the...

I've just spent the past week working on a new song called The Best Tonight .  It was built on the back of another song we wrote last year called Overtime .  Recently we'd cut a version of Overtime with Jordy Birch producing, and even though he pushed us to get a great vocal performance, after the glow of studio excitement faded the song just seemed to lacking something.  The recording was great but the song itself seemed to lack that little spark it needed to make it important. So, while I was attempting to "fix" the original song a new song started to appear from the work, a better song actually.   The Best Tonight is kind of a story song, our story.  It happened quite naturally, and was initially effortless to get down on tape.  However, like so many other tracks in our history, under the sober light of day I felt a bit uncomfortable with the very literal vibe to the lyrics and we set about trying to rewrite them.  It's taken all week but I thin...

Isabelle and I are feverishly working to complete the recording of our next full length album.  So far we've compiled over thirty five different song ideas, but more keep arriving with each session.  This past week we played out first show as a duo since we got back from Europe in 2012.  It went extremely well, though of course the energy was different from when the band performed as a four or five piece.  The extra room sonically allowed us to really explore the electronic side of our sound, and of course inspired another way to present our material. As it looks right now we'll be including a few re-imagined songs from previous releases amid the new material, all to be put onto vinyl for the final release.  We've been speaking with Boutique Empire artists Robert Edmonds about the art work and we're quite excited to see what he creates for the album. So much to do!  Gotta get back into the studio. Thx for reading Mark

We have eight songs almost ready for mixing now: the new album has started to really take a sound.  Over have the songs have a definitely disco feel to them: three were written in one days last month!  There are a few that we've written from scratch with Juice and Misty that sound a little more 90's but still all related to dance music.  I guess our next album is going to be quite a party record! Stay tuned, we are going to start sharing songs very soon! M

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...

We started January with four new song ideas and several snippets of songs all the result of one crazy night of jamming.  I guess a few of those ideas will make the album but what's been so interesting is that we've now written three more new songs in the past week.  Most of these are a little more personal than our initial ideas and all of them seem more substantial too. We've been in the studio everyday except one so far this month and the new music is starting to take shape.  It's exciting to think of how the entire full length is going to sound.  It's our intension to collect a few songs from our Crumbling Hearts EP and combine them with these brand new tracks to tell the complete story.  Musically I think we've solidified our sound, the beats are bigger and more solid than before and the instrumentation is both simpler and more immense.   Lyrically it's a much wider playing field, we've got songs covering an array of serious topics but all seem to...