2014 saw no new recordings made, but a redecoration/reorganisation of the recording studio room late in the year opened up the space for a small electronic drum kit, the Roland TD-1KV. This brought to life the prospect of live, real-time drumming, albeit played by a very inexperienced drummer. Another crucial new purchase was the Ditto X2 looper pedal, which ushered in a new method of composition and arrangement.
Sessions for the new album began in February 2015, starting with an as yet untitled idea that had been around since April of the previous year. This became “New Horizon”. Nine more new songs were recorded between then and August, seven of them developed using the Ditto pedal. Each song was played and sung live over the looped backing into Audacity as a “proof of concept” before the actual recording began. These demos would be interesting to share at a later date, except the vocals aren’t very good – the best performances were reserved for the Cubase sessions.
The new drum kit gave these recordings a fresher, more spontaneous feel than the previous album, and combined with more experience in tracking and mixing produced some very credible end results. The sound was more expansive than “Soft Landing”, with more variation in mood, but the aim to keep things as simple as possible remained unchanged.
There was to be no repeat of the endless remixing/remastering sessions this time – once the mixes were completed to satisfaction they were sent to a professional mastering engineer, and David at Village Mastering UK turned the ten individual tracks into a coherent album with a consistent sound.
A short-run limited edition of CDs in a digipak case was produced, most are still available.
Track listing:
1. Sometimes (4:25)
2. New Horizon (4:03)
3. Hard To Believe (3:19)
4. Outside (3:27)
5. Indian Summer (5:18)
6. Four Minutes (3:26)
7. Photograph (7:33)
8. I Call Your Name (3:11)
9. Looking For The Same Thing (3:04)
10. Please You (6:10)