What's the latest? 13th Oct 2007
Phil writes: "Ok, I know, we're loooong overdue an update for the website. Apologies all, and thanks for your patience. Hopefully the fact that we've all been working flat out will become apparent and you'll let us off.
"The good news is that the recording of 'The Water Road' progresses apace. The brief account of the story so far goes something like this:
"Having rehearsed the 8 tracks pretty much solidly since Christmas, the band travelled down to Aubitt studios in Southampton in July to lay down the basic tracks. Rob Aubrey, engineer extraordinaire, had managed to fit us in between projects by Big Big Train and IQ as well as numerous touring commitments doing the sound for IQ, Spock's Beard, Pendragon and others. Rob's one of those unsung super-talented guys, one who doesn't even have a website for his studio, either you know of him or you don't. Needless to say, a meeting earlier in the year convinced us that this was the guy we wished to handle the recording of 'The Water Road'.
"Recording away from my studio here is a big departure for us and clearly we want a step increase in quality this time around. A bigger departure, though, was that we'd decided to record the album 'live'. Now, this just isn't the way things are done anymore and to say that moving away from sequencers and click tracks was a risk is a vast understatement. The thing is that, the material on 'The Water Road' is just way more dynamic and organic (OK... shoot me now for the gross overuse of muso clichés!) than the prior three albums that in order to get that across, this was the only way to go.The week at Aubitt went very well indeed and supplied the raw material of drums and bass upon which to build the rest of the album.
"Next up was Amy recording vocals here at the home studio, and a lovely job she's done too. I was slightly disappointed by the final vocal sound on 'Shibboleth' but a new Neumann Microphone and spending the proper amount of time on the session has worked wonders this time around. She sounds gorgeous.
"At the end of July, Thomas, Amy and I flew over to Stockholm to do more recording at the Studio owned by Mattias Olsson, the drummer of Änglagård. Mattias is just a great talent and an all round fun guy, full of energy and passion for all things musical. His studio is an Aladdin's cave of electro and electro-mechanical instruments of all kinds and we went there primarily to record Mellotron, Orchestron and Optigan overdubs - Mattias has posted some short video clips from the sessions at his YouTube site. Whilst there, though, we also managed to record Anna Holmgren, also from Änglagård, playing some gorgeous flute, and Stina Pettersson, who played some seriously beautiful cello. We came back from Stockholm with about 150 tracks worth of data, all in a format which required weeks of conversion before being able to import it onto the studio PC, but it was well worth it.
"This was definitely not the time for your studio PC to develop a terminal fault, but it did. Struggling on regardless, fault finding, and ultimately replacing and fine tuning a brand new machine altogether lost the project a good 6 weeks of time and we're only just getting back up to speed. Both acoustic guitars (I know, you weren't expecting that were you?) and a great session with TK alumnus Paul Beecham playing soprano saxophone have been successfully completed since the PC disaster. Thomas has also been able to continue recording his keyboard overdubs at home so we should still be able to hit the dates reserved for mixing at the beginning of November back where it all started, Aubitt.
"Wish us luck,
Phil."
Useful links: Mattias Olsson's YouTube page
iTunes, Napster, CD Baby... 20th July 2007
It may be raining cats and dogs here in the 'glorious' British summertime, but at least we have some good news for you: it's now even easier to get hold of Thieves' Kitchen's music - as well as being available direct through this website and through various international distributors, all the TK albums are now available as digital downloads through iTunes and Napster. You can also download some individual tracks for only 79p or 99¢ each! Look for TK on your favourite digital download site: we may be available through there too. Viva la (digital) revolucion!
We are now also selling all the albums through the awesome CD Baby. Check out the links below to go to CD Baby's pages for Shibboleth, Argot and Head, and for the iTunes Store where TK albums are just £7.99.
Useful links: iTunes Store , if you already have iTunes, go here ; Napster
CD Baby - Shibboleth , Argot & Head
A brand new look! 21st June 2007
Thieves' Kitchen are proud to unveil their brand new website. We hope you like the new look. In part, it is to coincide with the finalising of the writing of 'The Water Road', our fourth album, which we hope to see released in October this year. Another reason is that our old website had not had a facelift since its inauguration in 1999 and was begging for a bit of spit-and-polish, so here we are.
Rehearsals coming along nicely 10th April 2007
At last. Work and social schedules have been rigidly synchronised. An appropriate rehearsal home has been found which enables us to use 'real' drums as per the mandate for the new album. Recording studios have been booked. Work on the fourth Thieves' Kitchen album is finally well under way.
2007 has seen a plethora of frantic rehearsals in a tiny village in darkest Warwickshire. The material which Phil and Thomas have been working on for many months now has finally been handed over to the rest of us for much butchery, swearing and refinement. The studio is booked for early July and the album - likely to consist of six songs and provisionally titled 'The Water Road' - is slated for release in October 2007.
It's as deep and complex as you'd expect. It's also exceptionally melodic, tranquil and pastoral in parts. It will feature a host of additional instrumentation and probably some guest musicians too. There'll be real drums. There'll be real Mellotron. Expect the unexpected. And expect our best album yet.
Thomas Johnson joins Thieves' Kitchen 1st September 2006
We made much in the last update of our new member and the skills and influences he is able to bring to the music - and of course, this has fuelled much speculation and rumour as to just whom that person might be. It is quite thrilling for us to welcome to the TK fold the immense talents of one of the guiding lights of 90's progressive rock - formerly with the legendary band Änglagård - from Sweden, please welcome Thomas Johnson on keyboards!
We hope to add further updates to the site soon - aside from a complete revamp, we should have photos of the new line-up, and mp3s of the new album available. Please do keep checking back. As for the new CD itself - we certainly expect to have completed the writing process by the end of the year at the latest. 2007 will see recording and release as soon as we are completely happy with the new songs.
Useful links: Änglagård.net
The best laid plans of mice and men 31st August 2006
I guess it's necessary to have actually been in a band to appreciate how difficult it can be sometimes to get 5 people together in the same room to play and write music. With the best will in the world - and the best of intentions - everyday life seems to have got in the way of our plans for 2006. Careers in the everyday world, holidays, geography and house moves, to name just a few factors, have all taken their toll on the original schedule which we had set for the new CD...
All is not lost, however. We have written about 45 minutes of the material that will go to comprise the new album, and we're delighted with the way things are sounding. A new TK song is never something that can be bashed out in 2 minutes - both the compositional process and the subsequent learning involve much torment and torture! This time there is a lot of our hearts and souls going into the music, and the results - from the delicate 'When The Moon Is In The River Of Heaven' to the jazzy complexity of 'Tacenda For You' (all working titles, of course!) - are delighting us.
A sad goodbye to Wolfgang 29th July 2005
Well, it's been ages since we've updated the website, a year since our last gig, and nearly 2 years since we released our last album Shibboleth, so what's been going on? The answer is "lots", but very little of it to do with music.
The period since the release of Shibboleth has turned out to be a very turbulent one in the personal lives of each of the members of TK with both 'good' and 'bad' extremes taking up all our time and energy. There are times when music just has to take a back seat.
One key change to affect the band is that Wolfgang decided to move back to Germany last year and is now building a family. When we all spoke a few months back we decided it was probably best that he and the band part company as working at such a distance was going to be so difficult, especially with a child on the way. This was obviously a hard decision to make as Wolfgang's input to the band has been immense, both musically and personally. He is an incredible talent, and he has the most remarkable sense of humour. Who of us can forget him at rehearsal playing a honky-tonk solo piano rendition of Surface Tension whilst shouting "See, you can make it work in 4/4 too!!!" We will all miss Wolfgang's input and wish him well.
Where does that leave TK, then? Well, Phil has just started to write new material for what will become album number four. There's too little that's completed yet to get a picture as to how it will all turn out, but it's exciting to be getting back on track again. In theory, album number four may see the light of day as early as Spring 2006, fingers crossed. We've not attempted to find a replacement for Wolfgang, and so far Amy and Phil have been playing keys during the song writing phase. We're not ruling out other musicians becoming involved as the project progresses but we're not actively seeking people either. A bit of an adventure, really. Let's see where it leads.
As far as performing live is concerned things are less clear, and our experiences of 2004 in this regard have left a bit of a bad taste. We had planned tours of Europe and the US for the Summer and Autumn of 2004, but the offer of a slot at a certain US festival in 2005 caused us to alter our plans. Having shelved the tours to accommodate the festival date, we were unfortunately treated very poorly indeed by the people concerned and the offer to play was eventually withdrawn, leaving us with only one confirmed gig in Cornwall in the UK. Ethical to the last we honoured the gig commitment, shouldering the substantial pre tour costs of getting Wolfgang over from Germany for a week of rehearsals, to ultimately play in front of only a handful of people at one gig.
This has all meant a bit of a change in attitude towards TK live work. Whilst we're not saying that we'll never play live again, we think it's no longer a given that we'll play that often. The current thinking is that the energy required to prepare for live work with this type of material will only be worth it if there's a significant number of confirmed gigs arranged in sequence, and none of us are planning on pulling that together any time soon.
It's unethical to discuss the events of 2004 too deeply in public, but we feel it important to speak out so that those of you keen to see us play live can understand the reasons behind our change in approach.
So, after a long break, it's 'game on' again. Thanks for all your patience and we hope to deliver some more music for your listening pleasure soon.
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