For London quartet Arthur Beatrice, the release of their sophomore album Keeping the Peace marked a great move forward. Following on from the release of their acclaimed debut album Working Out, the band underwent significant changes both creative and emotional.
Where listeners were first introduced to a male/female vocal partnership in Ella Girardot and Orlando Leopard, Keeping the Peace has seen the dynamic shift to a place where Girardot has taken the vocal duties on her own. The change in dynamic wasn’t a hasty one by any means and instead reflected a series of clashes, realisations and shared desires to take the band’s music in a different direction. As Leopard says, “We all went into making this record at difficult times in our lives. …We realised that those hard moments were actually us realising who we were and what we wanted to achieve – which was a much more emotionally charged and human record, which then gave the process a lot more clarity.”
The recently released album has already spawned some great highlights, particularly in single “Since We Were Kids” and as we continue to discover more about Arthur Beatrice with Keeping the Peace, the band themselves have documented their in-studio process for us below.
Check it out!
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“The album is called Keeping the Peace, which is a line from the last song on the record, called “Brother”, which is about the stress that working with such close friends can bring. Whilst Elliot and Hamish are actually brothers, the way that we work together has become a little bit like a family. When things are difficult there is a lot of disagreement and arguing, but the next day, it’s all forgotten. Everyone knows that the stress comes from wanting it to be the best it can be, so things are forgiven very easily.”
“Joe Rodgers engineered the whole record, alongside the more camera shy Matt Wiggins, who co-produced it with us. They were amazing people to work with; they had this incredible knowledge of recording and the way to get the best from our instruments as well as ourselves as performers. Joe has a distinctive method of ‘engineering’ a session by keeping everyone in a good mood. He would adjust lighting to suit the mood of the track we were working on, and had a knack for turning up unannounced with a big tray of teas (or something stronger) just when we were beginning to get tired or pissed off…”
“When we were recording with the CK choir, most of the work was in making sure that every harmony was dialled for each section before the takes. It took a while to work it all out but once we had the lines, the choir’s leader Harlano was amazing at getting the best from the singers.”
“Coordinating a 12 person choir is ridiculously hard work, so having Harlano to get our direction across to the guys was essential. There is no way that we could have gotten as much done for the record as we did if we had been trying to manage the whole thing… “
“Despite the time pressure and the amount of work that we had for the choir to do, it was mega fun and there was a lot of dancing involved, especially as the takes got better and everyone relaxed a bit. Harlano used his moves to conduct the singers and soon everyone was copying him, even on the other side of the control room glass…”
“We had never used a choir before, so it was pretty difficult to keep a critical ear on the recording process. Everything sounded so big and amazing from the offset that you couldn’t work out which takes were better than others. It was the same with the London Contemporary Orchestra; you hear 16 string players crescendoing over a song that you’ve written and you can’t possibly think of anything other than how cool it is that it’s even happening in the first place…”
“Elliot and Hamish looking over lyrics before vocal takes… The songs are developed extensively in the demoing stages but there is a lot of room to change things as we record them, which makes the process as well as the outcome a lot more exciting. Elliot writes the bulk of the lyrics, but given as Orlando and Hamish work them into melodies and Ella has final say on the vocal lines, there is a lot of input from their end and changes are always being made in the studio.”
“Speed is often essential in the studio, especially when you want to get things done in the excitement of the recording process. Sometimes you need to find a shortcut to stop things getting slowed down by boring stuff like sound engineering…
‘The snare drum is ringing a bit, can you dampen it with anything at all?’
‘I found a dishcloth and some tape in the kitchen?’
‘Yeah that should work…'”
“Matt was an amazing person to have as co-producer. He filled in all the places where we were rubbish when it came to recording. If left to it ourselves, we can agonise over each take of each instrument or vocal, and pull the life from it by editing too much. He had a great ear for takes that sounded natural and right for the track and would always have a note of each one in his book to make the edits quicker.”
“Getting the right takes for a vocal is a dark and weird art. Ella did some songs in a couple of hours, and some songs took three different sessions at recording the vocals. There are places on the record where we used demo vocals, because there was something special about them that it was impossible to recreate. Every take is an amazing one when it comes to Ella’s voice, but sometimes things happen in a way that you can’t predict or engineer, and when they do, it helps to be recording…”
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Find out more about Arthur Beatrice HERE.
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