Yaakov's Quest

line-up unchanged :

This 4-track CD was recorded during the winter of 96 in Waterloo, in the garden of what we nicknamed 'the Fisher Asylum' because of all it's weird occupants. I'm sure everyone in the band remembers the ultra-weird neighbor, which showed up when he was out of cigarettes, and that was often.

The album was recorded with my good friend Patrick Lamy's mobile studio (the mixer was tied to the roof of his car for the trip from Paris to Waterloo), on 3 synchronised ADATs, the fourth one was used as a footrest because it wouldn't work ! What a shitty format ! But it's darn cheap.

It was terribly cold in this sort of swiss chalet/tool shed we were put in at the back of the garden. We almost died on several occasions when the wick of the Zibro fuel stove was incorrectly inserted, and that didn't keep us from freezing at night. Oh yeah ! I forgot to mention : we also slept there !

Strangely, the horrible cries that Alexis, Pierre or I shouted at 3 or 4 AM to record the backing vocals didn't worry anybody in the neighborhood ! The high-up versions of 'flip-flaps' on LA QUETE were provided by Alexis, the doom versions were another occasion for me to ruin my vocal cords.

The mixing was done at SAE Paris, over two week-ends, after a transfer to 2" analog tape for more convenience (transport wear, lock-up time of the ADATs, etc.)

The hysterical army voice at the beginning is mine, recorded in the middle of the parking lot at SAE Paris during the mixing sessions. Pierre was just underneath the left microphone for his answer. The truck passing by, the detonations and the excerpt from a famous and successful movie (I won't say : copyrights) where soldiers sing while running, were added during mastering.

Another excerpt from that same famous and successful movie can be found at 2'29" into P SONG : "Get your mighty ass on the bus, you're in the army now !" We could have recorded it ourselves anayway, so we prefered a little hommage to the real movie.

The Jazzy part of P SONG was mixed essentially by removing every possible EQ, compressor and gate on the mixer : natural sound garanteed !

The three interludes that separate tracks 2, 3 and 4 were recorded by Alexis, with Gal as his actor, outside his appartment building in Brussels, and in a nearby market square for interlude 2. I don't remember if the birds were added during the pre-mastering sessions, it seems awful quiet for Brussels !

These interludes are supposed to illustrate the following :

- Yaakov leaves home, on a quest for THE answers

- Yaakov is a bit lost in this environment he doesn't understand. He hails passer-bys in hebrew, but nobody stops to answer.

- Yaakov comes back home and asks if anybody is in.