The Alchemy of Hindsight - Behind the Album

Album Background

Mid-last year I was starting to feel like making some new music. Then, out of the blue, I got the idea to go away for a few days and treat it as a song writing retreat. I’ve never done anything like that before. Usually, songs have developed over a period of time, so this was going to be very different. Prior to getting there I had decided on a general theme, but that was all.

I booked 5 days for the end of July in a small cottage in the Barossa valley which was a perfect balance of comfort and seclusion. After unpacking my car and setting up the keyboard it was actually a bit daunting to sit down and hope something would happen. I made a list of topics related to my theme and then just picked one to start with. It really was a case of coming up with some words, melodies and chords. And to my relief, most of the time things just flowed. For some topics, I only had a couple of lines and a couple of bars. But I knew that was going to be enough to build something substantial later. In other cases, things flowed so easily that I had most of the song done. By the end of my stay, I had the beginnings of 11 songs. I added two more when I returned home.

On my return, I spent much of the following 6 months working on the album. To do this, I took a more disciplined approach than I think I’ve ever done before. I treated each part of the process as a distinct phase to be completed before going on to the next; writing, demos, production, mixing and mastering. Partly that was due to starting with a clean slate but also, having retired, I have a luxury of time that I’ve never had before. In the studio, my production approach was essentially the same as usual, although I drew on a new suite of Native Instruments plugins to provide the instrumentation and I think this has yielded a slightly different sound for me. As always, vocals were a challenge, but I think I managed to piece together some adequate performances. There are definitely still blemishes that I could remove, but I made a conscious decision to keep my perfectionism in check and not over-edit.

Lyrical Theme

So, what was my theme?

Well, I don’t know if this is a common experience, but I often feel like I've lived many lives. By this I mean I can pick out various times of my life where I embraced quite dramatically different lifestyles or held essentially opposing points of views. This album is my response to that notion and the songs could be viewed as a series of “letters to my former selves”. Some of them are simply observations while others offer support or encouragement to a "younger me".

Writing these songs has also allowed me to step back and reflect on the cumulative impact of all our “lives”. I've grown to accept them as layers; each adding their unique nobbles and crevices to the present version of me.

I settled on the album title “The Alchemy of Hindsight” because the songs do allow me to revisit significant times of my life with the benefit of hindsight, which is a gift I do appreciate. And hindsight has the ability to transform, so I also saw these songs as a kind of personal alchemy.

But I do want to make very clear that these songs are meant to be about me; no-one else. And if I have a go at any viewpoints, I'm only having a go at myself.

Musical Styles

I didn’t approach this album with any musical styles in mind. Instead, as the embryos of each song appeared, I decided to take them in whatever direction felt right. Occasionally, this even involved leaning into styles I don't particularly love. But for each song, I've tried hard to follow where I felt the music was taking me. As result, I've probably ended up with a bit of a mish-mash that's hard to classify, but that doesn't bother me at all.

Technical Notes

As the song writing started outside of my usual studio environment, I recorded the initial ideas and sequences using Cubasis 2 on my iPad. On my return I loaded the MIDI from these sessions into my DAW Reaper where writing, production and mixing was completed. For this album I almost exclusively used instrument plugins from Native Instruments’ Komplete. Notable instruments featuring on this album include:

  • Abbey Road 80s Drummer

  • Abbey Road Modern Drummer

  • Studio Drummer

  • Battery 4

  • FM8

  • Hybrid Keys

  • Massive

  • Massive X

  • Razor

  • Scarbee MM-Bass

  • Scarbee Rickenbacker Bass

  • Session Guitarist - Electric Sunburst

  • Session Guitarist - Strummed Acoustic & Strummed Acoustic 2

  • Session Horns

  • The Grandeur

  • Symphony Series String Ensemble

For effects, I mainly used tools from iZotope along side the RC 24 and RC 48 reverbs from Native Instruments. Key iZotope tools used include:

  • Neutron 3

  • Nectar 3

  • Ozone 9 Advanced

  • Vocal Synth 2

The album was mastered using the standalone Ozone 9 app.

You can listen to the album here…

MusicIan BarberThe Alchemy of HindsightComment