Almost Two Years in the Making

I released my latest album Love and Harmony Combine on 26 April this year – it was nearly two years in the making. I had originally intended to release it in December 2020 as I had recorded two New Year songs, but the recording took long than expected. I had also started following a course called Rock Your Next Release which recommended planning the release 18 months ahead.

The album is dedicated to my mother who passed away at the end of October 2018. She had cancer and she was fully prepared and accepted that she only had a short time left – she told me that she felt that she had a full life. So it wasn’t a surprise when she started to plan her funeral.

There were two pieces of music that she requested – one was “Soave Sia Il Vento” from Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutti, and the other was my song “The dancing flames”. She had told me previously that it was her favourite of my songs, she liked the poetry of the lyrics. I was honoured that she had chosen one of my songs. I had recently re-recorded it so this was the version that was played at the funeral.

The following year I decided to start recording a new album – it had been a year since my previous release, and I particularly wanted to make it in memory of my mother. I recorded a number of tracks, then towards the end of the year I submitted a track to a music podcast. The submission was not successful, and the feedback I got suggested that my software was letting me down. I decided to upgrade my work-station and software…so I started again from scratch.

I bought an iMac and Logic Pro software, and followed an online course on how to use Logic. Then the pandemic happened, which was just the push I needed to get into the project. With fewer distractions I set aside time each week to spend recording, and soon the songs were developing into album tracks.

There were a few tracks that I thought would benefit from having additional instruments on the backing. I had a look on AirGigs, a website that I had heard about. As it happened, one of the instruments I wanted was accordion and there seemed to be no accordionists on AirGigs, so I looked on a similar website called SoundBetter where I found both an accordionist and a violinist.

By this time it was November 2020 and one of the tracks I wanted the accordion on was a New Year song. I decided to go ahead with it but save it for a future holiday release, possibly for Christmas 2021. I had also recorded an unaccompanied version of “Nos Galan” (New Year’s Eve), a Welsh folk song to the tune more well known as “Deck the halls”, which I submitted to USA based Women of Substance Radio Podcast for their holiday season and also shared a video of it with my mailing list. This may also go on a Christmas release in 2021.

Then I hit a problem with the tracks featuring violin – I discovered that the recording set-up had produced a rather thin sound and re-recorded the tracks on the advice of the violinist I was working with. It was now well into January and I wanted to release the album in the spring. I should have given myself longer but decided to release on 26 April. It felt like a spring project with the title Love and Harmony Combine, and as it worked out, it was just before Mother’s Day in the USA. My single “The emotional winds of change” which was inspired by my mother’s illness, was featured in the Women of Substance Radio Podcast Mother’s Day series, although I had submitted it for general airplay. A happy accident!

So if you want to hear more here’s a link to listen to the album -

https://open.spotify.com/album/2N5WpXjlKvRkONPQ3rh9Lp?si=hvNaG8InTh6hRlebx7LP0w&dl_branch=1