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Post by mossy on Apr 13, 2021 3:10:30 GMT -5
All the info is in this thread: live4ever.proboards.com/thread/80802/nme-amorphous-androgynous-hit-backYou’ll need a few cups of tea to get through it all. asimarx did a great summary, although more information came to light after this. Alright, this post will probably set a record for the longest ever, sorry for that…Anyway, leaving all the mutual accusations and bashing between Noel and the AA (in person of Gaz Cobain) aside, I’ve basically just tried to compile a proper recording sessions guide including supportive quotes form the involved parties. I’ve read through all the various press articles on the lost album since 2011 I could find very carefully, and especially Gaz’ Facebook ramblings too, and just put the relevant information together without much thinking…I had the impression that this topic really needed some kind of summary, as there’s always the same questions and speculations arising whenever it brought up again (no offence meant, by the way). Thanks to everyone involved in this thread and the other discussions that dealt with the subject and particularly the ones that had posted links to news articles, interviews etc., especially to mossy and The Crimson Rambler! Oh, and this is by no means complete or free of errors, you’ll notice the quotes are sometimes quite contradictory. Please feel free to add and correct. After all, I’ve just tried to put the focus on the actual music to find out what really was recorded by Noel and the AA/by the AA for Noel/by Noel without knowledge of the AA. So there you go… Dusty Attic Productions, Kent, UK – Fall/Winter 2009 until late 2011 Producers/Writers: Gaz Cobain, Brian Dougans and Noel Gallagher Recording Engineers: James Stone, … • Ballad Of The Mighty I [possibly titled “The Mighty I”] • Broken Arrow [?] • Crimson Rambler • Dream On [?] • Everybody’s On The Run • Freaky Teeth • If I Had A Gun… [2 versions] • Record Machine • Shoot A Hole Into The Sun [released on the b-side of the “Dream On”-single] • Soldier Boys And Jesus Freaks • Stop The Clocks • (Stranded On) The Wrong Beach [?] • Teotihuacan • The Death Of You And Me [Short snippets can be heard at the start and end of the official AKA…What A Life! video] • The Mexican [revised version released on “Chasing Yesterday”] • The Right Stuff [revised version released on “Chasing Yesterday”] • The Song Doesn’t Remain The Same • What A Life! [?] [Remix found on the b-side of “Everybody’s On The Run” was mixed after the main sessions and was not intended for the album] • … Other musicians possibly involved - “11 musicians” were involved according to Gaz Cobain (the following lists the extended AA band members; names and descriptions courtesy of the AA MySpace): Dave Sanderson - Owl vocalising and conga rhythms of the ancients Gary Lucas - His Guitarness.... [confirmed] Alisha Sufit - Voice from the Magic Carpet Stu Rowe and Antony Argiros - the lost chords Baluji Shrivastav and Jonathan Mayer- sitar, tablas and the Om Mikey Rowe and Rainy Moor - Analogue Overlords of the Vintage Keys and Hammond Dimension Virgil Howe - Drum Circle of One [confirmed] Kez Gunes - the Pulse of the Lower Frequencies Edd Keene - Upper Chakra Flutes Dianne Harris - Woman with burning vision As so often since the aborted/unreleased DIV sessions, Terry Kirkbride was involved recording the drums as well. This is proven by the only studio footage that has surfaced so far, showing the recording of Shoot A Hole Into The Sun: This is apparently the only image proof of the AA and Noel together in the studio: SUPPORTIVE QUOTES ON THE RECORDED SONGS: "no the one you're thinking of that we DID do was ' the song doesn't remain the same ' unfortunately that one was scrapped cos it was the quietest revolution of all time" (in reply to someone asking whether they were involved in Whilst the Song Remains the Same) "WHAT A LIFE ...we never chose it for our album cos we never liked it &.it was.just a remix after the event" “I agreed since most of our time had been spent writing the 4/5 new trax the Right stuff / Shoot a Hole / Crimson Rambler / MEXICAN so mixing had fallen by the wayside .”“this prompted me to spend another week being much more OUT THERE ,eventually creating 'SHOOT A HOLE 'when i already had two great versions of IF I HAD A GUN...”"[Teotihuacan] was brought forward for our consideration..."(Excerpts of posts from Gaz Cobain on his Facebook) Noel mentioned in early promo interviews for his “regular” debut that the 3 singles from that album (The Death Of You And Me, If I Had A Gun, What A Life) would be reworked for the AA album. Can’t find a direct quote unfortunately, but definitely can recall reading it a couple of times. Here’s Noel possibly referring to the AA version of Ballad Of The Mighty I: "Take the Ballad of the Mighty I. Pure dance tune. For some time I’ve had a slower psychedelic version of that song with conga’s, very 1969. In in the back my mind I had the idea to make it lighter, a bassline played by my engineer Paul Stacey and a drum beat was added. They give it the needed energy. Then Johnny Marr did his thing and he really made a twisted disco tune."(Oor magazine, January 2015, Thanks to General Dread, @mimihopps and Mean Mrs. Mustard for translating) He had also mentioned that Ballad Of The Mighty I was indeed recorded with the AA in the BBC Mastertapes interview in December 2014 James Stone, one of the recording engineers at Dusty Attic referred to Ballad Of The Mighty I on Twitter (@dustyatticpro) in early 2014: “@je_suisNatalie What happened to the Noel & Amorphous Androgynous album? That is what I want to know.” “@grantyh @je_suisnatalie he shelved it. I was one of the recording engineers on the album. Amazing songs, real shame. Mighty I is a killer” “noel has told hotpress ireland he sent amorphous androgynous if i had a gun,soldier boys and jesus freaks,everybodys on the run,record machine and stop the clocks. he said that soldier boys instrumental break went from 40 secs to 4mins and goes from rock to reggae to krautrock! (…) but he says that only 3 or 4 tracks from high flying birds will appear on amorphous album with 10 new tracks!”I couldn’t find a transcript or scan of this interview that originally appeared in Hot Press magazine in August/September 2011, so I had to quote user “rickrock79” from the official NGHFB forum. www.noelgallagher.com/old/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1193Funnily enough, The Right & The Mexican originally weren’t even supposed to be on Chasing Yesterday. The Right Stuff was originally supposed to be b-side in a longer instrumental form, The Mexican wasn’t even on the original running order and was just added to lighten things up after the “emotionally heavy” (can’t find the exact Noel quote) songs that preceed it. THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE NONE-RELEASE (in the words of Noel Gallagher) “The album’s [due in early/mid-2012] got 18 tracks on it. Some of it’s Vaudeville, some of it’s actual space jazz, some of it’s Krautrock, some of it’s soul, some of it’s funk… and that’s just the first song. It’s the furthest out I’ve ever been, put it that way.” (Album announcement/press conference, 6th July 2011) “It sounds a bit like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. The sound is similar to High Flying Birds, but more psychedelic and tripped out. It’s not an electronic project. People are jumping to that conclusion because Amorphous Androgynous used to be an electronic outfit. I’m not even sure what the album’s title is going to be yet. I’m just fucking about with the mixes now. When will it be out? In my head, next summer. But if High Flying Birds is a success, then not until next winter.”(Spin, September 2011) www.spin.com/2011/09/qa-noel-gallagher-solo-lp-oasis/"I've got a break in the middle of this tour in July, so now the plan is to do something then, and then to finish it off after the tour in October. So it might come out at the end of the year, but it's more likely to be next year now. […] I set the benchmark pretty high with this record [Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds], and I'm not just putting [out] a record for the f**king sake of it. At the moment it's not a great record – so it won't come out until it is."(NME, February 2012) www.nme.com/news/noel-gallagher/62040"Well, yes, it's recorded but it's not mixed. And whether it'll ever see the light of day or not, I don't know. There's a lot of work left to be done. A lot of work. I just did my bits in the studio and left it up to the Amorphous Androgynous to artistically direct it. And unfortunately for everybody, they've not finished it."(AZ Central, April 2012) “The second album [with Amorphous Androgynous] ended up having to be scrapped. (…) I don’t think it will come out. I’m pleased with the songs. The songs that I did when I was in the studio—I’ll probably re-record them. But the moment has passed, I think. Do you know what I mean? When you have records, there’s a window before their moment passes. I’ve already moved on from that Amorphous Androgynous thing. I’ve written a bunch more songs since then, so I’m afraid—unfortunately—the success of this album killed that one. I wasn’t planning on being on tour for 15 months. Well, it was a record that contains songs that weren’t conventional songs. It wasn’t verse-chorus-verse-chorus. They’re a bit trippy and a bit floaty. My songs, in general, they don’t really rely on the mix. They’re all written on acoustic guitar. They’re as good with me just singing them into the microphone in the style of Bob Dylan as they are with a full band. The High Flying Birds album didn’t rely on the mixes. The songs were there. This was a record that—absolutely, 100 percent—relied on the mixes, because they weren’t songs, so to speak. They were grooves and, you know, there weren’t many chords in them. And the mixes weren’t fucking right. And unfortunately, I didn’t have time to go back in and remix it. And now I’m too fucked. I’m fucked. I’ve been on the road for 15 months. I am fucked.”(AV Club, October 2012) www.avclub.com/article/noel-gallagher-on-going-solo-and-working-with-hipp-87837“But for all the great ideas on it… I was in the middle of a tour, that last album had blown up, the mixes weren't right. And by the time I got back off tour I was just like, 'I'm not fucking putting out another record, I can't be arsed'.” The former Oasis man added that track 'The Right Stuff' from his upcoming album 'Chasing Yesterday', which began its life on the Amorphous Androgynous album, is "vastly different from the first one." He said: "The [song] in this record is vastly different from the first one, which had a lot of noodling and fucking about. It's become quite psychedelic, jazz, fucking whatever you wanna call it."(NME, January 2015) www.nme.com/news/noel-gallagher/82326#bjLMHifyr830Cd0A.99“Oh yeah, Shoot a Hole Into the Sun. That was amazing and it was the one good thing that came out of that record. On this record, The Right Stuff was born out of that project – but what's on the album is completely different. If I played you what was done by Amorphous Androgynous, you'd barely recognise it. We were doing a completely different track that's never come out, which right at the end had those three chords as an outro thing. I didn't think anything of it and went back to the studio the next day, and they'd looped those three chords and I played drums and put a bit of a beat on it. I wrote a song around that. When it came to this album, I thought that the idea was good, but the execution wasn't very good – so I re-recorded it, got a saxophone player. [It was] the same with The Mexican, which came out of another tune which I started played the riff of. It had a bit of a vibe.”(entertainment.ie, February 2015) entertainment.ie/music/news/Interview-entertainmentie-speaks-to-Noel-Gallagher-Part-1/347042.htmTHE GENESIS AND DOWNFALL OF AN ALBUM (according to Gaz Cobain) “Between 2009 and 2011, I was obsessed with Noel Gallagher. During that period, we spent four weeks in the studio with him. The rest of the time it was just Brian [Dougans, the other half of AA] and me, in control of the budgets, all the music and the musicians. We got in Gary Lucas from Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band and Virgil Howe, son of Steve Howe of Yes, to give an idea of how far-out we were going.”(The Guardian, May 2015) www.theguardian.com/music/2015/may/07/noel-gallagher-oasis-amorphous-androgynous-too-afraid-to-be-weird“We spent two years working on what was supposed to be the solo album with Noel.”(musicfeeds.com, April 2015) musicfeeds.com.au/features/amorphous-androgynous-gaz-cobain-talks-working-with-noel-gallagher-paul-weller-ian-astbury-more/ “…he recorded another album, which did straight version, in exactly the same order as ours…” “…he actually recorded another album in secret that also completely copied our track order…”(digitalaudioreview.net, April 2015) www.digitalaudioreview.net/2015/04/noel-gallaghers-lost-amorphous-androgynous-album/“He basically came out when we'd been making an album for about a year and a half, and he said: 'I'm not releasing one album, I'm releasing two.' That was the first time I heard about it, and I'd been working on his record for a year and a half, and I didn't even know that he'd been recording the same stuff that we were doing in a straight form. I mean, we were the only people who had ever made him improvise on the spot, and we wrote backing tracks for him. Both of those tracks [The Right Stuff & The Mexican] - we wrote the backing tracks, we worked on them for six months waiting for our moment to come, and we finally get him to come to the party. He writes some lyrics and some basslines, and do you know who he thinks wrote those tracks?”Interviewer: “Noel?” “Yes, him. On his new record, we are co-producers - we're not even writers.”(The Quietus, May 2015) thequietus.com/articles/17837-amorphous-androgynous-garry-cobain-on-noel-gallagher“...[Noel] expected us to join the suffering masochists that hang around him , contributing without credit ( like the 11 musicians ( mostly friends of mine ( sorry again guys ! ) but even a couple of Noels friends he brought in ( I say 'friends' but it was me who rang them personally to explain and apologize )who's credits mysteriously disappeared from the sleeve of DREAM ON / SHOOT A HOLE ( didn't quite fit the picture of solo career maybe ) DESPITE us delivering them months in advance of the deadline for our sleeve art credits ?)
everything was amazing but it needed bigger mixes- we agreed since we'd spent way too much time writing new tracks ( the Right Stuff/ the Mexican/ Shoot a Hole plus a coupla others ) to be able to mix to the fullest....so it seemed a good plan....he went on tour with the other album and gradually realized he couldn't be arsed...”
„We took on his songs( apart from the new ones we wrote ) in pretty much their natural flow ( bar the odd extended Intro / instrumental break or freak out here and there ) as soon as you get near to his song he just doesn't 'get it 'and wants it guitar / bass / drums so your best bet is just gratuitously fucking with it - turn it into new songs . He's very impressed / wowed by that .I never wanted to do that cos actually the songs I chose I liked but just wanted more colour and depth and imagination ( and groove at points ) . Once he decided to secretly record his straight versions and ours was a 'radical remixes ' album ours was kinda fucked cos he overlooked to tell us of any such plan and therefore he wouldn't want to muddy the water with other 'competitive ' versions of the song . In other words , radical remixes suits him cos they don't threaten his version ...“ „Hence the only things he's released by us are either radical or completely new ( but in my opinion nowhere near the best stuff - our 2 mixes of IF I HAD A GUN ( before a 3rd - SHOOT A HOLE was done out of embarrassment he kept comparing our 'shit ' album to DARK SIDE OF THE MOON ) are possibly my favourite.“
„To be honest... the biggest disappointment for me in all of this is that in the end our material was just cherry picked to give him obscurity credibility when actually the best things we did ( imo )were actually perfectly measured songs flowing ( not abstracted ) but very creatively produced... something i believe which would have been loved by his fans hungry for a little expansion but also non-believers .....“(Gaz Cobain’s Facebook, 2015) And last but not least… GAZ COBAIN ON REMIXING CHASING YESTERDAY „…oh and by the way we were remixing the whole of CHASING YESTERDAY before we realized what was happening with the Right Stuff and the Mexican......not quite so clear cut now is it ?“
„The dissolution of that particular job ( free rein to remix an alternative CHASING YESTERDAY all agreed , contracts drawn up, ready to sign ) was us asking 'awkward' questions about' the right stuff 'and 'the MEXICAN ' in terms our writing credits.“
„…our CHASING YESTERDAY would have included us finalizing our original versions of both songs [The Right Stuff/The Mexican]“
“we chose RIVERMAN as one of the 8 we WERE working from Chasing Yesterday album but no way did it start our album - closed it ( or should I say what we had in mind closed it )”
“Don't worry Noel I got them all including multitracks for all your solo albums including Chasing Yesterday ... How the hell we were remixing his latest 'opus ' when we're so 'shit' is beyond me unless”(Excerpts of posts from Gaz Cobain on his Facebook) Alright, this post will probably set a record for the longest ever, sorry for that…Anyway, leaving all the mutual accusations and bashing between Noel and the AA (in person of Gaz Cobain) aside, I’ve basically just tried to compile a proper recording sessions guide including supportive quotes form the involved parties. I’ve read through all the various press articles on the lost album since 2011 I could find very carefully, and especially Gaz’ Facebook ramblings too, and just put the relevant information together without much thinking…I had the impression that this topic really needed some kind of summary, as there’s always the same questions and speculations arising whenever it brought up again (no offence meant, by the way). Thanks to everyone involved in this thread and the other discussions that dealt with the subject and particularly the ones that had posted links to news articles, interviews etc., especially to mossy and The Crimson Rambler! Oh, and this is by no means complete or free of errors, you’ll notice the quotes are sometimes quite contradictory. Please feel free to add and correct. After all, I’ve just tried to put the focus on the actual music to find out what really was recorded by Noel and the AA/by the AA for Noel/by Noel without knowledge of the AA. So there you go… Dusty Attic Productions, Kent, UK – Fall/Winter 2009 until late 2011 Producers/Writers: Gaz Cobain, Brian Dougans and Noel Gallagher Recording Engineers: James Stone, … • Ballad Of The Mighty I [possibly titled “The Mighty I”] • Broken Arrow [?] • Crimson Rambler • Dream On [?] • Everybody’s On The Run • Freaky Teeth • If I Had A Gun… [2 versions] • Record Machine • Shoot A Hole Into The Sun [released on the b-side of the “Dream On”-single] • Soldier Boys And Jesus Freaks • Stop The Clocks • (Stranded On) The Wrong Beach [?] • Teotihuacan • The Death Of You And Me [Short snippets can be heard at the start and end of the official AKA…What A Life! video] • The Mexican [revised version released on “Chasing Yesterday”] • The Right Stuff [revised version released on “Chasing Yesterday”] • The Song Doesn’t Remain The Same • What A Life! [?] [Remix found on the b-side of “Everybody’s On The Run” was mixed after the main sessions and was not intended for the album] • … Other musicians possibly involved - “11 musicians” were involved according to Gaz Cobain (the following lists the extended AA band members; names and descriptions courtesy of the AA MySpace): Dave Sanderson - Owl vocalising and conga rhythms of the ancients Gary Lucas - His Guitarness.... [confirmed] Alisha Sufit - Voice from the Magic Carpet Stu Rowe and Antony Argiros - the lost chords Baluji Shrivastav and Jonathan Mayer- sitar, tablas and the Om Mikey Rowe and Rainy Moor - Analogue Overlords of the Vintage Keys and Hammond Dimension Virgil Howe - Drum Circle of One [confirmed] Kez Gunes - the Pulse of the Lower Frequencies Edd Keene - Upper Chakra Flutes Dianne Harris - Woman with burning vision As so often since the aborted/unreleased DIV sessions, Terry Kirkbride was involved recording the drums as well. This is proven by the only studio footage that has surfaced so far, showing the recording of Shoot A Hole Into The Sun: This is apparently the only image proof of the AA and Noel together in the studio: SUPPORTIVE QUOTES ON THE RECORDED SONGS: "no the one you're thinking of that we DID do was ' the song doesn't remain the same ' unfortunately that one was scrapped cos it was the quietest revolution of all time" (in reply to someone asking whether they were involved in Whilst the Song Remains the Same) "WHAT A LIFE ...we never chose it for our album cos we never liked it &.it was.just a remix after the event" “I agreed since most of our time had been spent writing the 4/5 new trax the Right stuff / Shoot a Hole / Crimson Rambler / MEXICAN so mixing had fallen by the wayside .”“this prompted me to spend another week being much more OUT THERE ,eventually creating 'SHOOT A HOLE 'when i already had two great versions of IF I HAD A GUN...”"[Teotihuacan] was brought forward for our consideration..."(Excerpts of posts from Gaz Cobain on his Facebook) Noel mentioned in early promo interviews for his “regular” debut that the 3 singles from that album (The Death Of You And Me, If I Had A Gun, What A Life) would be reworked for the AA album. Can’t find a direct quote unfortunately, but definitely can recall reading it a couple of times. Here’s Noel possibly referring to the AA version of Ballad Of The Mighty I: "Take the Ballad of the Mighty I. Pure dance tune. For some time I’ve had a slower psychedelic version of that song with conga’s, very 1969. In in the back my mind I had the idea to make it lighter, a bassline played by my engineer Paul Stacey and a drum beat was added. They give it the needed energy. Then Johnny Marr did his thing and he really made a twisted disco tune."(Oor magazine, January 2015, Thanks to General Dread, @mimihopps and Mean Mrs. Mustard for translating) He had also mentioned that Ballad Of The Mighty I was indeed recorded with the AA in the BBC Mastertapes interview in December 2014 James Stone, one of the recording engineers at Dusty Attic referred to Ballad Of The Mighty I on Twitter (@dustyatticpro) in early 2014: “@je_suisNatalie What happened to the Noel & Amorphous Androgynous album? That is what I want to know.” “@grantyh @je_suisnatalie he shelved it. I was one of the recording engineers on the album. Amazing songs, real shame. Mighty I is a killer” “noel has told hotpress ireland he sent amorphous androgynous if i had a gun,soldier boys and jesus freaks,everybodys on the run,record machine and stop the clocks. he said that soldier boys instrumental break went from 40 secs to 4mins and goes from rock to reggae to krautrock! (…) but he says that only 3 or 4 tracks from high flying birds will appear on amorphous album with 10 new tracks!”I couldn’t find a transcript or scan of this interview that originally appeared in Hot Press magazine in August/September 2011, so I had to quote user “rickrock79” from the official NGHFB forum. www.noelgallagher.com/old/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1193Funnily enough, The Right & The Mexican originally weren’t even supposed to be on Chasing Yesterday. The Right Stuff was originally supposed to be b-side in a longer instrumental form, The Mexican wasn’t even on the original running order and was just added to lighten things up after the “emotionally heavy” (can’t find the exact Noel quote) songs that preceed it. THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE NONE-RELEASE (in the words of Noel Gallagher) “The album’s [due in early/mid-2012] got 18 tracks on it. Some of it’s Vaudeville, some of it’s actual space jazz, some of it’s Krautrock, some of it’s soul, some of it’s funk… and that’s just the first song. It’s the furthest out I’ve ever been, put it that way.” (Album announcement/press conference, 6th July 2011) “It sounds a bit like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. The sound is similar to High Flying Birds, but more psychedelic and tripped out. It’s not an electronic project. People are jumping to that conclusion because Amorphous Androgynous used to be an electronic outfit. I’m not even sure what the album’s title is going to be yet. I’m just fucking about with the mixes now. When will it be out? In my head, next summer. But if High Flying Birds is a success, then not until next winter.”(Spin, September 2011) www.spin.com/2011/09/qa-noel-gallagher-solo-lp-oasis/"I've got a break in the middle of this tour in July, so now the plan is to do something then, and then to finish it off after the tour in October. So it might come out at the end of the year, but it's more likely to be next year now. […] I set the benchmark pretty high with this record [Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds], and I'm not just putting [out] a record for the f**king sake of it. At the moment it's not a great record – so it won't come out until it is."(NME, February 2012) www.nme.com/news/noel-gallagher/62040"Well, yes, it's recorded but it's not mixed. And whether it'll ever see the light of day or not, I don't know. There's a lot of work left to be done. A lot of work. I just did my bits in the studio and left it up to the Amorphous Androgynous to artistically direct it. And unfortunately for everybody, they've not finished it."(AZ Central, April 2012) “The second album [with Amorphous Androgynous] ended up having to be scrapped. (…) I don’t think it will come out. I’m pleased with the songs. The songs that I did when I was in the studio—I’ll probably re-record them. But the moment has passed, I think. Do you know what I mean? When you have records, there’s a window before their moment passes. I’ve already moved on from that Amorphous Androgynous thing. I’ve written a bunch more songs since then, so I’m afraid—unfortunately—the success of this album killed that one. I wasn’t planning on being on tour for 15 months. Well, it was a record that contains songs that weren’t conventional songs. It wasn’t verse-chorus-verse-chorus. They’re a bit trippy and a bit floaty. My songs, in general, they don’t really rely on the mix. They’re all written on acoustic guitar. They’re as good with me just singing them into the microphone in the style of Bob Dylan as they are with a full band. The High Flying Birds album didn’t rely on the mixes. The songs were there. This was a record that—absolutely, 100 percent—relied on the mixes, because they weren’t songs, so to speak. They were grooves and, you know, there weren’t many chords in them. And the mixes weren’t fucking right. And unfortunately, I didn’t have time to go back in and remix it. And now I’m too fucked. I’m fucked. I’ve been on the road for 15 months. I am fucked.”(AV Club, October 2012) www.avclub.com/article/noel-gallagher-on-going-solo-and-working-with-hipp-87837“But for all the great ideas on it… I was in the middle of a tour, that last album had blown up, the mixes weren't right. And by the time I got back off tour I was just like, 'I'm not fucking putting out another record, I can't be arsed'.” The former Oasis man added that track 'The Right Stuff' from his upcoming album 'Chasing Yesterday', which began its life on the Amorphous Androgynous album, is "vastly different from the first one." He said: "The [song] in this record is vastly different from the first one, which had a lot of noodling and fucking about. It's become quite psychedelic, jazz, fucking whatever you wanna call it."(NME, January 2015) www.nme.com/news/noel-gallagher/82326#bjLMHifyr830Cd0A.99“Oh yeah, Shoot a Hole Into the Sun. That was amazing and it was the one good thing that came out of that record. On this record, The Right Stuff was born out of that project – but what's on the album is completely different. If I played you what was done by Amorphous Androgynous, you'd barely recognise it. We were doing a completely different track that's never come out, which right at the end had those three chords as an outro thing. I didn't think anything of it and went back to the studio the next day, and they'd looped those three chords and I played drums and put a bit of a beat on it. I wrote a song around that. When it came to this album, I thought that the idea was good, but the execution wasn't very good – so I re-recorded it, got a saxophone player. [It was] the same with The Mexican, which came out of another tune which I started played the riff of. It had a bit of a vibe.”(entertainment.ie, February 2015) entertainment.ie/music/news/Interview-entertainmentie-speaks-to-Noel-Gallagher-Part-1/347042.htmTHE GENESIS AND DOWNFALL OF AN ALBUM (according to Gaz Cobain) “Between 2009 and 2011, I was obsessed with Noel Gallagher. During that period, we spent four weeks in the studio with him. The rest of the time it was just Brian [Dougans, the other half of AA] and me, in control of the budgets, all the music and the musicians. We got in Gary Lucas from Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band and Virgil Howe, son of Steve Howe of Yes, to give an idea of how far-out we were going.”(The Guardian, May 2015) www.theguardian.com/music/2015/may/07/noel-gallagher-oasis-amorphous-androgynous-too-afraid-to-be-weird“We spent two years working on what was supposed to be the solo album with Noel.”(musicfeeds.com, April 2015) musicfeeds.com.au/features/amorphous-androgynous-gaz-cobain-talks-working-with-noel-gallagher-paul-weller-ian-astbury-more/ “…he recorded another album, which did straight version, in exactly the same order as ours…” “…he actually recorded another album in secret that also completely copied our track order…”(digitalaudioreview.net, April 2015) www.digitalaudioreview.net/2015/04/noel-gallaghers-lost-amorphous-androgynous-album/“He basically came out when we'd been making an album for about a year and a half, and he said: 'I'm not releasing one album, I'm releasing two.' That was the first time I heard about it, and I'd been working on his record for a year and a half, and I didn't even know that he'd been recording the same stuff that we were doing in a straight form. I mean, we were the only people who had ever made him improvise on the spot, and we wrote backing tracks for him. Both of those tracks [The Right Stuff & The Mexican] - we wrote the backing tracks, we worked on them for six months waiting for our moment to come, and we finally get him to come to the party. He writes some lyrics and some basslines, and do you know who he thinks wrote those tracks?”Interviewer: “Noel?” “Yes, him. On his new record, we are co-producers - we're not even writers.”(The Quietus, May 2015) thequietus.com/articles/17837-amorphous-androgynous-garry-cobain-on-noel-gallagher“...[Noel] expected us to join the suffering masochists that hang around him , contributing without credit ( like the 11 musicians ( mostly friends of mine ( sorry again guys ! ) but even a couple of Noels friends he brought in ( I say 'friends' but it was me who rang them personally to explain and apologize )who's credits mysteriously disappeared from the sleeve of DREAM ON / SHOOT A HOLE ( didn't quite fit the picture of solo career maybe ) DESPITE us delivering them months in advance of the deadline for our sleeve art credits ?)
everything was amazing but it needed bigger mixes- we agreed since we'd spent way too much time writing new tracks ( the Right Stuff/ the Mexican/ Shoot a Hole plus a coupla others ) to be able to mix to the fullest....so it seemed a good plan....he went on tour with the other album and gradually realized he couldn't be arsed...”
„We took on his songs( apart from the new ones we wrote ) in pretty much their natural flow ( bar the odd extended Intro / instrumental break or freak out here and there ) as soon as you get near to his song he just doesn't 'get it 'and wants it guitar / bass / drums so your best bet is just gratuitously fucking with it - turn it into new songs . He's very impressed / wowed by that .I never wanted to do that cos actually the songs I chose I liked but just wanted more colour and depth and imagination ( and groove at points ) . Once he decided to secretly record his straight versions and ours was a 'radical remixes ' album ours was kinda fucked cos he overlooked to tell us of any such plan and therefore he wouldn't want to muddy the water with other 'competitive ' versions of the song . In other words , radical remixes suits him cos they don't threaten his version ...“ „Hence the only things he's released by us are either radical or completely new ( but in my opinion nowhere near the best stuff - our 2 mixes of IF I HAD A GUN ( before a 3rd - SHOOT A HOLE was done out of embarrassment he kept comparing our 'shit ' album to DARK SIDE OF THE MOON ) are possibly my favourite.“
„To be honest... the biggest disappointment for me in all of this is that in the end our material was just cherry picked to give him obscurity credibility when actually the best things we did ( imo )were actually perfectly measured songs flowing ( not abstracted ) but very creatively produced... something i believe which would have been loved by his fans hungry for a little expansion but also non-believers .....“(Gaz Cobain’s Facebook, 2015) And last but not least… GAZ COBAIN ON REMIXING CHASING YESTERDAY „…oh and by the way we were remixing the whole of CHASING YESTERDAY before we realized what was happening with the Right Stuff and the Mexican......not quite so clear cut now is it ?“
„The dissolution of that particular job ( free rein to remix an alternative CHASING YESTERDAY all agreed , contracts drawn up, ready to sign ) was us asking 'awkward' questions about' the right stuff 'and 'the MEXICAN ' in terms our writing credits.“
„…our CHASING YESTERDAY would have included us finalizing our original versions of both songs [The Right Stuff/The Mexican]“
“we chose RIVERMAN as one of the 8 we WERE working from Chasing Yesterday album but no way did it start our album - closed it ( or should I say what we had in mind closed it )”
“Don't worry Noel I got them all including multitracks for all your solo albums including Chasing Yesterday ... How the hell we were remixing his latest 'opus ' when we're so 'shit' is beyond me unless”(Excerpts of posts from Gaz Cobain on his Facebook) Bumping this post cos I just enjoyed rereading it. Muchos respect to asimarxX
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