Orlando is in the house!
Evolution Studio, Thursday 19th Sept 2019
This album seems to be more about the persistence of friendships than anything else. Today I’m collecting my dear old friend Orlando Harrison from Oxford train station. He won’t be hard to spot, since there’s only ever been one of him.
Our association goes way back to Banbury in the early eighties. His dear mother was my landlady for a while & I’m happy to report that she still retains that status, in an honorary capacity, to this day.
Some of you may know of his work with Alabama3. You may have even worshipped at Elvis’s altar. He’s an absolute wizard on the keys. He plays Hammond’s & Rhodes’ as if it’s constantly his last day on earth. Not that he’s in a hurry, he don’t hurry for much. I love him like a brother, we live in London 2 miles apart & yet we’ve never recorded any music together up until now. At laaaaast! (to quote Etta James).
Orlando is also the esteemed host of London Resonance FM’s “The Wrong Show”; a surreal, hilarious and just plain wrong, phone-in, to which I may, or may not, be known to call at 10.30 on a Wednesday night.
First track we do is the driving darkness of ‘Shall We Begin”, the opening track on the album. Orlando had been sent a simple sound file of all the songs we wanted him to play on, so he came into the process already walking.
I asked for long surging chords on the Hammond, to generate expectancy towards the chorus. He knew exactly what to do. Nick and I were satisfied after a couple of passes, but Orlando spoke up from the booth… “I just want to try some arpeggios; I’ve had an idea”.
For the next ten minutes we sat there, with our mouths open as Orlando, with the world about to end, begins to, er… how shall I put it… Fugue it...yes, that will do… he Fugued it to the max!
He did brilliant pass after brilliant demonic pass, never satisfied, chasing the tune in his head, until he finally caught it. My producer, Nick Moorbath, himself a veteran keyboarder with most notably Ride, sat next to me in the control room, murmured across to me, when the grinning Orlando finally pronounced himself finished: “‘kin bastard. I can’t do that!”.
Then he presses the studio sound link & talks to Orlando’s headphones:
“Well done mate, brilliant… Next?