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ο Noel Gallagher (ο πρώην κιθαρίστας – συνθέτης των Oasis), πειραματίζεται με νέους ήχους στο High Flying Birds
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NOEL GALLACHER’S
HIGH FLYING BIRDS
"The man’s entire virtuosity already unfolds in the opener "Everybody’s On The Run". A majestic masterpiece ..." - Rolling Stone, 10/11, 5 *****
"...the primetime Gallagher swagger is back ... a joy to behold." - Mojo, 4*
"confirms Noel Gallagher as one of the best songwriters this country has ever produced" - Q, 4*
“These songs never would have ended up on an Oasis record”. Ο Noel Gallagher μιλάει για τα 10 tracks του debut solo album του, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.
Για πρώτη φορά στα 20 χρόνια της καριέρας του, ο Noel Gallagher (ο πρώην κιθαρίστας – συνθέτης των Oasis που κατέκτησαν τη βρετανική μουσική σκηνή τη δεκαετία του ’90), πειραματίζεται με νέους ήχους στο High Flying Birds – πέραν της Britpop, όπως το New Orleans-style ragtime & 80s dance.
Δυο χρόνια μετά την αποχώρησή του από τους Oasis (το καλοκαίρι του 2009) κι ενώ οι fans περίμεναν το επόμενο βήμα του, ο Noel επιστρέφει όχι με ένα αλλά με δύο album, εκ των οποίων το δεύτερο –μια ψυχεδελική συνεργασία με το British electronic duo Amorphous Androgynous–, είναι άγνωστο ακόμα πότε θα κυκλοφορήσει. Στο μεταξύ, στο διάστημα που μεσολάβησε, ο Noel άλλαξε σπίτια, παντρεύτηκε, απέκτησε ένα ακόμα παιδί και κυρίως, έγραψε τραγούδια. The wisest man in rock, σύμφωνα με το NME, είναι πλέον εδώ «με την πιο λυρική δουλειά που έκανε ποτέ». Ας τον αφήσουμε λοιπόν να μας εξηγήσει ο ίδιος τα τραγούδια του...
"If I Had a Gun"
Είχα βγει έξω ένα βράδυ στο Λονδίνο και κάποιος με ρώτησε: έχεις μήπως ένα τραγούδι με τίτλο: If I Had a Gun? Απάντησα: Μα πώς είναι δυνατόν να το ξέρεις; Κι αυτός είπε: Αφού μόλις το άκουσα στο internet. Μπήκα λοιπόν στο YouTube και το βρήκα. Είχε ηχογραφηθεί σ’ ένα soundcheck των Oasis’ 2008 tour στη Νότια Αμερική, όπου κι έγραψα το τραγούδι. Διαρκούσε μόλις ένα λεπτό. Δεν είχε λόγια, ο βασικός άξονας όμως υπήρχε, κι έτσι οι άνθρωποι άρχισαν να γράφουν τους δικούς τους στίχους και να τους ανεβάζουν στο YouTube. Στην αρχή μου ήρθε κάπως, δεν πρόλαβα καλά καλά να τελειώσω το τραγούδι και... από την άλλη όμως, ήταν κολακευτικό να σε ακολουθούν 250.000 άνθρωποι.
"Everybody’s on the Run"
Όπως και το "If I Had a Gun," αυτή η μπαλάντα με το λικνιστικό μπάσο, την εκκλησιαστική χορωδία και τη φορτισμένη φωνή του Noel,ανέβηκε στο YouTube. Τι λέει ο ίδιος; Αυτό το τραγούδι είναι όντως το εναρκτήριο λάκτισμα, ανοίγει τη σκηνή, για να ξεκινήσει η παράσταση. Μιλάει για ένα ζευγάρι – για ένα αγόρι κι ένα κορίτσι, έναν άντρα και μια γυναίκα, έναν πατέρα και γιο, μια μάνα και κόρη, δυο στενούς φίλους, δεν έχει σημασία– που παίρνει ο ένας τον άλλον από το χέρι και λένε, ’We’ ve got to get out of here.’ Ενώ την ίδια στιγμή, ο αφηγητής, δηλαδή εγώ, αυτό που λέει είναι ότι: ’Everybody is on the run from something. Nobody is settled. Nobody is where they’re supposed to be. Everybody is looking for something.
"The Death of You and Me"
Το ορχηστρικό 1ο single του High Flying Birds είναι ένα από τα αγαπημένα του τραγούδια. Διαφέρει μάλλον απ’ αυτό που θα περίμενε κανείς από μένα, εξηγεί ο Noel. Το ακούς στην τρομπέτα, το σαξόφωνο, το τρομπόνι. Είχα τη μελωδία αλλά δεν μου κόλλαγε ο ήχος, δοκίμαζα διάφορα και ξαφνικά ... ούπς, βγήκε τζαζ. Όταν μπήκα στο studio και με ρώτησε ο David Sardy (ο συμπαραγωγός του δίσκου, όπως κι αυτών των Oasis), αν υπάρχουν οι στίχοι, του είπα εδώ τους έχω και του έδειξα το κεφάλι μου. Έπιασα το μικρόφωνο, και οι λέξεις ξεπήδησαν από μόνες τους. Μιλούσαν για ελπίδα, αγάπη, ταξίδια και την επιθυμία να είσαι αλλού...
"What a Life"
Το driving track του album είναι εμπνευσμένο από τους Kinks, στη συνέχεια όμως μεταμορφώνεται... Ένα απόγευμα άκουγα το ’Strings of Life’ των Rhythim is Rhythim . Στάθηκα στην αρχή του τραγουδιού, στο πώς μπαίνει το πιάνο, αναρωτήθηκα πώς θα ακουγόταν αυτό σ’ ένα τραγούδι μου; Πήρα την κιθάρα, το δοκίμασα ξανά και ξανά και ήταν τέλειο. Έκανα ένα demo στο studio με bass drum και piano, και σκέφτηκα, ’This is fucking disco! How am I gonna dance to this?’ But I’m a big fan of dance music, like the acid house movement. Between the years of ’87 and 1990, I was completely into running around Manchester high on ecstasy, just being a fucking nutcase. Those were happy days.
Tracklisting
Everybody’s On The Run
Dream On
If I Had A Gun...
The Death Of You And Me
(I Wanna Live In A Dream In My) Record Machine
AKA...What A Life!
Soldier Boys And Jesus Freaks
AKA...Broken Arrow
(Stranded On) The Wrong Beach
Stop The Clocks
NOEL GALLACHER’S – HIGH FLYING BIRDS
ΚΥΚΛΟΦΟΡΕΙ ΑΠΟ ΤΗΝ UNIVERSAL MUSIC
BIOG - JULY 2011:
“My manager asked me who the High Flying Birds are. They aren’t anyone in particular. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds is me and whoever is around at the time of whatever it is that I’m doing, a loose collective kindathing”.
So speaks Noel Gallagher, as he embarks on the latest step of his strange, twisting journey. Gallagher began his career in music by lugging amplifiers on and off tour buses for The Inspiral Carpets. Then he captured the voices, hopes and dreams of millions with Oasis, who went on to become the biggest band of the last two decades. Now he’s fashioned a masterpiece that takes the Noel Gallagher trademarks — melancholic verse lines, euphoric choruses, a suggestion that everything’s going to be OK when the rain clears — and thrown them out into the cosmos.
Gallagher has also made a second album with psychedelic DJ overlords Amorphous Androgynous, who nearly drove him to insanity when they made him spend five hours and ten minutes playing the same, single guitar line, but more of that later.
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds takes off into directions Oasis could never have gone. From the New Orleans ragtime stomp of “The Death Of You And Me” to the Ennio Morricone-inspired, string-laden drama of “Everybody’s On The Run” and the choral swell of “(I Wanna Live In A Dream In My) Record Machine”, it’s an ambitious, rainbow-coloured epic of an album. It’s the product of an enquiring mind, fired up by new discoveries as much as a basic, unquenchable need to get a message out to the world.
“With this album, people are going to think it was a conscious decision to do something different,” says Gallagher. “It wasn’t like that. This is what just came out. I won’t criticize anything about Oasis because I loved being in that band and I was in charge of it, but there was always the feeling:how will this go down in Wembley, with 70,000 people braying for good times? This time I didn’t have to think about that. I’ve got a guy playing wine glasses on one song, a saw on another. This is not Oasis. I don’t know what it is......yet."
The intricacy and craft of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, both musically and lyrically, puts paid to rumours that its creator entered into a state of inertia after the end of Oasis. “There was a review of the Beady Eye album — and fair play to Beady Eye, the reviews I’ve read have been pretty good — that said something like: ‘while Liam’s been hard at work, Noel’s been wandering the streets.’ It made it sound like I’ve been stumbling around North London, going through the bins. I’ve actually spent over a year in the studio, and it was beginning to drive me a little mad. Now I’ve got no more recording to do until I’m well into my 70s.”
Work on the album proper began in February 2010, when Gallagher booked a session at State Of The Ark Studios in Twickenham, Middlesex with sometime Oasis engineer Paul Stacey and his identical twin brother Jeremy, a drummer. The plan was to then head out to Los Angeles for a couple of weeks to mix the tracks with producer Dave Sardy, but it didn’t quite work out that way.
“Dave said to me, "It’s great but it doesn’t sound like a band". "I ain’t a band" says I. "Then we have to make you sound like one” was his response.
So we set about to re-recording some drums and cutting numerous overdubs, and as a result I ended up staying out in LA for a couple of months, all the while thinking: “he can’t beat what I’ve done”. But sure enough, what he came up with was amazing.”
There’s a tender sort of sadness to “If I Had A Gun…”, one of the most emotionally direct songs Gallagher has written since “Wonderwall”, with its theme of young lovers finding a way to be together. Then there is the descending-chord defiance of “Soldier Boys And Jesus Freaks”.
It sparked the theme for the album: to find the melancholy in the happiness. It’s how I write songs. “Some Might Say” by Oasis might sound like an uplifting tune but listen to the words. It’s the Irish in me.”
These themes; searching for beauty as one tries to survive the day to day grind, and the longing for escape, young love on the run if you like, are not just exclusive to “Soldier Boys”, but to the album as a whole, and have been with Gallagher for much of the last decade.
The ideal of young love also inspired “The Death Of You And Me”, one of the most remarkable – and surprising – songs on the album, and a world away from Oasis. After a stomping beat and a melody with a touch of mid-60s Kinks to it, jazzy brass blasts in halfway though and suddenly we’re in New Orleans. “It’s the same theme, the same idea that however good things are, a bit of anything will always be shit,” Gallagher says of the song’s message. “It’s a British thing. The song has a touch of Vaudeville, but with the curtains pulled back a little. There’s the line: ‘I see another new day dawning, it was rising over me, with my mortality.” Yes, it’s a new day. But I’ve just got a day older, a day closer to the end.”
A more straightforward celebration comes with “AKA… What A Life!” It edges close to being a dancefloor-filling disco classic. “It took me a while to convince myself about this one,” says Gallagher. “But [early house classic] Rhythim Is Rhythim by Strings Of Life, which I loved from the Hacienda days, inspired the piano part, and I realised that the song carries the vibe no matter what that vibe is.”
As for the forthcoming, as yet unnamed album with Amorphous Androgynous, it developed after Gallagher asked Amorphous’s Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans to remix Oasis last single, “Falling Down”, and they came back with a 22-minute epic that replaced Gallagher’s vocals with Alisha Sufitt’s of 70s hippies Magic Carpet.
“Working with them was like nothing I’ve ever done before,” he says. “We made the album at Paul Weller’s studio, and in the past I’ve always worked hard at crafting a song before recording it. This time I would write a song, bring it in, and [Amorphous’s avuncular front man] Gaz Cobain would say, ‘Nah, screw that, we’ll come up with something right now. Use your instincts and don’t compare what you do to anything else.’ I was on the verge of telling him to fuck off a few times, but the results made it all worthwhile.”
Making a solo album also forced Gallagher to do something he had, remarkably, resisted so far: buy a computer. “I had never gone near one before. Gem [Archer] used to load up the iPod for me so there wasn’t any need. But then someone told me there were kids on YouTube finishing songs that I hadn’t even written yet, because somebody had filmed me feeling them out during soundchecks. I didn’t mind, but I decided I needed to buy a computer and find out what was going on. It was like the moment man discovered fire. I was staring at the thing, my tongue sticking out of the side of my mouth as I hit it with one finger.”
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, with its psychedelic tinges, eternal themes of love, loss and hope, and wine glass and saw solo sections, pushes its creator towards places he has never gone before. “You’ve got to try, haven’t you? Look at The Fabs. It’s a short time between Strawberry Fields and Mr Moonlight. All the great bands stumbled on something they didn’t know was there before, and ended up doing their own thing. And ultimately, you’re searching for “it”, whatever “it” is. If you’re switched on you can find it — regularly.”
NOEL GALLAGHER’S HIGH FLYING BIRDS RELEASE THE ALBUM “NOEL GALLAGHER’S HIGH FLYING BIRDS” THROUGH SOUR MASH RECORDS ON OCTOBER 17.
Noel Gallagher can confirm that his brand new album “Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds” - the first of TWO albums which have recently been completed – will be released through his own label, Sour Mash Records, on October 17 2011 (this date will vary slightly internationally).
The album, his debut as a solo artist, was recorded in London and completed in Los Angeles during 2010 and the first half of 2011. It was co-produced by Noel and David Sardy, with whom Noel has worked previously. It features ten brand new tracks.
Guests on the album include The Crouch End Festival Chorus and The Wired Strings (full list below).
The choice of a single will be decided shortly.
A second album, a companion to the above but as yet untitled, was recorded in the UK this year and is now complete. This album is the result of Noel’s continued collaboration with the Amorphous Androgynous, and will be released in 2012.
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds will tour this autumn, subsequent to the release of their eponymous album.
The track-listing for Noel’s debut solo album is:
EVERYBODY’S ON THE RUN
DREAM ON
IF I HAD A GUN…
THE DEATH OF YOU AND ME
(I WANNA LIVE IN A DREAM IN MY) RECORD MACHINE
AKA…WHAT A LIFE!
SOLDIER BOYS AND JESUS FREAKS
AKA..BROKEN ARROW
(STRANDED ON) THE WRONG BEACH
STOP THE CLOCKS
Guests on the album include:
JEREMY STACEY DRUMS
MIKEY ROWE KEYBOARDS
MARK NEARY DOUBLE BASS, SAW, WINE GLASSES, WASHBOARD AND ELECTRIC KETTLE
BECCY BYRNE BACKING VOCALS
JON GRABOFF PEDAL STEEL
LUIS JARDIM PERCUSSION
LENNY CASTRO PERCUSSION
GARY ALESBROOK, ANDREW KINSMAN, TREVOR MIRES HORNS CROUCH END FESTIVAL CHORUS
THE WIRED STRINGS
“Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds” is the first new material from Noel Gallagher for 3 years.
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