The beginning of recording 'Sketches of Europa'...
After a hectic journey from Bologna to Milan in July 2011, we arrived at our apartment on a Saturday evening. There was a misunderstanding about where exactly we were to meet the owner and as we had no mobile phone we had to go looking for a public phone in the area. We ended up in a nearby supermarket where they had a payphone. It turned out we were waiting round one side of the building and had no way of getting round the back while the owner was on the other side waiting for us. After check-in we just made it in time to the supermarket to get some food before it closed.
That night there was a big thunderstorm in Milan to welcome us. After something to eat, we looked at the situation, which was 5 days in this apartment with a piano, and no security after that. We didn't know what would happen after those 5 days and we didn't know what else we could do other than carry on with this Music. We had something like 15 - 20 songs so that first night we went through them and started creating basic drum tracks (so we had something to keep us in time when recording the piano and make it easier to overdub other instruments later). We went to bed around 3 or 4am and got up 4 or 5 hours later and began working out piano parts for the first couple of songs and then recording them.
This set the pattern for those 5 days. We'd use the daytime hours to work out and record the piano tracks and then at night when it was too late to play we'd prepare the drum/guide tracks on the laptop for whatever song(s) we'd record piano for the following day. Neither of us are accomplished piano players and we'd only just started learning to play back in Edinburgh before leaving for Europe. We had to work out parts and record them on the fly - no time to rehearse or spend too long on anything.
Over those 5 days we got about 4 - 5 hours sleep a night and would work right through the day into the night, only stopping for brief food breaks. We were determined to get these songs recorded and push on with this Music and we didn't know when we might next have access to a piano. By the end of those 5 days we were exhausted but amazed with what was achieved.
