Saturday, August 08, 2009

Dak is deforested

So, the new album is finally out. Isn't it exciting? This bunch of songs has been hanging around for a long old time - some of them go back to 2002! - but we've tried to give them all a flavour of This Year's Keshco. It's been a much more collaborative effort this time, and I hope the richness of the sound reflects that.

Our problems are now manifold. Who should we try to send the CDs to? Should we approach indie music shops? Do we need a barcode? Is it worth getting a whole run professionally pressed up? If so, shouldn't the thing really be mastered by a proper engineer first? But how would we trust them to do the master we want? I well remember the time I helped out on keyboards for an alt-rock band in Leicester. They made a 7-track EP - part recorded at a studio above a Tae-Kwondo hall on the high street (OK apart from the recording guy refusing to undertake any complex overdubs), and part in a local college. Eventually, through gigging and scrimping, they got enough cash to stump up for a mastering job. Unfortunately, the bloke doing the mastering made a few bad choices (e.g. bringing up first take vocals, mixing hard left and hard right) and then they were stuck with it.

Anyway - how the heck is someone else meant to master stuff that's been done on Buzz, at home? Nary a mixing desk in sight. I've done my best with my faulty ears and my faulty stereo. Please don't be like the trench-coated dullards in Leicester city centre who once tried to sell me a faceless-looking synth album with the immortal line: "it's completely clean, there's no hiss". Yes and what about the quality of the songs, huh? No hiss. Shitehawks.

UPDATE: You can still buy Deforestation of Dak through Amazon UK (it's cheaper to buy direct from us, but hey if you're kind enough to click through and buy another product of your choice, we get a few pennies via the affiliate thingy. Hurrah!). Remember, it's on CD, not vinyl. Not vinyl! Please don't go buying what someone's mistakenly listed as a vinyl copy.