18/2/05
TREVOR JONES: 'Strange Sympathy'. This track needs some attention. It has the bare bones of a very rhythmic string part that tops and tails the song distinctively. The middle is a different section that needs to be blended with the start and end. We decide that the strings should run right through the track, a challengas it is easy to over egg. As soon as Marcus puts bass on the track starts to become focussed. He does some great impro' stuff at the end. A piano part reinforces the chord hook in the middle section. We decide to ask Danny Cummings to do some percussion. It's an unusual song but is starting to work well. Listen back to the rest of the tracks and smirk smugly!

23/2/05
TREVOR JONES: Marcus has Danny Cummings in for a session. I'm like a kid on rainy sports day (stuck at work!) and miss out.

MARCUS CLIFFE: Yes I've been trying to get Danny over for a while and at last we've managed to get it together. Danny and I have been working together with Mark Knopfler recently, but we have known each other 10 years or so. He arrives with his Voyager full of percussion and as my studio is relatively small we decide that we should work out what's needed on each track and bring in the instruments as needed. I fire him up with tea and anything edible in the fridge, he's on the ‘Atkins’ diet so that meant cold hams, salami and cheese (grommit!). We start with congas and 'What Kate Did Next' . The rest of the day went smoothly with Danny laying down Congas on a few tracks, then Bongos, shakers, tambourine, woodblocks, cowbells etc. Every thing was stereo mic'd with CADM39 and a Joe meek M47 both large diaphragm condensers into a SPL gold channel mic pre. I did get out a pair of CAD M39's but one turned out to be no longer working!

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