Hilary/Bruno Collab - Dance Macabre

[bruno]

** for the Halloween fest??? **

Hilary asked me for an ambient backing track for some vocals, "a sweet calming guitar to Lah lah Lah over" - it didn't quite turn out as expected! I thought of some floaty chords - built a beat on the electribe. I recorded some string sounds on the Roland piano, somewhat dark chords. And then that's when it went a big pete-tong. The piano had transposed itself, so when I came to play the bass, it wasn't in the right key (Dooh!). So I detuned the bass, and put some guitar whilst fighting the tuning. Anyway, listening back to it, there was something about it - I was going to start again, but I sent it to Hilary for her opinion. She sent back 3 vocal tracks, I chose the second one. The naming is based on how it sounds, and not where it started.

Its not a happy piece, and quite dark. I'm really not sure where this one came from. The vocals are haunting imo, well done Hilary - I figured that the pitchiness would make it hard to sing against - but you did a fantastic job here. I made the vocals dripping in verb and echo - to add to the haunting effect.

I think I'm getting more experimental in my old age.

B.

[Hilary]

Danse Macabre aka if you don't ask you don't get.

Thanks Bruno for indulging me - I thought the track you sent me was stunning. I wasn't quite sure if I could add anything to it though

I love the final version too, thanks for mixing it.

Let's not leave it so long next time!

[Ray Brookes]

Sinister, haunting, macabre and evil. Love it.

[thetworegs]

Loving it from the first chah chah chah

[funkyaxe]

 Spooky and a tad unsettling - just my cup of tea. The fact that every sound is fighting the other just adds to the tension and Hilary's vocal are somehow making sense of the splendid chaos. Just listening again through headphones - scary stuff.

[hardlock]

Very original mix of styles. Rock, Jazz, hip-hop, just to name a couple. Tension is working in there for sure. Nice! 

[StephenM]

i find it a tad seductive....oh wait, i must run...the sun is coming up.... cloves of garlic anyone?  i actually cracked up part way through this.... brilliant!

[Farrell Jackson]

Scary, spooky, chilling to the bone, and yes....macabre...Excellent Bruno and Hilary!

Farrell

[kenny mac]

Excellent, great to see this has got on the radio.
A big well done to both of you.

[Ferryman_1957]

Sounds like the Cocteau Twins Halloween Special! I absolutely loved this, the bass is very cool, really anchors the ambience and spookiness, the guitar is really atmospheric and Hilary's vocals are stunning. Really in the Alison Goldfrapp/Elizabeth Fraser mould, which is very high praise indeed in my book.

Really loved this from start to finish. Bravo and well done, I could take an album of this kind of thing........