Our track Kitty is BBC6 'pick of the year'

Massive thanks to Tom Robinson of BBC6 Music, who played our track Kitty as one of his picks of 2012. 

Tom called the song an 'understated gem' and has played the track a few times now.

Straw Bear among best bands of 2012

We were delighted to hear that A New Band a Day had picked us as number 2 in their countdown of best bands of 2012.

ANBAD’s Joe Sparrow has been massively generous in his support of the band, and our place in the countdown follows a fantastic review of Kitty a few weeks back. 

ANBAD

Blue Barn on Black Bank

A few people have asked us where we made the album, so we thought we’d take the opportunity to shamelessly plug the Blue Barn, the studio in which we made the recordings.

It’s close to Ely in Cambridgeshire, and there’s not a great deal around, which makes it fantastic for concentrating the mind and getting things done.

Blue Barn is actually on Black Bank Road, which is where we pinched the title of the album from.

I think the atmosphere in which any music is made will find its way into the recording; in our case, the sessions for the album were (usually) fairly relaxed affairs, and we were given the space by the Blue Barn to get things the way we wanted them.

We sometimes stayed over at the studio so as to get as much work in as possible over a weekend (it didn’t always work out this way), and in the past, we’ve played gigs on the stage there and had a load of friends in.

Chris Taylor, who runs the studio, is not only an incredibly nice man, but he’s got a fantastic ear, and was always honest with us when things were sounding a bit crap. He would tell us when we were overthinking things ... which I think we probably have a tendency to do.

As someone who’s never going to be the best musician in the world, I think he got some really good performances out of me, and some great ones from the rest of the band, who are infinitely better musicians.

Sometimes Chris T would just leave us to it, popping in once in a while to provide a fresh pair of ears. We did some of our best stuff later at night, and sometimes he would disappear for a bit, and then come back to make the odd suggestion here and there.

We’re very proud of album, and we don't think it'd sound the same without Chris T.

Ian

blue.barn@virgin.net

www.facebook.com/bluebarn.mixing