Questions from Colouratura by Colouratura

Ah! The grand finale!

As stated in the info for QUESTIONS?, this number was composed in a marathon writing session that also produced SEA SHANTY. When we arrived in the studio, Nathan decided that QUESTIONS wasn't quite possible to record as the punk number he'd envisioned, so he rewrote it as a piano piece.

As we were completing other tracks, I think I mentioned to Nate that we ought to try and get a band together to record it as originally intended, as sort of an homage to Peter Gabriel's "Here Comes the Flood." We attempted an early demo version on a particularly difficult evening in the studio, with Nate playing all the instruments (including a bit of French horn).

The session got sidetracked as Nate got distracted by bowing an electric bass and sending it through various effects. We recorded these experiments (about an hours worth) and rediscovered them some months later, come mastering time. I was just getting into Black Sabbath at the time and, inspired by the track "FX", I devised a little musique concrete sequence utilizing elements of the PUNK QUESTIONS demo and the bowed bass experiments. (A snippet of this ended up as the coda to SPACE WESTERN).

Anyhow, back to the story. The PUNK QUESTIONS demo didn't quite turn out the way we wanted to (this is evidenced by Nate's exclamation of "fuck it!" on the demo), so when it came time to rerecord, we once again enlisted the help of Brandon Collins. Brandon is something of a metal fanatic and I thought it a good idea to collaborate with someone who intrinsically understood the genre.

We cut basic tracks live (Nate on bass and scratch vocals and Brandon on drums) and later had Brandon overdub the guitar parts. It evolved into a bit more thrash than we intended, but who cares? ... it sounds amazing!

If you are wondering why the 'fuck it' carried over to the final version, when listening back to the demo, Nate and I decided that it actually fit the aesthetic we were striving for. Profanity should really only be used once a record for it to be effective ... twice if it's a long record, 4-5 times if it's a Roger Waters record, and every other word if it's a hip hop record. :-) It seemed 'right' to put it here, as a 'famous last words' before wrapping up an album that was supposed to be a statement of defiance to a great many things, personal and otherwise. It's a catharsis album. I don't know, we didn't intellectualize it too much ... it just felt right in this context.

On a technical note, you may notice that the growl bass is higher in the mix than the guitar. This is TOTALLY intentional. My template for mixing and overall aesthetic for this track was Peter Hammill's tragically underrated pre-punk classic 'Nadir's Big Chance.' It's basically the granddaddy of all of them and an enormous influence on all things late 70s punk. At one point we even discussed having some honky Dave Jackson style saxophone, until ...

In the wee hours, following the band sessions for SEA SHANTY, Ryan Smurthwaite heard this track. It had a preliminary guitar solo by Nate, but Ryan grabbed his axe and improvised a solo for the ages. He thinks it's a bit sloppy, but we think it's marvelous.

And so will you.

Colouratura are an art rock trio from the Ohio Valley.

The new album, "WTF Was That?!" is now available to order on beautiful full color light blue splatter vinyl.

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