| Sven Germany 
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“Family Life" |
| Crystal Entity Landgraaf, The Netherlands  Website
Maja - Vocals |
“Notice Me" Recorded: Landgraaf 2003 |
Zerocratie
- Lyon, France
Alexis-guitar,vocals |
“Green & Gray" Recorded: May 2005
Our band Zerocratie was created more than 10 years ago. We were a punk hardcore
students band composed of 5 persons. We've made several gigs in bars and
alternative places but never recorded something with a really clean sound. Then
2 persons left the band and few times ago our drummer left also the band. So we
decided to carry on making a kind of acoustic guitar and bass folk music duo
with totally new songs. Some of it are in french others are in english. We
started to rehearse those new songs some months ago. We now intend to make our
first gigs with this new line-up for this summer.
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Dominic
- Sheffield, England
 |
“Western Dream" Recorded: End of January 2005 The basic track was recorded between meals by the General Secretary (Dominic) during the last week of January 2005 using Cubase (guitars, bass, vox etc). The drums were programmed on Reason and a tub of rice was shaken by hand. Some Sheffield keyboards were added (FM7) and Monsignor Gareth added an acoustic and some backing vox. Brother Nick, (on loan from Father Freddy and the Franciscans) and Sister Rebecca added some “Whoa‘s” - as did anyone else who passed through the house that week. After recording, one half of a week was spent trying to be clever with effects and the mix; the other half painstakingly returning to a more stripped down version. Some re-recording took place (particularly the bass, and the drums) but these later mixes we felt lacked something the earlier versions had. In the end, and after lengthy debate about being 'niggly', one of the earlier mixes was chosen in the spirit the project was started. A special thank you to ToastingCain, and of course NMA for all they have given us over the years. Dominic, General Secretary, A.O.O.F.J. |
Tariq , Mark & Steff
- London England
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“TURN AWAY" Steff - Vocals/Guitars Tariq – Drums
This was recorded sometime in the year 1999 I think, maybe earlier, in a converted garage in the middle of a motorcycle workshop in Action, West London. The songs were originally recorded for the Remodeled project. I chose the sons because I liked the idea of rocking up acoustic numbers, but I like to think we haven’t completely destroyed them and they still portray the heartfelt nature of the subject matter/lyrics. A lot has happened and things have changed since we recorded these, but it’s nice to have them as a record of where we all were at the time.
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Old Melody Men
- Bradford
  ROBERT HEATON R.I.P. |
Moose & Robert - Bradford “THE HUNT" The Hunt Recorded in England between 1987 and 2005 When 'Remodelled' was touted, Robert suggested we put a track together. He wanted to do a song from the post-Impurity era. I had a different idea. The first piano version of The Hunt, begun during Ghost of Cain, was never completed. I wanted to do a version that stuck to Robert's original idea of a claustrophobic night-time chase, but which owed something to the noir movies of the forties and fifties; a sort of Chandleresque narrative in the style of Humphrey Bogart. The bulk of the track was recorded using Reason, I did a vocal part, piano and some samples of people talking about ghastly acts of violence. I used a loop to suggest to Robert where the drums should be going. Before I got any further, 'Remodelled' was no more, and the track got shelved. In October, Jeff told me about 'Toasting Cain', and I said I might have something for it. I was going to dust off the track once again, but then Robert very sadly died. I knew it'd never be completed as intended, but I still wanted to do something as a tribute to him. I fished out some old demo tapes from December 1987, recorded at The Sawmill. I found 'The Rap', an early, drum only version of 'Inheritance', from which I sampled, edited and looped Robert's performance. I then spun the re-edited Reason version into a Soundscape 24 track R.Ed DAW. The new vocal was electronically compiled and put through a heavy distortion and vocoder. I added a Hammond A-100, a Fender F-35 acoustic and then the bass (Precision) and guitars (Telecasters), all recorded through a Behringer Valve pre-amp with a Behringer V-Amp Pro for good measure. There's a bit of E-Bow going on and lots of strange tunings. To complete the line-up from the original version, I sampled Justin's guitar opening and re-tuned it to fit all the chord changes, and then pinched some bits from the chorus and the end. The strings are sampled from a Swedish orchestra, and it was mastered in Sound Forge 6. It was a bastard to mix and still isn't quite right, but I've been dicking around with this on and off since 2001, and that's quite long enough. Also, despite some small edits, it's still too fucking long... Hope you enjoy it. Moose |
Us and Them
- Lyon France
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“Better Than Them" |
Kevin de Groot
- Colchester
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“Stranger" “I have always liked Stranger for the “little rays of hope” it brings. We planned to record a pretty straight version of Stranger but add a Fate-style guitar solo over the instrumental verse. In the end we did this!” Recorded 29th December 2004 on a Korg D8. |
Britt & Louise
- Manhattan
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“Marrakesh" We recorded the song on a digital home recorder (Boss BR 1600) in our Manhattan bedroom and used some cheap guitars (an old Fender Squire Strat. and an Ibanez ATK 5-string bass) into a Line 6 guitar pod. That helped a lot to get some tone. The drums are a Boss Dr. Rhythm drum machine and we added some tambourine to take away that horrible robot drum machine sound. And we used one of the basic Sennheiser mics-it's kind of like the SM-57 Shure mic. |
Guido Wulf
- Willebadessen Germany
 Website // Email |
“Marry The Sea" I chose to cover this song because I always loved the haunting atmosphere of the original and - as I have definitely no talent in singing - wanted to see if it still works replacing the vocals with some guitar riffs. Hope you like it. |
Luke One
- Lausanne, Switzerland
 Website // Email |
“COURAGE" When the recording was made. December 2004 Courage –this song always succeeds in sending shivers down my spine, for better or worse. I was initially determined to lay down a calmer, acoustic version of the song, but after having started to mess around with a drum-loop I came up with this slightly noisy, darker version…. |
Lurch
- The Hague, The Netherlands
 Lurch |
“MY COUNTRY" |
Zevlagh & Selikal
- Carpetania, Spain
 Zevlagh & Selikal aka "Celtiberian & Fredenandus" |
“MERMAID SONG" Instead of taking an anthem from NMA we decided to go for the funny side, so Mermaid Song was our choice, in order to make some interesting cool chants on it. So, when you are spanish and your english is not the best on earth, as I have already showed, what do you do about the lyrics? Pencil in hand we wrote the lyrics as we understood them after just one listening. Nice. And what about some beer? I hope you like the final result |
COLD TRASH RADIO - Valence,France
 COLD TRASH RADIO |
“AFTERNOON SONG" Thanks infinitly to Jeff, Gary Wood, and Justin, Joolz and NMA for all they brought me all over the years! |
Stéfany and Xavier from Jouy le moutier, France. Xavier & Stéfany Website // Email |
“SPACE" We chose this title because we love it!! We like very much the rythm and also the lyrics. There's something special in this song. And it's a great feeling to sing and play nma songs. It's really strong and beautiful. Five or six years ago now that I have my folk guitar and it's because of NMA and also people who put nma guitar chords on the web that I could learn guitar. I started with Better than them, Love song and after… many others. |
Crimestick - Russelville, AR. USA Brandt Bourns / JS / Jeff & Teresa Bourns |
“BLUE SHIP" I chose Justin Sullivan's 'Blue Ship' mainly because it has a certain element of beautiful simplicity to it...yet there is a lot going on lyrically speaking. The juxtaposition of the "Strange Brotherhood" and the isolationistic tendencies of the speaker just seemed something I kind of felt I could relate to at the time I decided to do the cover...which is why I think my version ended up sounding a little more depressing than the original given I was really intrigued by that aspect of the song. In any case, I hope I came even a little bit close to capturing the amazing feel someone gets when you hear the original. I'm crediting my brother Brandt with the creation of this song as well because we make up Crimestick, a developing musical endeavor. A 'Strange Brotherhood' in it's own rite, and a daily outlet for expressing ourselves creatively. A big thanks to Teresa as well, whose support and input I couldn't live without. Dedicated to my sister Tracie..life just isn't the same without you. |
