Mr Nowhere (Original) - The Comfortably Strange

Community Recordings Collaborations-Bands-Projects
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1

Hi All,

As ever, it’s been a while, but finally got some new tunes recorded.
Carrying on where we left off from about a year ago, so more upbeat-ish.
Indeed this one is quite summery - for us. Not the usual black coffee - but coffee with some frothy stuff on top.

Feedback always welcome.
Thanks for checking out.

Digger & Katja

Mr Nowhere

Keep walking, Mr Nowhere
I don’t need your face ‘round here
Keep smiling, Mrs Don’t Care
I don’t think your crystal’s clear

Well, do you feel like no-one’s at home?
And do you feel like water is stone?
Do you know what you want
When the landscape keeps changing?
Re-arranging all the placings
What’s your part in this world?

Keep talking, Mr All There
Words you speak, but I don’t hear
Keep fighting, Mrs My Share
Here it is but nowhere near

Well, do you feel like no-one’s at home?
And do you feel like water is stone?
Do you know what you want
When the landscape keeps changing?
Re-arranging all the placings
What’s your part in this world?

All head noise
Is all there ever was
All the noise and
All that never was
All head noise
Is all there ever was
All the noise and
All that never was

4 Likes
2

Love it Stephen!

3

Thats awesome Digger glad to hear another one from you and Katja, it’s been a while! Not much to offer here critique wise, only pure admiration from my end! Well done guys this is one I could certainly put on my Spotify playlist! All the best.

4

Really good. Your sound reminded me a lot of Garbage. The singing but also the guitar tone & production feel.

1 Like
5

Ooooh yum Digger and Katja serving up the good stuff. I’ve missed your music.

6

Fantastic Digger. Love your arrangements, Katja’s vocals, the lyrics always thought-provoking, the guitar tones. Happy to hear another from you two.

7

Hi Stephen and Katja,
Well done and well made, definitely good enough to “officially” release :sunglasses: :sunglasses:…obviously that means putting it on a spotify- playlist can certainly these days… :upside_down_face:…
Greetings,Rogier

8

Brilliant stuff Stephen and Katja.

I’d buy that on 7" single whilst waiting for the album.

I agree with JK, I got a Garbage feel from it as well.

1 Like
9

Hi guys,
Most of the music that we share here on AVOYP is admirable for what it is and we look for and comment on the bits we feel were most successful. There is very little that I would download and add to one a playlist for my listening pleasure. If I heard this playing on BBC Radio 6 I would listen carefully, make sure I found out who the band was and look up some of their other stuff.

You may have mentioned it before, but which one of you writes the lyrics? I was grabbed by ‘crystal’s clear’, but top job all the way through.
Vibes :sunglasses:

10

I’ve said it before and agree with the comments here the stuff you and Katja do is absolutely stellar. Maybe I’m a bit biased because it really fits the electro/depeche styles I like. I hope you keep plugging away at these. Do you never publish your stuff on Spotify (the distrokid route)?

Anyway enough said and great job really enjoyed it as always.

11

I’ll echo everyone’s comments here, terrific song and production. Agree with @jkahn about that invoking memories of Garbage.
Amazing stuff :+1:

12

Wow, this is like pro-level stuff! A few people above seem to be longterm fans of your work… but I presume that most of your other stuff is on the old website, which I probably don’t have access to because I’m only a very recent member here.
But anyway, I really enjoyed this tune and think you guys are very talented. Thanks for sharing

13

Digger & Katja’s music is published on SoundCloud. You can enjoy it all here: Stream The Comfortably Strange music | Listen to songs, albums, playlists for free on SoundCloud

1 Like
14

OO ooo oooo Digger and Kajta are back yay !!
Well if that was summery, it reminded me of an August Bank Holiday thunderstorm.
It may well be upbeat but its epically dark, enticing and teasing, so it must be Comfortably Strange. What a belter. Stunning arrangement, loved the effects. How much was played we will never know but I don’t care. Add Katja’s hypnotic vocals to the mix and whoa. I cannot praise Katja singing enough, seconds in and it was the usual attack of goose bumps.
Keep doing what you are doing, you two. It just gets better and better.

:sunglasses:

15

Digger and Kajta, As always, everything is at the highest level, great music, very interesting arrangement and magical vocals! I am delighted!
My applause to you both! Now I will wait for the new premiere of your wonderful duet song.
Thanks for sharing!

Mike

16

Hi All,

Many thanks for the kind words.

Depeche Mode are a big influence on me - the band, alongside Metallica, i’ve seen live most often going back, well over 30 years.
Garbage - not so much - I know the odd song, but wasn’t a fan. That said, the sound we’ve gone after is 90s indie with some grunge thrown in.
Lyrics come from my pen of misery. (Writing was my first love - not that I claim to have any ability.)

We record just for fun (for my part it’s because I just love to hear Katja sing) - though we have had a few songs played on our local BBC Introducing - which was a pleasant surprise. Haven’t put them on Spotify or anything like that - as far as I know. Katja does all that sort of thing (Bandcamp, etc.) so i could be wrong.

Sandro - I’ve been around for quite a few years now (10+ I think) but have a problem with motivation of late. Must be old age kicking in.

Toby - mostly guitar/bass on this one (I’m recording DI most of the time these days and re-amp using Waves Gtr 3. Makes experimenting with sounds much easier; like the distorted guitar riff from the intro.)
Apart from the midi drums, the only synth part is the bass drop at 2.30, then some piano buried quite low from 2.45 throughout the outro

Thanks again.

Digger

2 Likes
17

Digger

Thanks for the break down. Some good sounds in GTR Tool Rack, especially the Bass amps models but a wide range of pre-sets to start with and tweak. I have the Waves PRS amp package as well. But of late, been happy dialling up the Mustang III and passing that to Reaper. But as you say Direct Input give you greater flexibility mixing. If you don’t mind sharing. I would love to know the guitar setting you used in GTR for this, as it sounded awesome. And yes my comment was tongue in cheek, you guys could be playing comb and sheet paper yazoos and it would sound majestic !

Cheers

Toby
:sunglasses:

18

Hi Toby,

Happy to give my settings:

I use the Mono/Stereo plugin for all guitars.

Bass:
Amp 1: Overbass. (Drive 5, Bass -0.3, Mids -1.5, Treb -1, Dir. 0.1)
Cab: 12 inch closed back
Mic: Dyn 409 off axis
Air: Off
Vol: 6.3
Pan: 0

Amp 2: Thunder. (Drive 5, Bass 2.5, Mids 2.8, Treb 0, Dir. 5)
Cab: 12 inch closed back
Mic: Dyn 409 on axis
Air: Off
Vol: 5
Pan: 0

Stomp:
Gate: Thresh 50 Hold 0.25 Att 0.3 Release 175
OvDrive: Drive 20 Level 43 Time 35
Amp:
Axpress: Att 10 Press 6.6 Output -4

Lead guitar (This is the distorted intro guitar and verse melodies - I rolled off some vol. on the guitar to clean the sound a little for that part.) EQ off the low end from about 200.

Amp 1: Supernatural. (Drive 3.8, Bass 0, Mids 1.8, Treb 0.4, Pres 3.9)
Cab: 4-12 Brit
Mic: Condvm1 on axis
Air: -3.9
Vol: 7
Pan: left

Amp 2: Scorch. (Drive 3, Bass 0, Mids 1.8, Treb 0.8, Pres 3.9)
Cab: 4-12 Brit
Mic: Condvm1 on axis
Air: -10.3
Vol: 6.5
Pan: right

Stomp:
Axpress: Att 5 Press 0 Output 0
Chorus: Depth 10, Rate 0.12
Phaser: Depth 0 Stereo 0 rate 1/4t
Delay: mix 33 time 1/16 Hicut 0.4 Feedback 5 Stereo 5.7
Amp
Spring reverb: Pre delay 20 time 2.4 mix 39

Rhythm Guitar (Left)
Amp 1: Supernatural. (Drive 3.5, Bass -3.1, Mids 1.8, Treb 0, Pres 0)
Cab: 4-12 Brit
Mic: Condvm1 on axis
Air: -3.9
Vol: 7
Pan: left

Amp 2: Scorch. (Drive 3.5, Bass -3.1, Mids 1.8, Treb 0, Pres 0)
Cab: 4-12 Brit
Mic: Condvm1 on axis
Air: -10.3
Vol: 6.5
Pan: right

Stomp:
Axpress: Att 5 Press 0 Output 0
Chorus: Depth 10, Rate 0.77
Amp

Rhythm Guitar (Right)
Amp 1: Supernatural. (Drive 5, Bass 0, Mids 1.8, Treb 0, Pres 5)
Cab: 4-12 Brit
Mic: Condvm1 on axis
Air: -3.9
Vol: 7
Pan: left

Amp 2: Scorch. (Drive 5, Bass 0, Mids 1.8, Treb 0, Pres 5))
Cab: 4-12 Brit
Mic: Condvm1 on axis
Air: -10.3
Vol: 6.5
Pan: right

Stomp:
Axpress: Att 5 Press 0 Output 0
EQ: 125 (lowest) 250(just below mid) 500 (a bit below 250) 1k (mid), 2k (same as 250), 4k (mid)
Reverb: mix 14, time 1, Pre delay 11, tone .97
Amp

Outro melody guitar:
Amp 1: Punchy. (Drive 3.7, Bass 0, Mids 0, Treb 2.2, Pres 8.1)
Cab: 4-10 Open back
Mic: Dyn 42 off axis
Air: off
Vol: 1.5
Pan: left

Amp 2: Punchy. (Drive 3.7, Bass 0, Mids 0, Treb 1.9, Pres 8)
Cab: 4-10 Open back
Mic: Dyn 42 off axis
Air: off
Vol: 1.5
Pan: right

Stomp:
Gate-comp: gate 58.4 Comp 84
Chorus: Depth 94, Rate 0.25
Delay: mix 36, time 1/14, Hicut 7, Feedback 3.2, Stereo 10
Reverb: Pre delay 113.5, time 1.35, mix 40, tone 1.35
Amp

I used 2 different guitars.
Lead was a Les Paul
The rest Aria pro 2

Bass Epiphone Thunderbird (played with a pick - can’t use my fingers well enough. Lol)

Other than that it’s just a bit of EQ and compression when mixing.

Have fun.

Digger

19

Cool beans Digger. I’ll hive that info of to my GTR spreadsheet. You might have seen elsewhere that I could be dipping my toe into the world of Bass, so those setting will give me something to fiddle with if I start recording!

Thank you and looking forward to more from the two of you.

Cheers

Toby
:sunglasses:

20

@Digger72 all nicely tucked away in the Preset folder, it was just as easy to fire up the deskstop GTR TR and drop them straight in (I forget about using it out side of Reaper for practice!!). Looking forward to experimenting, Thanks for the share.
:sunglasses: