Lost in Atlantis

 

Lost in Atlantis is my very first album that I've released with mebo and I think it's a massive achievement that we managed to create 9 brand new tracks from scratch. After the massive success of the Supernova Love EP we decided we wanted to get to work something brand new and there were a lot of demos to choose from. Mebo spent about two weeks coming up with about 20 demos or so and we picked 8 out of these out and turned them into proper songs.

Baby Girl, Phase Me (Only God Can Save Me), Snow (Never Trust Ur Mind), Deepest Lie, Stars (Live Along), Ooh (Atlantis) all were very easy songs to pick out as great ones for an album. Because we wanted to go over the 31 minute mark we also picked out wired and inside (we actually failed as the album is 29 minutes 53 seconds) . Allegory was actually the 1st version of deepest lie but then we went with the 2nd version. I did a lot of messing about with synths on allegory which is why I got a songwriter and a performer credit on the song.

It was going very well until we reached wired when I caught a respiratory illness that looked a lot like coronavirus but i tested negative. I spent about 2 weeks recovering from that which ultimately delayed the album.

Everything pretty much went as well as planned but I ended up loathing "never trust ur mind" because I ended up making 5 versions of it in total but we went with the earliest version which was probably the best idea. Although Deepest Lie is obviously the best song on the album I think I spent more time on "never trust ur mind" than all the other songs put together.

I've decided to rank my songs from my least favourite to my favourite:

9. Never Trust Ur Mind:

It's a nice song don't get me wrong but out of the songs I think this is the one I made the least contribution to. I think that the lyrics that mebo offers in the song are some of his most witty and dark to date but I think that the instrumentation probably let the song down a bit although I think the veryalternate version if it ever gets released may turn out to be a favourite (hint: it contains a lot of vocal chops and vocal sampling).

8. Live Along:

What happened to what was meant to be the second leading song from the album? I guess that you can't put a great big thumping kick drum with lofi synths and saxophones whilst not having some people left wondering what exactly the genre is meant to be. I don't think that it is helped by the fact there are only two chords in the whole song. I do like the electric guitar at the end though.

7. Only God Can Save Me

Well it's probably a bit on the bassy side but I think it turned out alright. I liked the guitar fade in at the start but I think it is not one of the songs that ages best on the tenth listen or so since the song is fairly repetitive and only has the tiniest solo. Personally I'm not a big fan of the clavinet on the final piece but I like the texture that it adds at the start.

6. Wired

I think there is quite a big jump from place 7 to place 6 and I think wired might have been the lead single in an alternate universe. Alas we can enjoy the version that exists in our current world. I think my mixing skills really paid off for the enjoy in the chorus and the dark chilling choir that comes in straight afterword. I'm not sure there is that much I could have changed but I also love the little crush effect at the end. I think in other words this was the closest we came to a tribute to OK Computer.

5. Baby Girl

A lovely example of a song coming together. This song really reminds me of 144/1234 from the previous EP with a more stripped back and bare acoustic with vocals and a careful addition of bass and drums. I really did enjoy the solo in this one and I think it is probably my favourite solo straight after inside (well at least one that I made).

4. Atlantis

Ooh-Aah-Lah-La-La-La-La indeed. I tried to add a little bit of boards of canada to this one and I think it actually works quite well here. Where some of the songs are quite dark there is nothing but love in this song and feels the most uplifting. If wired is like some kind of hell then atlantis is indeed heaven. Also the structure feels very fresh compared to the usual verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus.

 

3. Allegory

You can't really put a song that is 1 minute 21 seconds that is deliberate copy of one of the other songs at the top. Therefore I have conservatively put it in third place. I think it's quite a bit of synth fun and the electric guitar feels very fresh and new even if it taken from Deepest Lie. I've always loved the soundtracks to games on Nitrome and I think that's dominating my choices of synths at the moment.

2. Inside

You can hear the melancholy and the longing oozing out of the track in both the lyrics and the music. This is by far my favourite solo that I have ever made with lots of juicy effects and a very accurate and calculated melody compared to usual rushed gibberish. It's strange to think that we've never met and yet it feels like this is all going on in one room. I guess that is the power of mixing.

1. Deepest Lie

Obviously the strongest song. It's probably one of my best mixes although it maybe there were a few more changes that could have been made with the drums. I think this probably the best song the two of us have ever made together so I'm awfully proud of it. I think there is an incredibly haunting moment just before the oud solo comes in and I think for me that is the highlight of the album. You know that part where mebo says 'do me the way you like'. A moment of pure vulnerability.