#064 - FELICITY LAWLESS and ELENA MARCIGOT (aka. MsEleneous): Recording tricks for guitar and sax

Jan 'Yarn' Muths: Welcome to the Production Talk podcast with me, Yarn, of mixartists.com.au. In this podcast series, we celebrate the modern way of producing music. We want to talk about all things related to songwriting, recording at home and music production. So, if you produce your music at home, this is the place to be. Please subscribe and recommend this podcast to all your friends. This is the Production Talk Podcast episode 64. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Welcome back to another episode of the Production Talk podcast. At the beginning of this episode, as always, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the country that I'm recording this interview on today, the Arakwal people of the Bundjalung Nation, and I would like to express my thanks and gratitude and respect to elders past, present, and emerging. Jan "Yarn' Muths: With us today, our two phenomenal musicians from the Northern Rivers. With us is Felicity Lawless and Elena Marcigot. Welcome on board. How are you today? Felicity Lawless: Excellent. Thank you. How are you going? Jan "Yarn' Muths: I'm going really well. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: Yeah. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Hey Elena, it's been a while. I'm just trying to think about how long it's been since I've seen you both. So, Elena, I think maybe a year or two, but Felicity, I think it must have been 2019 or so. Or have we seen each other since? I'm not entirely sure. Help me out, please. It's been a while, isn't it? Felicity Lawless: I feel like I saw you last time at the Billinudgel Hotel doing sound for some afternoon. Jan "Yarn' Muths: That was a fantastic show that you played there. Yes, that was definitely a show that I remember. That would've been February, 2019 then. So it's been a while. Everything is different since, So how have you been since, How, how did you get through the Covid years? Felicity Lawless: Yeah, look, I hadn't had a holiday for a while, so it was nice to have a bit of a break. Yeah, definitely missed playing shows, but also just really loved. The time. I have been doing some big missions on some classical and flamenco pieces, which takes a lot of time. So it was cool to have, Yeah, more time just to play the guitar before all. Felicity Lawless: Just playing. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Excellent. So use the Covid times to literally practice your, your skills. Felicity Lawless: Yeah. Yeah. And Jan "Yarn' Muths: good. That's great to hear. Yeah. Excellent. The best way to use the time. Yeah. And, and what about you Ele? Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: Yes. I definitely also missed a bit the. During Covid time, particularly full band shows, they just disappear, like flies in the air. But yeah, it was a good time to compose and start new collaborations. Particularly with Felicity. We've actually composed a few songs during that period, so Jan "Yarn' Muths: Excellent. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: it was less performative and more creative in a. Jan "Yarn' Muths: And practically speaking were you able to see each other during the lockdown periods or did you collaborate remotely? Felicity Lawless: No. We lived together, so it was very easy to, that's why we started collaborating even more than before. , yes. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Perfect. Perfect. So pretty much a musical powerhouse, Felicity Lawless: Yeah, the Jan "Yarn' Muths: That's really nice. Cool. Felicity Lawless: and no access to our other projects. So we played with each other more, which turned out to be a great Jan "Yarn' Muths: excellent. And pH city. Can you please introduce the rest of your band? What other musicians do you collaborate with? Felicity Lawless: Okay. With my band and on my albums, I've collaborated with Scotty French, Jeff Green, and. Tron layer from the Gold Coast. So Scotty runs his own recording studios at Love Street and yeah, Jeff is really well known as a drummer from George. They're amazing. And then, yeah, really, like Ellen has said, when like everything went weird. Felicity Lawless: I just really started playing more solo duos with Eleena, who goes by the name Miscellaneous. So yeah, the Felicity Lawless and Miscellaneous thing, and then with Black Rabbit George as well, which is more of a guitar show. So yeah, Jan "Yarn' Muths: And that, Felicity Lawless: collaborating with. Jan "Yarn' Muths: that brings us to, to your latest single, your single z. Is that, if I pronounce this correctly, is, is that the collaboration? Yeah. It's, it's phenomenal guitar work. So that is really, really outstanding. Tell us more about that. So you play guitar, you sing, do you play any other instruments? Felicity Lawless: My, myself, I, yeah, I play piano and drums, but at the moment I really just play a lot of Jan "Yarn' Muths: Lovely. Yeah. Felicity Lawless: yeah, on that, that is a collaboration with. Black Rabbit, George, Paul George, and it's mainly just guitar. It's where we get just to play our guitars, and I'm playing cajon on it as well, so there's no vocals. Felicity Lawless: It's just purely instrumental, which was something we were both pretty excited to do. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Nice. It sounds absolutely phenomenal. It must have been a bit of a piece to produce and record. That's, you know, really a complex musicianship. Felicity Lawless: Well, we did it quite quickly actually. Yeah. Jan "Yarn' Muths: You did it quickly. I wouldn't have guessed. So tell us more about the circumstances, you know, where, where did you record it? How long did you work on the songwriting? Jan "Yarn' Muths: How did the song come together? Felicity Lawless: Well, Black Rabbit George recorded it. Who's the other performer on it? And yeah, we basically just got our favorite microphones and our favorite guitars and. Yeah, it recorded it to sound much like it would live, but I did play in the con parts later and there was obviously a few little over dubs of guitars, but we tried to keep the sound, the live sound of like that jam sort of guitar thing happening. Felicity Lawless: And basically we just picked our favorite songs of our own and then we wrote two songs. Together or three songs together for it. But yeah, then we had sort of separate songs each that the other one played on. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Okay. Are you suggesting that there are more songs to come? I'm trying to read between the lines here. Felicity Lawless: Yeah, there's a whole album. Yeah, there's seven tracks. So we're selling the albums as CDs at our shows at the moment, and we've just released sma. But yeah, the second single come out probably December, January. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Excellent, excellent. Look, please let me know. I'll put it in the show notes and you know, whenever you have a new release, let me know. I'll put it in the Production Talk podcast community on Facebook. Happy to, to make some noise there for you. Of course. Ena, over to you. Tell us about your musical career and the instruments you. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: yeah, my career started quite young when I was 10. With the clarinet, it was my first baby. And yeah, I was classically trained originally, so up until I. Probably 23 or 24. I was just doing classical, playing in orchestras, teaching and doing that life. And then I decided to expand a bit my horizons and yeah, I got a saxophone and started playing in several. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: Types of bands from ragged to world music to tango to, you know, doing music for theater. So basically anything that would come up and I would find interesting. And when I moved to Australia 12 years ago, for, for about five years, I had my own project When I was living in Sydney, it was a rag. At the time called Travelers, it doesn't exist anymore. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: And then I moved up to the Northern Rivers and since then I've had the honor to collaborate with really, really good artists. Felicity obviously is One of them, I would say the main one at the moment. But I also play with Sky Eater, Jesse Morris Band. Recently I recorded a couple of singles with Si Galaxy, which is more like electronic music. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: Many Nalu Battle and Hailey Grace. And, and I think I'm missing more Jan "Yarn' Muths: Okay. Felicity Lawless: Actually both record it. We both collaborated just recently with a Gold Coast singer, Katie who as well, which was pretty magic. And that's gonna be coming out I imagine, before the end of the year. Sure. And that was pretty Jan "Yarn' Muths: Again, please keep me posted. I'd love to check it out. You said you, you play the clarinet and did I miss any other instruments there? Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: Yeah, Clat, saxophone, Tanner and alto, and flute as well. It's a recent one. And yeah, that's, that's the latest one. And I collaborate with backing boles as well. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Of course, of course. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: And the egg. Let's not forget the egg. That's the hardest one of them Jan "Yarn' Muths: Sorry, Which was that? I just, the, Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: The egg, Jan "Yarn' Muths: the act shaker. Of course. , Yeah. Such a simple Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: that's the hardest one. Jan "Yarn' Muths: is, isn't it? Isn't it? It seems so easy for everybody, but it's, there are few people who do it well. And there are, you know, sometimes. Few and fall in between. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's so true. That's so true. Lovely. Elena, we've worked together in the studio before and I noticed you as you know, this big ray of sunshine every time you come through the studio door and you always nail your takes. Jan "Yarn' Muths: And we recorded so many different songs for Jesse and soon and I remember that we worked particularly quick most of the time. It was never a painful process with you and. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: Same Jan "Yarn' Muths: rare. It's it's rare. What's a secret? What's a secret? You know, a lot of people have fairly frustrating experience in this studio. Jan "Yarn' Muths: What do you do differently? Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: Well, I guess, you know, be slightly prepared so, you know, know the track they're going to record. But also being in the moment, don't overthink. And yeah, try to be present. Focus on always on the breath and. On the magic of that specific moment and be, you know, be be confident that whatever comes out is gonna be the best that you can ever do. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Okay. So it's a mindset thing. Felicity Lawless: Yeah, I would say. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Okay. And do you find it difficult sometimes to, to block out, you know, all the things that occupy our minds usually, you know, the busy life that we have outside the studio, you know, to switch into creative mode is that it's something that comes easily to you. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: But yeah, mostly, sometimes, sometimes I overdo like buzzing around and, you know, doing life and, and playing and seeing friends, et cetera, et cetera. But I find my piece a lot of it through, you know yoga, meditation, being in touch with nature. And recently I'm learning how to actually be able to, to stop and to. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: Listen and rest, and so create from a space of stillness and silence as well, and felic, it has been a good master in this realm. Felicity Lawless: Well, Elena has this impeccable ability, like a switch that when she's playing music or if she's doing any task, she just goes beep and then just focuses on it entirely. It's quite, Jan "Yarn' Muths: Mm. Felicity Lawless: Amazing to watch, especially for someone like me that likes to do 10 million things at once. She's just like Jan "Yarn' Muths: That is a really good skill to have, especially these days. Okay. Well that explains, that explains I wanna steer back a little bit. Felicity you mentioned that you picked your favorite microphones. I, I just can't help myself. I need to dig a little bit deeper there. Are you happy to share with us what your favorite microphones are for, for the e acoustic guitar? Felicity Lawless: now I'm so bad with these things, but I just have we just did one single microphone on each guitar. So we just want, because we have really beautiful guitars and we wanted a really clean sound, so I just used a sender, MK eight, and I imagine Paul used a Norman. Probably the most fancy kind of guitar mic you could get. Felicity Lawless: I would say. Jan "Yarn' Muths: All right. I wouldn't have picked that because, you know, obviously Norman microphones, they've got a big reputation to be, you know, the most expensive and among the best sound. And er interestingly, he, they actually own Norman. Norman is part of the ER family. Felicity Lawless: what I found out when I, when I bought my send, Hi, that they have I think the same diaphragm or something, Jan "Yarn' Muths: You're right. Felicity Lawless: I don't know. It seemed, But yeah, have a listen. Yeah, so I did all my guitar parts with my microphone and he did all his, with his, and. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Mm. Felicity Lawless: Yeah, there's definitely a different sound, but we do have a different sound anyway because I'm playing more of the warmer stuff, some rhythm stuff, some lead, but I'm going for a warmer tone, whereas he goes to really cut through sharp and very clean. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Right on. Yeah. Yeah. Felicity Lawless: Yeah. So we are going for a bit of a bit of tone, so, But also, yeah, I mean that did the job, the MK eight, I was quite happy with the sound of my guitar. Jan "Yarn' Muths: I've used the MK eight myself. And now when I first looked at it and looked at the price tag, I assumed that, you know, st. He our venture off into the budget market and it would be a budget microphone. It sound like one, but when I closed my eyes and listened, I didn't get that impression at all. So it actually is a very detailed, beautiful microphone. Jan "Yarn' Muths: So, Felicity Lawless: I think it's very simple. Beautiful. Yeah, just gets a clean sound and if you've got a beautiful instrument, that's really all you need, I Jan "Yarn' Muths: Mm, I guess so. Yeah. Once you've got a beautiful guitar, it almost doesn't matter. You know how you place your microphone or even a cheaper microphone will still sound phenomena if you've got an amazing instrument. And tell us more about your guitar then. Felicity Lawless: I have a beautiful guitar. I'm completely in love with it. It was made by a guy called Strato and Agnostic who is in Toronto just north of Sydney, like Newcastle area. And what I just love about it, he made two guitars for me and actually one for Paul as well, Black Rabbit, and. He used that for many, many, many years. Felicity Lawless: He's not using it now. And he hand makes them and he's in love with flaco and classical and all sorts of like, kind of nylon strings predominantly, but he does steals as well. But he is really kind of, yeah, there's not a lot going on with nylon handmade guitars in Australia that aren't just, you know, Crazy expensive and he makes sorts of really beautiful ones using some Spanish woods. Felicity Lawless: And yeah, he's a real zen master, like leaves little faults in the woods. So you can see that where it's been human made and just kind of intuitively picked up, like listened to some of my music, but really, like I asked for a traditional flame co guitar, but he's given me something. It's quite a lot bassier and warmer, which at first I was like, What? Felicity Lawless: This is not for my guitar, but it is. It's just got that extra base in it and, which is great because I often finger pick. Bass strings and baselines while I'm playing and cuz I am playing a lot of rhythm and singing with it, I'm not using it, you know? Exactly. Just as a pure flamenco or something. I'm using it in a more kind of poppy way I guess. Jan "Yarn' Muths: I see. Felicity Lawless: Hmm. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Lovely. Felicity Lawless: Hmm. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Elena, what about your collection of instruments? You, you mentioned you've got saxophones. Can you explain what instruments you, you have and you know what you like about 'em, why you pick them? Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: Yeah, well my, my clarinet is a b. Campon. So it's a French brand, probably the most famous for clarinet, and I've had it for a very long time, actually for about 23 years. So that says a lot, Yeah. On the quality of the instrument. And because it's it's wood it kind of absorbs the personality of the person that is playing it. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: It's And it's been well looked after as well. So, you know, serviced and kept away from really cold. Warm weathers, et cetera. So that's one of the babies and the saxophones, my tanner, which is the one I play the most with the, with the bands is a Yamaha it's a YT series, so I, it's. It's silver that's I really enjoy, The color is different from a lot of other saxophones and it's quite, I enjoy the sound of it. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: It's quite sharp and really good for funk and reg. It cuts through quite a lot and I've had it for about, I think probably five years. And I also have a, an altos, which I use mostly to, to teach. And that's just a study. Yamaha, nothing too fancy and my fluid is I think it's a Korean bread. I can't even remember the name exactly right now. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: But again, it's a study level instrument. Yeah, so they're all different. I love all of them and it's quite addictive. I want more, I want more. My next one, it would probably be a, a base clarinet. I really love, Jan "Yarn' Muths: Oh, nice. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: instruments. Yeah, it's really, really special and I think it would go really well with with Flamenco and with gypsy music. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: So, yeah. But it is a bit of an expensive baby. So let's see when, when that one is gonna come, I'm working on it. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Okay. Okay. And through all the years that you've recorded in studios, have you developed some kind of a favorite microphone or microphone technique or placement to, to record the clarinet or the saxophone or the flute? Any preferences? Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: Yeah, no, when I record, I, I totally trust the, the producer and so far I've been lucky enough to work with really great producers. You are one of them. So it's been great working with you. And yeah, the results have always been, Outstanding. The only really bad recording was once that we did, I think when I was a teenager on a computer with really bad, you know, like audio software. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: I wouldn't, I would not do that again. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Okay, good. And I guess the, the next question is, is pretty much for both of you and you know, if you could please answer from guitar players and saxophone players' angle. How important is the room that you record in? The acoustics, Is that something you actually try to capture with the microphones? Jan "Yarn' Muths: What are your thoughts there? Felicity Lawless: Well, I mean, I let my producer take care of that too. basically. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Okay. Felicity Lawless: I do record some things at home just yeah, to send, but nothing. Yeah, I mean, it was interesting because yeah, I do the full beautiful studio room that Scotty has a loved street and that, you know, that's a gorgeous experience with the vocal booth and whatnot. Felicity Lawless: But then also, yeah. Just recording in Paul's lounge room was pretty nice. I just had lots of candles lit and made more of an atmosphere, . So I guess it had lots of life. Life kind of surfaces, much more than the studio, but yeah. Yeah, I just like to have just a bit of space around me which obviously you do in the studio, but with that, yeah, we just created a bit of space, but you know, I think it's just about, you know, a lot about where you are at as a player and yeah. Felicity Lawless: Let the producer sort that out. Mm. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Okay. Thank you. Ena, what are your thoughts? Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: Yeah, look, I guess it depends which genre of music you're recording when I was recording. Classical music event, some really interesting experiences Recording, for example, in a, a really old building in Italy, I think it was an old church. So there was not very rever, which was really amazing and that worked for that type of music. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: But other than that I, like, I enjoy. If you wanna dry room, dry environment, and then the producer can add whatever is needed. Mm. And recently I've recorded in a studio, at a home studio, and that has been also great experience ATTs studio because it was more home if you want. So less intimidating. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: And you know, we could. You know, chill, Cook some food, have a tea, have breaks, play with the cat. Roll on the floor. So that was yeah, that, that made me feel really a tom, you know? Jan "Yarn' Muths: Mm, Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: Yeah. But, Jan "Yarn' Muths: shout to TK Tom Kelly, who was on the podcast in episode 11. So if anybody feels like rewinding and checking that again, it was a really good episode. Big shout to tk. Okay, Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: ego. Jan "Yarn' Muths: We love you mate. How does microphone technique translate to the stage? So I guess with the acoustic guitar, typically you would use pickups instead of a microphone on, on a stage, but with nylon strings, what's your trick, Felicity? Jan "Yarn' Muths: How? How do you do that on stage? Felicity Lawless: Well, this is where I do have a magic trick. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Please share. Felicity Lawless: Because, Yeah, like there's like these, they just slip through in a certain. Moment of time, these Fishman pickups where you can, we have microphones, which they're harder define now, but it's, yeah, basically a little microphone inside the sound hole of the guitar, blended with the bridge pickup. Felicity Lawless: And I actually have this amazing setup of handmade babar pickups. There's one pickup under each string, because Jan "Yarn' Muths: Oh, Felicity Lawless: Yeah, nylons can be very touchy. Yeah. And it's just so clear and basey and be beautiful. But definitely like blending the two together because I mean, I want more of the mic, but yeah, that can of course pose feedback issues. Felicity Lawless: And I've been doing an interesting thing, which is playing an nylon guitar with like, you know, a psychedelic going off band. So that is very interesting onstage sound, but recently we've just been using in ears for fallback, so that has made. The whole game very different. So there's no more fo feedback issues. Felicity Lawless: Yeah. Because it can't, the microphone in the guitar, it's like, you don't wanna put it more on the bridge pickup. You want more of the microphone, so I'm always pushing to have more of that, but it's always sitting on the edge of just Jan "Yarn' Muths: Yeah. Felicity Lawless: off. Yeah. Jan "Yarn' Muths: of course. And you don't want that, you moved onto any ears. That's, that's really interesting. Was that an easy step for you or was it unusual at first? Felicity Lawless: Well look, I really like, yeah, just enjoyed it from the get go. The first time I used them, they did cut out briefly, which was an interesting thing. But yeah, they were pretty faultless. The guy running them knows exactly what he is doing, so it's, yeah, I just, yeah. The last few times I've used them, I love them so much. Felicity Lawless: It's like you're in this little. Bubble of perfect sound, which, you know, when you are, when you've played a lot of gigs in so many various places, which I have, I could not describe the variance of difference between all the different journeys I've played, you know Jan "Yarn' Muths: Yeah. Felicity Lawless: Yeah, you really appreciate when you can just play and have this beautiful sound of your music exactly the way you want and be presenting like that with no distraction. Felicity Lawless: I found it quite Jan "Yarn' Muths: Beautiful. And of course, you know the, you. Felicity Lawless: easy on the voice. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Yeah, Yeah, yeah. Right. And you've got the same sound wherever you are on stage, Of course you've got more freedom. Yeah. Felicity Lawless: Exactly. You can have your guitar a little bit louder. You can have your own mix. You can mix your own. So we just mix our own ears to suit ourselves. Yeah, it's extreme. It's a game changer because, I don't know, I mean, we all love to have that beautiful, loud, you know, being immersed in the whole sound of the geek, which I personally love and fortunately have no ear damage or anything. Felicity Lawless: But I guess over time, yeah, the loudness sometimes does stay up to great on one's nerves, especially, you know if there's feedback stuff ever happening. So, yeah. It's nice. It feels like a natural evolution for me. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Fantastic. And do you ever feel a disconnect to the audience? Felicity Lawless: Yeah. I'm just navigating that at the moment. Yeah. Once I get into it, I can really connect, but yeah, for example, if things start to go. A bit weird, or it's more like learning how to communicate with the band members, really. And yeah, it's sort of once you sort of focus in on the audience Yep. You know what's going on, but it's definitely more tricky to just kind of yell something at a band member or say something, you know, you, Yeah. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Yeah, Eleena do. Do you use en years as well on stage? Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: Look, I've used them for the first time in the last couple of shows with Felicity, actually . Because yeah, our Sunman had them and yeah, they're definitely, definitely alive. Game changer it because yeah, as Felicity mentioned, you can ear everything clearly. And for me, particularly the backing vocals yeah, in ears are definitely very helpful with backing vocals. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: Mm-hmm. so I don't have to scream. I can hear myself, I can tune in more finely. I guess, you know, cause you know, socks and clarinet are relatively loud instruments, so I can always hear them, but the backing vocals sometimes are a bit tricky and yeah. And I can hear everyone else and yeah. Yeah, it's been great. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: Yeah. I love. Jan "Yarn' Muths: And for the saxophone on stage, do. For, to actually have a microphone on, a stand to play into, or do you like a clip microphone that always keeps its position around your instrument? Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: I prefer the microphone on the on the stand. I've tried clip microphones. They often give feedback problems. And yeah, they have the advantage. Obviously you can move around, you can dance and all of that, which is fun. But I, I prefer the reliability of stand mic and also because normally I play both sucks and clarine it that makes it easier as well. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: Otherwise, I would need to have two clip mics. And the clip mics on the clarinet. Really. Work that well because the clarinet has got holes on the body of the instrument. So this, the sound comes out through the whole instrument. You can't just clip a mic on the bell. That wouldn't work, That wouldn't capture all the harmonics. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Okay. Wow, that's really, really good information. I would like to steer back to studio work, if that's okay. When, when you produce your albums Felicity, do, do you prefer to record one instrument after the other as an over up method, or do you like to get the entire band together and have them all perform at the same? Felicity Lawless: This is interesting because my old band, we had a rule. We did everything live and I only over dubbed solos and extra guitars. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Oh yeah. Felicity Lawless: but yeah, it was really cool and they were cool. But yeah. What I've done working with Scotty, which is my last four albums is. I like to have the bass and drums down together all the time because, yeah, it's, it's interesting, I guess, cuz Scotty and I are working so closely anyway with the production that we, we can do whatever we want later, but it's nice to feel those two players. Felicity Lawless: Together to just like knit down the bottom. And it just feels like an energetic thing to me. Of course they're in different rooms or the bass amps in a different room or whatever. But yeah, definitely doing the drum and bass lives. You may have to do overdubs, whatever, but getting, you know, Beautiful takes of of them. Felicity Lawless: And then yeah, like generally just then everything separate guitars I don't know how much you've heard of my albums, but we have put layers and layers, just strings and horns on a lot of things. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Hold on. Yeah. Felicity Lawless: and strings as well. There's lots and lots of beds of strings underneath everything. So they're just single players. Felicity Lawless: I have cellist and viola or violin on each album, and then, Whoever's playing, really looking forward to putting Ellen's sacks on the next one. Yeah, but I mean, I love that magic of just going, Oh, okay, now I can layer on more guitars. Now I can layer on more guitars and just the synergy between Scotty and I because we were playing a lot as a together initially, so we'd really understand each other musically, like, yeah. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Okay. Yeah. Look I, I can really relate to that. You know, I'm a big fan of recording as many instruments at the same time as possible. There is something about it, I can't even describe it, but it sounds. Better to me, even if it's each signal, it might be less perfect by itself, but together it's better in my opinion. Jan "Yarn' Muths: But look I might be a little bit biased here, and you mentioned your next album where is it at and when can we expect it? Felicity Lawless: Well, there's been a bit of a curve ball because the current recording is Felicity Lawless and miscellaneous album. So I'm still launching the symbiosis album with Black Rub George. We're doing our Byron launch in December. But yeah, currently we've just finished two tracks and we're about to release a single first single and yeah, then just finalizing the album over the next couple of months, I guess, month or two. Felicity Lawless: Yeah, with Ellenor and I, so we're just sort of, I don't know, deciding how much extra instrumentation we will have on there, all these sorts of things. How much we'll do live and over dubbing and yeah. But it's pretty exciting. We'll be recording. We've done some tracks of tk. We'll be doing a lot of it with Scotty, so yeah, should be interesting. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Sounds like you've got a fantastic team around you there. That's really good to hear. Felicity Lawless: Amazing team. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Well, I can't wait. Please keep me up to speed once it's out. Felicity Lawless: I will Jan "Yarn' Muths: Good. So maybe one last question to, to both of you individually musically, you know, you both play at such a really high level, but at some stage in your life you must have been a beginner. Jan "Yarn' Muths: You know, you must have started somewhere, you know, playing the first, you know, Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: No, that was in a previous life. Jan "Yarn' Muths: a previous life. Look, if, Felicity Lawless: I still feel like a beginner Jan "Yarn' Muths: Cowboy Felicity , you are a bit of a goddess on the guitar. You definitely are. If, if you could speak to Felicity Lawless: this is the thing that you realize with guitar. It just gets, the more you know on a guitar, the more there is to learn. Jan "Yarn' Muths: I guess. I guess Felicity Lawless: it's such an interesting instrument like. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Look, if, if you had the chance to speak to that person you used to be a long time ago, the beginner, another person who just picked up their instrument and just loaded to strum or to to play a couple of notes, what advice would you give that person? Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: I will tell them, trust the process and dream high. Anything is possible. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Nice. Well said. Thank you, Felicity. Felicity Lawless: I would just say to them, Anything is possible. Like you can break any song into small pieces and each piece is manageable. And I've done that my whole life and I really appreciate that about myself and like yeah, like to say that to people that are beginning to just say, don't look at the whole thing, just take it into small pieces and then you can play. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Into. Says as in just only your own part, or Can you break that down for me a bit? Felicity Lawless: Well, I think a lot of things, like I was really obsessed with like, you know, some crazy stuff when I was playing piano. I, I loved beov and piano sonatas and like the music I like now in guitar as well as my fun stuff and the reggae and the world fusion. I really love, you know, some wild classical pieces in Flamenco, which, Really challenging, like it takes a lot of time. Felicity Lawless: My guitar teacher used to say to me, You know, if you wanna be any good as a classical player, you need to be playing eight hours a day. And I was just like, Well, Jan "Yarn' Muths: Oh wow. Felicity Lawless: don't think I've got, Yeah, that's what he was doing. It was wild. And it was like, you know, just to maintain repertoire to I think memorize that much stuff. Felicity Lawless: And then, yeah, so it's like, what else do you do? So, Yeah. But a lot of those big pieces you look at and go, Wow. Like, how could anyone ever play that? But when you break it into the little parts they're all quite manageable. You just do one little chunk at a time. The smallest chunk, you know? Jan "Yarn' Muths: Yeah. Got it. So you take a complex piece and break it into small little chunks of a few notes at a time. Cool. And then you put it all together. That makes a lot of sense. That's a really good way to look at it. Nice. One. Last question for, for today. People are now curious to find out more about your band, Felicity. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Where would you direct them to? What's the best place to find your music? Felicity Lawless: At felicity lawless.com.au and also on Facebook and YouTube just under Felicity Lawless and there's, hes of different cool things. I'm so proud of all the beautiful people I play with on there, and my band is on there. Lots of stuff with Ellen. Lots of stuff with Black Rabbit. Yeah. And there's also things on Spotify. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Thank you so much. I will put all the links in the show notes. So if you listen to this episode, and if you're curious to find out what Felicity and Ellen are up to and I go straight to the show notes, scroll down, click the link and check out the website and if you can buy their records, if there's any merge available. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Buy t-shirts. Have you got T-shirts available? Felicity Lawless: Yes, with a beautiful crow escaping its cage. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Fantastic. Aw, that's a beautiful image. I like that. Eleena. Felicity, thank you so much. I really appreciate all the wisdom you shared today. So thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Elena "MsEleneous" Marcigot: Thanks, y. It's been a pleasure as always. Felicity Lawless: Thank you so much and yeah, can't wait to hear all the beautiful things you are doing. Jan "Yarn' Muths: Good. Thank. This was Felicity Lawless and Eleanor. Marcy got also known as Ms. Ellis on the Production Talk podcast. Thank you to so much for sharing all this wisdom with our listeners, and I really appreciate you having you on board. So please go to the show notes, scroll down and click on the links, check 'em out on social media and buy their records. Jan "Yarn' Muths: That would be much appreciated. As we finish up this episode, I'd also like to tell you about Shelly Brown's podcast, Singing Lessons for No One. Shelly and I worked together in the studio just yesterday, and as a singer, she is absolutely phenomenal and she's got so much valuable information to share in her podcast. Jan "Yarn' Muths: So singing lessons for no one on any podcast player, check it out. It's super valuable and it's a lot of fun. If you want to reach out to me, you can of course do so via my website, mix artist.com. That's a place where I offer online mixed on services for anybody worldwide, as well as studio recording services on the east coast of Australia. Jan "Yarn' Muths: This studio is mainly suited for band recordings and to record in our rhythm sections altogether across all three live rooms. So if you need any help, please reach out to me. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. That's all for today. You folks have a fantastic week. I shall speak to you again next week and by for now.