Back in June 1979, the band finished its eight-month tour of the United States, Canada and Europe in support of its sixth studio album, Hemispheres (1978). The tour had taken its toll on the group and, for the first time in the band's history, each member agreed to take a six-week break before starting work on a new album. They regrouped in mid-July 1979 at Lakewoods Farm near Flesherton, Ontario to write and rehearse new material for two weeks.
The band developped an unusual way to record. A typical day's schedule involved Lifeson cooking breakfast for the trio after which Lifeson and Lee worked on musical ideas while Peart gathered his notes and walked to a nearby cottage to write lyrics with "Entre Nous" being the only set completed prior to their arrival at Lakewoods Farm. This routine had a productive effect on the three with "The Spirit of Radio," "Freewill" and "Jacob's Ladder" being recorded within several days without considerable effort.
The new songs marked a shift in the group's musical style towards more concise arrangements and radio-friendly songs, although Peart denied that the band consciously set out to produce commercial music. With some material prepared for Permanent Waves, Rush moved into Sound Kitchen Studio in northern Toronto, Ontario with their producer Terry Brown to put their ideas onto tape. "The Spirit of Radio," "Freewill" and "Jacob's Ladder" were further polished on the warm-up tour during soundchecks and by early September, "The Spirit of Radio" and "Freewill" were being performed live on the band's warm-up tour in August and September 1979
In September 1979, Rush headed to Le Studio in Morin-Heights, Quebec to record Permanent Waves with Brown and engineer Paul Northfield. Having recorded their previous two studio albums in Wales the band felt it was time for a change and initially chose Trident Studios in London, but cancelled due to the high costs of studio time and accommodation. The idea of working in a busy city environment became something they now wished to avoid and instead sought a remote location.
The recording sessions involved the band tweaking the settings of instruments and positioning of microphones. They recorded basic tracks with multiple takes until they captured the best performance. While Lee, Lifeson, and Brown began overdubs, Peart began attempting to write another longer song, and after enduring three days of writer's block, "Natural Science" was born. Fin Costello was then brought in to photograph the band in the studio. Cover art director Hugh Syme was also brought in and recorded a piano solo on "Different Strings". Music was composed for "Natural Science", with some parts reused from the discarded "Green Knight". The water sounds at the beginning of the song were created by splashing oars in the private lake, performed by Brown and studio assistant Kim Bickerdike, and the natural echo outside was used to record various instruments. The rough mixes on the album were complete, and the final mix was completed in two weeks at Trident Studios.
"The Spirit of Radio" featured the band's early experiments with a reggae style in its closing section, which was explored further in the band's next three albums, Moving Pictures, Signals, and Grace Under Pressure. The group had experimented with reggae-influenced riffs in the studio and had come up with a reggae introduction to "Working Man" on their tours, so they decided to incorporate a passage into "The Spirit of Radio," as Lifeson said, "to make us smile and have a little fun." Peart wrote the lyrics with Toronto radio station CFNY-FM in mind which had adopted the title as its slogan.
Talking about "Jacob's Ladder" uses multiple time signatures, and possesses a dark, ominous feel in its first half. Its lyrics are based on a simple concept: a vision of sunlight breaking through storm clouds. The title is a reference to the natural phenomenon of the sun breaking through the clouds in visible rays, which in turn is named after the Biblical ladder to heaven on which Jacob saw angels ascending and descending in a vision. The track "Entre Nous", which means"Between Us" in English, did not receive heavy radio airplay and was not performed live until the Snakes & Arrows Tour in 2007.
While the band began stepping back from the epic song format on this album, the closing track "Natural Science" is more than nine minutes long and is composed of three distinct movements: I) Tide Pools, II) Hyperspace, and III) Permanent Waves. The lyrics are driven by concepts of natural science.
No hay comentarios.:
Publicar un comentario