DAYLIGHT FADING

twenty | this love you've grown just fades to grey

               | twenty: this love you've grown just fades to grey |

                                                       or

                                       | silent cry: feeder |

At quarter to twelve, two weeks and a new tattoo later, I find myself stood outside Pinewood Studios on Camden Road. I imagine this is the place that Ash was talking about, given that it’s the only studio on the same road as The Warehouse.

It’s completely different to the sleek, big-business studios I’ve recorded in over the past two years. There is no ostentatious neon lettering outside telling me what it is, just a sign on the door.

It’s one of those places you could walk straight past, its unassuming façade hiding the jewel within. I love recording studios and Pinewood is one I’ve become curious about since I looked it up following Ash’s offer.

Most studios are either analogue or digital, but Pinewood has two studio rooms – one for each.

I’m assuming Ash will be in the latter as vocals will have to be overdubbed onto whatever amazing tangle of synths she has going on in the background.

Apparently, there’s a band booked into the other studio. I doubt it’s a band on their first album – it takes balls to record on analogue.

I’d recorded my album on analogue and no one ever tells you how hard it is. Everything, and I do mean everything, has to be absolutely perfect or you have to re-do the whole track. It doesn’t have the same overdubbing capacities that digital recording does.

Then again, if you make a brilliant album on analogue then you can make a brilliant on digital. It doesn’t work the other way round.

Angel’s albums were both on digital for the amount of effects and shit they put on all of the instruments, twisting them. Whatever I record after this track with Ash, it will be on analogue.

Fuck it, every album I record after this is going to be on analogue.

I push open the door of the studio and am immediately assaulted by the smell of coffee and a cacophony of laughter.

The small room I walk into is painted lilac, records covering the walls. Interspersed between them are what seems like hundreds of photographs of what I assume are the people who have recorded here.

A decently sized set of shelves houses row after row of vinyl records, hanging above a turntable. It’s playing The Joy Formidable’s Wolf’s Law but it’s drowned out by the riot occurring in a room off to the side that I doubt is a studio.

I don’t think it’s being caused by Ash, but I wander into the room and am greeted with four backs in t-shirts and jeans. I look past them to the packets of coffee on the counter top.

Vanilla, amaretto and cinnamon hazelnut. They’re all in the same type of expensive blend.

I wonder who the hell came up with the idea to combine coffee with vanilla.

The white paint on the cabinets is peeling and the floor is old black and white chequered linoleum that looks like it came out of an American diner. There’s a small table with six chairs, none of which match each other. Scuffed wainscoting lines pale blue walls and the window is bordered by red and white gingham curtains.

It’s possibly the worst mixture of colours and furniture I’ve ever seen and I absolutely love it.

One of the guys moves back and I realise I’ve missed a stack of the weirdest flavour combinations I’ve ever seen and that’s before you put them into tea.