Over the last few days, the Ghostship Lanterns began recording a two-song E.P. with veteran producer Glen Skinner. We've been so busy in fact, that the website has been sadly neglected... but we'll be posting studio pics, vids and blogs over the coming days, ahead of the increasingly massive tracks of the E.P. 

The two songs we are focussing on are Chris Underwood's career-best (so far!) 'Hey Buzz' and 'There is a Star', both sharing a star-gazing, invoking wonder at the heavens (Space features prominently in the Ghostship Lanterns).

We started out with 'Hey Buzz', which follows Buzz Aldrin on mankind's maiden voyage to the moon. It is the sign of a good song that it sounds good just with vocals and acoustic guitar, but now the track is near-saturated with melodies, with the full band joined by a string quartet to lend a tranquil foil to the roving synth sounds.

I was in this week to add keyboard parts, mainly on the Korg MS20, which was invented not long after the original moon landings, first released in 1978. Its great to get some analogue stuff down, and the track is refreshingly un-sequenced, as is usually the case with my music.

To avoid clashing with the strings, I had to improvise some new parts and new sounds on the synth, and the MS20 is a stubborn beast- you have to push and pull it to get the sound you want. Its the only synth I have that I'm slightly afraid of- its probably the only one that could take my speakers or even my hearing out if I push the wrong button, so I think that I can imagine what it must have been like for Neil and Buzz, hacking away at controls with only seconds of fuel remaining to land the lunar module (in their case, I admit that there was slightly more riding on it).

We have three more recording days to go and then we will have something for you to listen to, in the meantime follow-up and stay tuned!