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I have never heard a recording of Peter Gabriel's "Here Comes the Flood" that is as unbelievable as the studio recording. Even the one that shows up on Robert Fripp's album is… just… eh. I'd link youtube videos of live performances, but it would be a waste of time.
The song is washed in reverb, which is something I usually detest. Thing is… it doesn't matter and I don't know why. He lets the groove drag, making it slower than I feel like it should be, but by the end of the song I feel like I have been proven wrong. There is this subtle delay on the piano that takes the beautifully natural character and turns it into something not quite expected. Then the cheesy keys at the start of the chorus (seriously, I know it was the late 70's but damn.) Again, doesn't even matter.
If I had my way I would love to hear the song with just the dry piano and vocal tracks. I drew this conclusion after realizing that my favorite technical part of the song was that you can hear his feet pushing the pedals on the piano. By that I mean, I would love to have been in the same room as Peter while recording the song. He could call me up today and offer to play it for me in person and I doubt it would live up to what is on the album. This is the proof of musical performance. These piano and vocal takes are a moment in time that will never happen again.
Nothing puts a bigger smile on my face than when a musician is warming up and just happens to release musical magic more powerful than Cthulhu. They don't think I am recording. Hell, they have probably forgotten anyone else is in the room. After they stop, Cthulhu returns to the deep, they say, "Shit dude if only we had been rolling." I am smiling because of my rule: If they are making noise, the red light is on.
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I agree. I am not familiar with this particular track, but the sense of what you are talking about I know well.
This is why I love lo-fi, low-level recordings because you can hear every squeak and squeal. Hell, I was once in a studio where a guitar player was recording and we kept hearing this weird poppy/scratchy deep down in the neumann mic we were capturing with. After some testing we realized it was actually the arthritis in the old man's fingers. It was amazing to hear! You never hear that in crazy over-produced music.
Also studio session recordings are always fun times. Great musicians just hanging out in a studio and jamming with whatever is where you hear the most real music in today's world (not-counting tribal).
On a side note, I got to see Robert Fripp play a couple nights in a row back ten years ago when King Crimson was on tour opening for Tool and god damn that was the 2 most amazing shows. Fripp is such a perfectionist guitar player that it is at times great, other times far too overwhelming to even listen to. At those shows when Tool took their set breaks Fripp came out and played ambiance-style riffs for like 20 minutes. It was great...and I have boots from those shows also. Good stuff!
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I tried reading but I could only think of this song the whole way through.
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Couldn't find the studio version on Youtube...
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EPT
