With an album tracklisting that’s fast becoming a “some” based tongue twister – first, ‘Someone Something Sunshine’ and now ‘Sometimes’, not to mention another album contender ‘Something To Sing’, this album is assured to have more “somes” than a mathematician’s convention!
“Sometimes” is hot off the mixing desk. I came up with the germ of the song last week as I lay in bed trying to wake up. Actually, most of my songs ideas these days seem to arrive early in the morning in some kind of strange collaboration between my unconscious and conscious mind. I’m trying not to understand this.
As I listened to the other demos, I had the feeling the album might be too ballad heavy with the tempo range hovering between 103 – 117 BPM. I therefore made a deliberate effort to make this song an uptempo number. Of course, as I produced the track, I ended up rewriting the melody about three times and despite it clocking a tempo of 126 BPM, it now stands as arguably the strongest ballad on the album. Ironic.
It has quite an organic or earthy sound for a synthpop track. I used an early 60s drum kit combined with 808 hats, but it’s the toms and contrabass “col legno” (where the strings are stuck with the bow rather than drawn) which drive the tribal feel of the rhythm section.
The photo of yours truly was taken at the Temppeliaukio church in Helsinki. This is a truly incredible, dramatic piece of architecture which feels more like a Bond villain’s lair than a church!
UPDATE: Feb 2013 – replaced demo with album mix