Saule & Charlie Winston
Saule & Charlie Winston
Saule & Charlie Winston
Géant
“Imagine a recording at La Frette”
Imagine all the instruments you have ever imagined in one house.
Imagine a set table waiting for you. After your recordings, with little candles, a nice decoration, a deck in a summer evening, you would think that you are in the South of France. Elisabeth prepares her magical dishes for us.
Imagine Ali Baba’s cave with guitars, vintage keyboards, amplifiers, microphones, improbable pedals and a devoted sound engineer with 1000 ideas a second.
When I go to Lafrette Studios, I go back to childhood and enter Santa’s workshop
A great memory”
« Au rendez vous des Belges ! »
by Nicolas Quéré, sound engineer at La Frette Studios
The first discussions with Saule happened in a Parisian ‘brasserie’ in front of Gare du Nord train station, to talk about the album project. Charlie Winston had already been approached to produce this record and on his advice, I had this first very Belgian meeting.
Charlie Winston Saule la Frette studiosWe started recording a few songs in spring 2012, just to get familiar with the team put together for the occasion: Charlie Winston for production, keyboards and guitars, Thomas Semence for basses and guitars, Che Albrighton and Paul Jothy for the drums, Olivier Langford and Danny Keane for the strings.
We continued the recordings during the summer for several weeks, punctuated by chess games and sound recordings. Saule arranged himself a little office in the hallway to continue his song writing. His children came and went from the garden to the hallway. This lively family atmosphere grew every day.
For this record, we used every room of the house! The kitchen for the drums, the toilet, where we recorded most of the choirs… (Because of the heat and the small room, we had to open the window, that’s why you can hear the sound of the birds during the entire album).
I then isolated myself several days in the little cabin, the second control room in the garden, to start mixing the record. The contrast with the family spirit was strong.
This moment allowed me to experience sounds from different recordings in the various rooms. The challenge was to respect the creative touch while making the combination coherent.
What happened then is this success we know of “Dusty Men” and for us, it was the start of many partnerships with other Belgian artists.”