David Bowie’s already-acclaimed new album, ‘hours...’ has already been lauded as his best work for years. Michael Stand gets tech with mix engineer Mark Plati:
“I wasn't surprised to get a call to finish this album,” begins an ever-confident Mark Plati. He co-produced, engineered and programmed David Bowie’s drum ‘n’ bass-tinged Earthling album, which led Mr. Bowie to call on his services when he needed someone to record his musical meanderings for a project that would eventually become an album called ‘hours...,’ one of Bowie’s most critically acclaimed works for quite some time.
Erstwhile Bowie guitarist and co-writer Reeves Gabrels was again on board, but initially an album was never planned. “They started writing ‘hours...’ in Bermuda,” Plati remembers of the early stages. “They wanted to keep it a home grown thing, much smaller in scale than 'Earthling'. At that point it was intended only as a soundtrack for a CD-ROM game called Omikron, The Nomad Soul. They originally called me to play bass, being a mate of theirs and all, and my involvement grew from that. I think they had realized they had an album there, and I ended up mixing and doing some additional production, which was mainly a case of adding live drums, tweaking a few arrangements, and compiling everything that lived on different formats, whether they be computer files or tape.”
“David is always one to take a left turn when you don’t expect it,” Mark muses of the ostensible departure from Bowie’s Earthling or even Outside, "so I wasn't surprised when David told me what he wanted to go for with this record. There’s a track called ‘Dreaming My Life’ which we cut live all together and was pretty loose, but feels like four guys playing. That sort of sums it up."
Given Mark’s obvious skill in working equally well in studios and live environments, were there any difficulties involved with ‘hours...’? “In its way Earthling was a very live record,” is Mark’s considered response. “Only the band was manipulated to fit into the drum & bass rhythms. With this record we didn’t need to do that as the songs called for more of a live feel, with David and Reeves' programming taking a back seat. ‘hours...’ was more of a documenting than 'Earthling', but in my opinion they're both live records.'
Despite the openly live, spontaneous feel on ‘hours...,’ a fair amount of Pro Tools and other editing went in to the whole project. “On Earthling I used Logic Audio from the very beginning of the writing process,” Mark recalls. “That entire record was written and tracked within the computer and the arrangements were not sorted out until the last minute. When I got on board with ‘hours...’ most of the song structures were already there although some tracks were still living in the computer and we finished up those arrangements. Also, the computer was very useful in flying parts around to see what could work where. For example, the opening electric guitar part on 'Survive' was actually from a completely different part of the song. Lots of that sort of thing went on.”
“They used a lot of formats on the album, some analogue, some digital,” Mark elaborates on the recording sensibilities behind ‘hours...’ “A lot of the original recordings were on 24-track analogue, which I see as a big outboard unit at this point,” he maintains, “and I had a bunch of lovely old Neve 1073s, so I was always able to get warmth from something.” Equally, there is some intriguing processing going on throughout the album, which Mark is happy to elaborate on; “David has had a ring modulator for years and years, an old Electro-Harmonics unit from the 70's”, he gives away. “I remember seeing it on the last tour, the front-of house engineer Steve Guest would run some things through it. He decided he was going to sing through it this time and there you have it - it's all over 'Something in the Air'. The only question for me was how much of it to use; David wanted a lot, so we used a lot!”
And it wasn’t the only experimental element. ‘Seven’, a track devoid of drums had strange beginnings. “‘Seven’ went through a lot of changes in terms of feel,” Mark explains. "Originally the song had drums throughout. After we mixed the album we went back to re-address ‘Seven’ because David was not quite happy with it. So we had a session with Sterling Campbell on drums, Reeves on guitar and myself on bass playing along to David’s vocal, trying out all sorts of stuff. At one point we had it sounding like The Who, it was crazy! At that point I think David just got fed up and told Sterling not to play at all - and we just sat there listening to it, and that was it. It was perfect WITHOUT drums.”
It was evidently a world apart from the work carried out by Mark on Earthling, and for him, that’s a distinct advantage. “I like that ‘hours...’ compliments the last two records as they were more about sonics and concept, and this shows he can make a record that's strictly about songs,” he maintains. "Plus, it would be boring for me to make the same record over and over".
“To conclude, Mark sums up the ethos of ‘hours...,’ and Bowie himself perfectly: “You can try whatever you like but he knows what he wants; if you can operate within that framework you’re there.
“I wasn't surprised to get a call to finish this album,” begins an ever-confident Mark Plati. He co-produced, engineered and programmed David Bowie’s drum ‘n’ bass-tinged Earthling album, which led Mr. Bowie to call on his services when he needed someone to record his musical meanderings for a project that would eventually become an album called ‘hours...,’ one of Bowie’s most critically acclaimed works for quite some time.
Erstwhile Bowie guitarist and co-writer Reeves Gabrels was again on board, but initially an album was never planned. “They started writing ‘hours...’ in Bermuda,” Plati remembers of the early stages. “They wanted to keep it a home grown thing, much smaller in scale than 'Earthling'. At that point it was intended only as a soundtrack for a CD-ROM game called Omikron, The Nomad Soul. They originally called me to play bass, being a mate of theirs and all, and my involvement grew from that. I think they had realized they had an album there, and I ended up mixing and doing some additional production, which was mainly a case of adding live drums, tweaking a few arrangements, and compiling everything that lived on different formats, whether they be computer files or tape.”
“David is always one to take a left turn when you don’t expect it,” Mark muses of the ostensible departure from Bowie’s Earthling or even Outside, "so I wasn't surprised when David told me what he wanted to go for with this record. There’s a track called ‘Dreaming My Life’ which we cut live all together and was pretty loose, but feels like four guys playing. That sort of sums it up."
Given Mark’s obvious skill in working equally well in studios and live environments, were there any difficulties involved with ‘hours...’? “In its way Earthling was a very live record,” is Mark’s considered response. “Only the band was manipulated to fit into the drum & bass rhythms. With this record we didn’t need to do that as the songs called for more of a live feel, with David and Reeves' programming taking a back seat. ‘hours...’ was more of a documenting than 'Earthling', but in my opinion they're both live records.'
Despite the openly live, spontaneous feel on ‘hours...,’ a fair amount of Pro Tools and other editing went in to the whole project. “On Earthling I used Logic Audio from the very beginning of the writing process,” Mark recalls. “That entire record was written and tracked within the computer and the arrangements were not sorted out until the last minute. When I got on board with ‘hours...’ most of the song structures were already there although some tracks were still living in the computer and we finished up those arrangements. Also, the computer was very useful in flying parts around to see what could work where. For example, the opening electric guitar part on 'Survive' was actually from a completely different part of the song. Lots of that sort of thing went on.”
“They used a lot of formats on the album, some analogue, some digital,” Mark elaborates on the recording sensibilities behind ‘hours...’ “A lot of the original recordings were on 24-track analogue, which I see as a big outboard unit at this point,” he maintains, “and I had a bunch of lovely old Neve 1073s, so I was always able to get warmth from something.” Equally, there is some intriguing processing going on throughout the album, which Mark is happy to elaborate on; “David has had a ring modulator for years and years, an old Electro-Harmonics unit from the 70's”, he gives away. “I remember seeing it on the last tour, the front-of house engineer Steve Guest would run some things through it. He decided he was going to sing through it this time and there you have it - it's all over 'Something in the Air'. The only question for me was how much of it to use; David wanted a lot, so we used a lot!”
And it wasn’t the only experimental element. ‘Seven’, a track devoid of drums had strange beginnings. “‘Seven’ went through a lot of changes in terms of feel,” Mark explains. "Originally the song had drums throughout. After we mixed the album we went back to re-address ‘Seven’ because David was not quite happy with it. So we had a session with Sterling Campbell on drums, Reeves on guitar and myself on bass playing along to David’s vocal, trying out all sorts of stuff. At one point we had it sounding like The Who, it was crazy! At that point I think David just got fed up and told Sterling not to play at all - and we just sat there listening to it, and that was it. It was perfect WITHOUT drums.”
It was evidently a world apart from the work carried out by Mark on Earthling, and for him, that’s a distinct advantage. “I like that ‘hours...’ compliments the last two records as they were more about sonics and concept, and this shows he can make a record that's strictly about songs,” he maintains. "Plus, it would be boring for me to make the same record over and over". “To conclude, Mark sums up the ethos of ‘hours...,’ and Bowie himself perfectly: “You can try whatever you like but he knows what he wants; if you can operate within that framework you’re there.