Rouge are back with a new single – Myself – and a brilliant new self-produced video featuring the talented Polly Shields as the lead character. Shot almost entirely on a GoPro camera with a DIY bodycam contraption made by yours truly.

Mostly shot in one long day, the video chronicles the day in the life of a girl – from getting up in the morning, her thoughts, journey throughout London to a psychedelic night out in a club.

The song is the first release from the upcoming EP, the name of which I cannot divulge just yet. We launched the single on the 18th of February via a exclusive limited edition hard-copy hand-made Rouge-style release at a major gig at Nambucca in London. All 100 copies are unique, made by Becky Wixon, signed by the band and include a single artwork and a print with a written message. These can be purchased on the band’s website for £2 + postage.

For the past few months, I’ve been working on pre-production, recording and mixing the debut album of The Second Echo – an incredible band of four top notch young musicians with an exceptional affinity for rock ‘n’ roll, blues, melody and groove. Described as a mix between Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and King Crimson, the group are the rehashed next generation of everything that I’ve grown to love about the guitar rock music of the 70’s with a young twist augmented by foot-thumping rhythms and groove.

Armed with theory, strong musical background and already years of experience despite their young carbon footprint, this amazing ensamble of four seasoned musicians features strong performances on every instrument, catchy hooks and melodies with stellar guitar riffs and licks. Co-written by frontman and guitarist, Joe Foster, and lead guitarist, Oliver (Ollie) Marks, the lyrics deal with women, love, relationships, politics, government, life and redemption. Complex yet approachable chord progressions, signature changes and crazy solos are only a small part of the tricks The Second Echo have up their sleeve, as the rhythm section of brothers Ben McKone and James McKone will have you dancing, jumping and head bobbing.

Over a period of about three months, the band and I have been meeting up at band rehearsals to go over the songs, discuss arrangements, vision and sound. By the time we got to Snap Studios to record the songs, we had a pretty clear idea of our agenda and a plan of attack. I have prepared printouts with lyrics and a chart of parts that needed to be recorded for each song, so that I’d have a good overview of the session progress and nothing gets forgotten. The band played live together with the drums setup in the live room, bass amp in the vocal booth and guitar amps in the studio lounge. Guide vocals were sung in the control room live and later overdubbed. No click was used throughout. The performance relied entirely on the band’s natural feel for the song and skilful playing.

With awe I watched these musical geniuses deploy the kind of skills one only gets to hear stories of from ageing colleagues who got to witness something so spectacular on a session once that the memory was permanently inscribed into their consciousness to be told and repeated over and over again to the younger and less fortunate generations. How lucky am I?

With little tile to spare, we cramped eight songs into four days – all including rhythm guitars, solo guitars, drums, bass, vocals and BVs where necessary. We simply could not have done this if the guys didn’t practice their brains off in the months leading up to the session and if they simply weren’t as skilled and hard working as they are!

Taking a few days break after the exhausting session, I opened the files which had no effects on them, just the levels from the tracking session, I pressed play and smiled. “They really do sound good” I thought. I immediately started working on the first track which was decided by the band and I to be the first single that would introduce the band to the world. The song is called Sugar Mama and I am very proud to be able to share it with you. It is available for free as a SoundCloud stream and on Spotify, but please support the band and purchase the track on iTunes if you like it.

Back in July 2013, I came across four demo tracks from a band called Rouge – four girls playing and singing the blues with rock and soul overtones. It didn’t take much thinking to realise that I was listening to something special. I immediately got in touch with the band and asked for a meeting. We agreed on a production partnership and commenced work on the first EP headed by the single Wilderness.

Rouge aren’t a terribly conventional line up because they feature two leads vocalists with both playing guitars, but whatever force in the universe had made this band happen wanted these voices to meet because they blend seamlessly. Becky Wixon and Simone Picknett share the vocal and guitar duties perfectly and by far in the most respectful manor I have ever witnessed. They are also the chief songwriters in the band.

Nicole Burnard provides powerful drums, and it is still a mystery to me where the strength to make so much noise comes from this little girl, but boy does she deliver, and spectacularly in time too! Moreover, Nicole is a multi-instrumentalist playing bass and guitar in addition to mastering drums and percussion.

Ruby Rose Lee picked up the bass just for this band! With background in guitar, the prospect of joining Rouge was enough to motivate her into some serious crash courses and bass practice. By Rouge’s first gig, Ruby was playing flawlessly like a natural.

I’ve adopted a methodology some time ago that seems to work well for me when doing production work. It involves attending rehearsal and getting to know the band, the environment they feel comfortable playing in, understand the dynamics in the band and of course learn the songs. This idea is to be involved in the process as much as possible so that by the time we get to the studio, everything flows naturally and I don’t look like an outsider to the band. It also gives me an opportunity to have input into the songs early on in the process and we are not wasting any precious time in the studio making changes. If this process starts early enough, there is even an opportunity to test the changes live during gigs and see the audience’s reaction.

Earlier this year I was very fortunate to work on a very special project with a band called Mercia. It was (and is) special to me because I got to meet some truly talented individuals, got to spend a lot of time with them and have input to their work, got to record them and mix this wonderful EP.

Mercia are essentially a duo – Simone Picknett on guitars, vocals and songwriting; and Dan Endersby on drums. Additionally, the EP features a giant of musical knowledge, heart and spirit of Tobias (Toby) Edward Hawthorne; pianos and violins by Dan Richards, marching drumming by Tom Ashcroft, and stunning additional vocals by Luke Crawford.

Simone’s writing is way too mature for her age. Augmented by a brilliant sense of melody, alternative tunings and open chords, she creates lush textures that create the basis for her beautiful storytelling. Equally, Dan’s solid drumming and Toby’s exceptional bass work all create a head-shaking and foot-stomping performance. Luke adds exceptional lead and backing vocals to Simone’s lead vocals which interleave like a elegant dance.

I’ve attended rehearsals with the band prior to the recording and we’ve done simple pre-production at my studio. With a recording plan and a schedule in mind, we went into Snap Studios for three days to track the songs. Starting with drums and bass, and working through guitars, piano, violins, vocals and percussion. One by one, every piece of the puzzle came into place.