Love Connected was recorded in 2022 as a Christmas present for my ex-fiancé. It contains songs written from 2018 onwards.
Written in June of 2022, the song is about how I needed to accept that its okay for good things to happen in my life, I lacked confidence in myself, that I was good enough for the relationship I was in. The song expresses that I do want this relationship, because it makes me feel so good and maybe I do deserve love.
Written in April 2019, this song is about my grandmother, who died of cancer when I was a child. It shows my struggle accepting that she is gone. It was the first song that I fully completed.
Written in December 2019, I explore my depression in this song. Around the time when I wrote this song I was extremely depressed, some days I wouldn't want to get out of bed to go to six form. The song also talks about how I thought I was worthless to other people and wanted to die.
This song was written some time before December 2022. It was the first Ukulele song I had written. Its a simple song about how much I was in love at the time. The intro of the song was written months before the rest of the song.
Written in December 2021. This was the first song I used finger picking instead of strumming, its one of my favourites from the album as the music is so interesting to me. The lyrics talk about how I wanted to move far away with the person I was dating at the time, never wanting to see any other person but her ever again. I hated the first line of the song when I wrote it, but it grew on me as I was finishing the song, now its one of my favourite lines. It was also the first song that I tried to focus on the melody I was singing a bit more.
This song was written some time in 2020. My friend was very suicidal at the time and I didn't want him to die, so I wrote this song for him, he is still alive. The second verse was re-written when I was recording the album, I changed it to make it about my girlfriend at the time.
Written December 2019. The lyrics for this song were never written, that why they are pretty bad. The chorus was the only thing I wrote, its about how I didn't want to be depressed anymore. I like speaking to my depression like a person who wants to do harm to me, it lets me see how destructive my depression can be. The guitar in this song is an Elliott Smith rip-off.
Written some time before December 2022. This was the first piano song I finished. The lyrics are about my relationship with my girlfriend at the time. How I felt before I met her and then when I asked her out and how happy I was during the relationship. My favourite line form this song is "It's love, because I love you" it perfectly expressed how I felt about her, I was in love with her, because I loved her.
This song was written in February of 2019, this was the third song I ever wrote. The song is about my grandmother dying of cancer, the original lyrics were a lot more blunt and talked about a specific time I visited her in hospital. I changed the lyrics to be more obscure when I was recording the album, so that I wouldn't make my Dad sad if he ever head it. The chorus of the song is just the word melody, it was originally a place holder, just saying that I was singing a melody, but I kept it as it sounded nice.
Written some before December 2022. It was a cute song I wrote to make my girlfriend smile.
I wrote this instrumental before December 2022. My friend Ulaş liked it so much that I named it after him. This is supposed to be a hidden bonus track, but you can't really do that digitally
Since I started listing to Nirvana when I was a teenager, I wanted to make an album. On Christmas of 2017, my Dad brought the family a guitar and a piano, I started to write music soon after. My first song was written at some point in 2018, it was about a parent who didn't know how to control there child, so resorted to abuse. Fun stuff xD. After that I kept writing, the first song I was proud of was Never there. In 2020 I started a long distance relationship, during this relationship I wrote most of the songs on the album, about how much I was in love with her. I thought it was a good idea to record this songs properly and make an album as a Christmas present for her in 2022, she loved it very much. The album art was made by her I posted the album to SoundCloud, Bandcamp and as a YouTube video. A year later I decided to put them on other music platforms.
The album was recorded entirely in my room, with no acoustic treatment. I wore a dressing gown as it was could, and balanced my mic on my amp and a bunch of boxes, as I didn't have a mic stand. I also had my foot on a shoe box, so that the guitars sound hole was at the same level as the mic. The album was recorded over a few weeks and was mixed live, as I didn't have the equipment to transfer the tapes individual tracks. I re-mixed the album a year after, again live, to get a higher sound quality for streaming services.
I didn't enjoy recording the album, it was very frustrating as I would never practice the songs and didn't like any of my vocals takes I did. I recorded the vocals for the songs several times, wiping the previous take each time. I also didn't use a metronome, nor had I ever practiced with one, so it was difficult to double track the guitars, the end of I don't want to know you is completely out of time. The tape machine I was using also made the mic you were recording with much louder than the instruments on the tape, so I couldn't hear what I had recorded while overdubbing most of the time. My fix for this was to turn up the volume a lot, which I think has damaged my ears xD.
The album was recorded on a 4 track cassette recorder. The original idea for the album was to be able to play it all the way through on tape, without needing to adjust anything, that didn't work out. It was an intestinal decision to record to cassette instead of digital. Most of the music I listen to was made before computers were used in music production, so I prefer the sound of analogue recording. I won the 4 track in an auction, it was previously owned by Gary Moore.
The acoustic guitar on this album is my Fender acoustic. I still like the sound of the guitar when recorded acoustically, even thought I have since upgraded. I will never sell this guitar as I wrote my first two albums and some of my third album on this guitar, it has a lot of sentimental value. The electric output of the guitar was never used.
Used for all the electric guitar parts on the album. I loved the sound of this guitar, but it was very heavy and the fretboard material wasn't very good. I have sold this guitar
The Electric guitar was plugged into this amp and then through the headphones output, plugged directly into the tape recorder. The amp was never mic'd.
Vocals on the album were recorded using this mic. It was the cheapest Shure mic I could find on Facebook marketplace, I only payed £20 for it. Surprisingly I liked how it sounded when recording onto a cassette tape, I don't think it sounds good for digital recording.
All distorted sounds were made using the DS-2. I brought this people because of Kurt Cobain, its my favourite pedal and the only one I still own.
I used the USB output connected to a software plugin in garage band. I then copied the piano recording to the tape, that's why it has so much hiss.
All the bass was recorded using the Ibanez. I plugged the bass directly into the tape recorded, I don't like the sound of Bass amps. I used a kitchen sponge to deaden the strings, inspired by Klaus Voormann recording the Imagine album.
This Ukulele was used for I'm in love.
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