Old Ceremony recording session

So the Old Ceremony (www.theoldceremony.com is finally up now) holed itself up in Chateau Brandau out in the countryside outside of Chapel Hill and produced its first recordings - three very different songs: American Romeo, Blood & Oil, and Shadows on My Trail. We were crammed into one little room as the five of us laid it down into the wee hours, then Mark doubled up (in addition to the live organ parts) on vibes, and I added my vocals. The whole process took less than two days, and we are very happy with the results. For American Romeo I was trying for an early 50's Sinatra vibe, with some 60's French film music thrown in for good measure. Shadows has a similarly 40's/50's vibe, but is much darker, sounding more like the soundtrack to a Hitchcock thriller..Blood & Oil, though it is set in the 40's - it's the story of the wife of a WWII G.I. who has an affair while he's away and then runs off when she hears he's coming home - has more of a rockabilly/Bad Seeds morality-tale-gone-awry vibe. The overall vibe is fairly dark but musically accessible - kinda 'Songs for Paranoid Lovers.'