It felt like normality resumed throughout our industry for the most part in 2022; I had a busy year of gigs and recording and was grateful to be able to work on some great music with great people.
Live
Miles Horn had his first full-band headline show in March at The Bedford, playing songs from his Forest Fire EP that I tracked remote drums on at the end of 2020. I helped Miles put together the band for this, and got two good pals involved who both smashed it (Harry Phillips on guitar and Sam Weston on bass). The gig went really well, and it was great to see our work rehearsing and arranging Miles’ tunes come to fruition. Charlie Thornton took some lovely photos on the night:
In April I had the privilege of being part of the VLG, Vineyard UK‘s national conference held at Trent Vineyard in Nottingham. This was a really fun week playing with old and new friends from across the Vineyard movement in the UK and Ireland, with plenty of coffee and hangs along the way. I also finally got to play ‘Prayer Of Consecration’ live with Olu Meduoye after both working on it remotely last year, which sounded like this:
Studio
I had a few sessions at my usual haunt The Bookhouse this year, including tracking an EP for singer-songwriter Cait Davies in August. Tom Hill was engineering and Harry Phillips was producing and playing on this one – I’ve worked with these guys tons over the past few years and it’s always a blast, they’re both super creative and talented and we’ve become a great team. Cait’s songs are killer, and allowed for some fun tone-hunting and experimentation to find the perfect parts.
This year also finally saw the release of the Trip Shivers EP, which I worked on with Chaz Bush as well as Harry and Tom over various sessions dating back to 2018. This is a special one for us; we all put a lot of work into it and I think it showcases our musical sensibilities perfectly. Chaz’s songs are beautiful, and I’m really happy with how my playing and tones were captured on them.
In October I had the opportunity to try something new: recording a sample pack for Synth Jam Samples. The concept for the pack was to record 10 classic breaks with a variety of kits, so the end user will be able to customise their own version of each break and then use it as they wish. We recorded this over a week at Up Top Studios, a great little studio near me in Hertfordshire run by my friend Dan Wheeldon, with Jon Mann-Smith assisting on the engineering front. We tracked one-shots and grooves with 10 snares, 5 kick drums, 2 sets of toms and loads of cymbals and percussion, all through Jon’s lovely vintage outboard gear. This was a tricky project at times, with long and repetitive days (sampling the cymbals was particularly arduous), but ultimately rewarding.
Remote
The remote session train kept rolling in 2022, and I got to play on some amazing songs for artists and producers across the globe including Vic Allen, Samuel Nicholson, Barn Shaw and Doug Schadt. I also upgraded my recording rig significantly and acquired some fun new pieces of gear – check out this page for an up-to-date list: https://simontreasure.com/gearlist
One of my favourites I got to work on remotely last year was released in March; ‘Runaway’ by Danny O’Callaghan, produced by Jonny Bird. Jonny’s mix on this one is insane, with perhaps the biggest drum sound I’ve ever had on record!
As always I’m available for live, studio and remote work in 2023 – email me at simontreasure@hotmail.co.uk with any enquiries. Thanks to everyone who trusted me with their music this year!