the making of "Home" (or the story of a snowball...)

With only two weeks before the official launch  of our debut EP "Home" in Melbourne, we thought we'd look back at the journey!

Last November Mabel decided she wanted 2014 to be the year she recorded her music. We'd had a taste of studio recording after we won some recording time at The Aviary in the battle of the bands and we got the bug then!

Mabel and Fraser at The Aviary recording studio

These thoughts coincided with Mabel being given her Year 8 major project to consider over the Christmas holidays. At first the idea was to record at home on Garage Band and burn some copies for family and friends with hand painted covers. Another idea popped up. Could we record another way? Do it more "professionally"?  Soon after this we enlisted the help of Michael Johnson, who had mentioned once during an impromptu Sunday afternoon concert in our kitchen that he would like to record us.
We started out in  the hills outside Melbourne at Mike's house, but after one session where we sadly witnessed the death of Mike's sound recording software, we had to change plans.

with Mike at his home studio in the hills

We also started wondering how we could get many copies made, and then the idea of running a Pozible crowd funding campaign came up! Our friend Beth Knights had run one a couple of years ago and we were keen supporters, so we thought why not, perhaps a few people might support us!
We drove out to Castlemaine, silent movie placards in hand, and our friend Tim showed us a great forest to film in. Mum shot it on her iphone (yep)  and the campaign was launched soon after.

After  reaching our goal in only 12 days and gaining 77 supporters the momentum for our EP was truly set!
Recording diverted to the very calm, lovely Evripedes Evripidou's studio Emotion Studios. We did a marathon day recording the songs pretty much live  with both of us singing with guitar all in one take, plus quite a few extra sessions to re-record Way Back Down the Track, cello and glockenspiel. After a couple more  mixing and mastering sessions our EP was recorded! We spent out entire busking savings (thanks to the good folk of Fairfield!).

For the photography we had our lovely friend Mara Ripani take many many photos. We even went to Black Rock beach at the break of day one wintery Sunday morning to take photos (and ended up in the water!). You wouldn't know it was so blustery and freezing from the final photo on the inside of the EP!

Next came the artwork by a wonderful local artist Belinda Suzette. Her work is so fun, we knew she would do a great job. We also had help with our booklet from our friend and designer Di Diddle and Mabel did the artwork for the booklet.

Mabel's artwork

And of course, we are still recording and editing videos and sewing up hand embroidered bento bags for our dear devoted and patient Pozible supporters!!

filming the video of Wild Mountain Thyme (for Anna B)

It's been huge, fun, challenging and surprising. And soooo satisfying to have a beautiful little square/round parcel full of our six little heartful songs sounding so nice at the end of it all!!!

And in two weeks exactly, we will have a concert to launch the little EP  into the world. In actual fact, the music has begun its own life in the universe, already playing in lounge rooms and kitchens and cars all around the world.What a thought!

Exciting Times at Finch Central

So much is going on right now! So much big finch news.

Firstly, our EPs came back from production! "Home" came home. Five boxes arrived early one morning and it felt soooo great! And a bit unbelievable. From the planning days around Christmas last year, to the search for a way to record it, the Pozible campaign and then the artwork and photography, it's been an exciting, rewarding and fun journey.

Belinda Suzette's artwork is incredibly striking. Mara Ripani's photography is just beautiful.
And well, with the songs in the capable and sure hands of Michael Johnson and Evripedes Evripidou producing and engineering, the album is something we can be truly proud of! We're releasing it really soon on Bandcamp and our launch is at the Chalice Uniting Church, Northcote on Saturday 23rd August with the wonderful and special  Domini Forster.

Can you believe it!! We were chosen for the Corner show for Clare Bowditch's Winter Secrets competition! We got the news just before going bush up in Darwin. There was a bit of squealing and dancing. Whatever we imagined it was going to be like, it was twenty times more fun! Clare Bowditch is the most lovely, friendly, fun and relaxed person who made us feel just so relaxed from the moment we turned up at The Corner for the soundcheck. AND we met Adalita, and she is also so friendly and cool and we are total fans of both of them forever! We actually didn't know who Adalita was before that night or heard her music. That's all changed as we've had her album "Adalita" on high rotation all weekend! That last photo above is Mabel being in awe while Adalita is performing to 700 people.
As for our song with Clare, we totally enjoyed it and the audience were great and cheered a lot! How fantastic is this photo!

and finally!! We made a trip to Kakadu and got totally inspired by nature in a big way and we suspect we even spotted a charm of finches in flight (though they could have been honey-eaters)! We borrowed a purple guitar (thanks Caitlin) and besides singing songs around the fire, two new Charm of Finches songs were born. They'll have to wait for the album! Ha!

x  from finch central

house concert and album art!!

Yesterday we played a housewarming concert.  Nicki was one of our gold star Pozible supporters and she and her friends were such a fantastic warm audience and even sang harmonies to our rendition of "Wild Mountain Thyme"!
Thank you Nicki and company for a wonderful experience!
Here's a taste of Wild Mountain Thyme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObIzR4jai7s




::Our artwork for the album is coming along splendidly and Belinda Suzette keeps sending us little updates! Here's a little preview snippet!

And very excitingly, Mara Ripani has been sending us some amazing photos frpm our wintry beach photo shoot from the last post. Check them out! Now we have the task of choosing a couple for the album!

                                photo by Mara Ripani

                                photo by Mara Ripani