Remember Remember: Day of the Scorpion

The Scorpion was sent to earth by Zeus in answer to the boastful hunter Orion's claim that he could slay any of the earth's creatures. A long and bloody battle ensued, ending with Orion dead at the tail of the Scorpion. Zeus, merciful as he could be, raised both the slain hunter Orion and the victorious Scorpion into the heavens, but placed them at exact opposite sides of the Galaxy.

At the tail of the Scorpion sits RR Scorpii, a variable star whose brightness oscillates dim, then bright, then dim, then bright again, over a period of 280 days.

Thus RR Scorpii by Remember Remember begins, a gentle breeze of guitars, glockenspiel and cello slowly building to a full cosmic storm on the unashamed Space Rock of track 1, Lips, named in tribute to both Anvil's lead singer and James's thunderous solo sax performance.

This record is very much an ensemble piece with 8 players contributing in total*. Track 2, Get Good, began life on a piano in my friends front room about 5 years ago, but now finds itself fleshed out to a part gamelan, part TV theme, rock waltz. Luckily, there was a metallophone and a xylophone in the Green Door Studio (where we recorded), left over from an orchestral music project, which allowed us to go percussion crazy.

Aria, the third track on the record, is the only tune written from scratch during the time we were in the studio. I had borrowed an octave shifting pedal one day and taken it home. After an hour or two of messing about the eureka! moment came and I ran through to the kitchen exclaiming "I'VE MADE MY GUITAR SING LIKE A WOMAN!" to my slightly bemused girlfriend. We recorded it the next day.

Fourth and final is Ghost Frequency, a song which I actually wrote when I was about 19 and my influences were perhaps a little less mature...the working title of the song was The Floyd, I'll leave it at that. In terms of arrangement and instrumentation, we went wild!! (if you're into that sort of thing), more metallophones, layering single flute lines into chords, a gorgeous harmonium singing like an orchestra in a box, a melancholy cello and a Sur Saj Tarang, officially the "most psychedelic" instrument ever. Recording the motorik rock ending was probably the most fun I've ever had in the studio, every instrument oscillates brighter and dimmer and brighter again, for 280 days (well, about 8 minutes).

*The Full Ensemble:

Graeme JD Ronald - Piano, Guitars, Metallophone, Xylophone, Harmonium, Sur Saj Tarang, Ethereal Dialpad
Andy Brown - Drums, Percussion
James Swinburne - Saxophone, Clarinet, Flute
Joanne Murtagh - Glockenspiel, percussion
Joseph Quimby Jr - Guitars
Stacey Sievwright - Cello
Steven Kane - Guitars, percussion
Tommy Stuart - Synthesizers

Graeme Ronald x