*ALBUM NOTES*
“Turnabout” is our second Rated Blue album release and follows 2015’s “Three Walls Down”. Where “Three Walls Down” was initially a collection of songs for posterity “Turnabout” is a more cohesive collection influenced and written against the backdrop of the 2016 US Presidential Election (no we’re not American but when the neighbor’s house is on fire you pay attention!!). Our core musical inspiration remains the gut-level immediacy of the Blues within the collaborative interactivity of a guitar trio but stylistically and sonically Turnabout roams much farther afield than it’s predecessor and is possibly best summed up as ‘Alt-Blues’.
Turnabout opens with “Straight Up” a funky inspired plea for the media to cut to the chase. “The Second Sister” takes a look at gender and sexual equality. “When You Got a Name” leans heavily toward Prog and examines lives left behind by the cult of celebrity . The latin influence of “Turnabout” traces the insidious rise of Reality TV and it’s troubling consequences. “Unsteady” surf-rocks out and rips on the unreliable nature of mavericks and “You” asks for the return (or perhaps the beginning) of accountable leadership. “Man On a Wire” closes the album with a collection of vignettes and finishes with a last unresolved chord.
If you are a Blues or Rock fan becoming weary of well-worn Blues cliches and tiring of flashy virtuosity we invite you to give Turnabout a listen and hope you’ll find our ‘songs-first’ mentality an appealing alternative within the Blues/Roots genre. Thanks for reading (and listening).
We’d love to hear from you, if you’re on Facebook ‘likes’ are (unfortunately) the new band currency. Most festivals and larger venues now hire bands based on Social Media profiles so if you like the album and are on Facebook giving us a like is a great way to support us. Thanks!!
Glen, Connor and Pete – Rated Blue
*STREAM/LISTEN*
Turnabout is also available to be streamed on paid subscription services like Spotify, Google Music, iTunes Radio, iHeartRadio etc.
*PURCHASE/DOWNLOAD*
Turnabout can be purchased directly from our Artist page on CD Baby, or is available as a Digital download on Apple iTunes, Google Play store, 7Digital, Amazon MP3 music and most online music retailers!
Simply search ‘Rated Blue’.
Physical CD’s will also be available soon for purchase from our CD Baby Artist page or at Rated Blue shows.
*PRODUCTION NOTES*
*For those who care about such things (completely optional reading ;))
Turnabout was produced in our own recently built ‘Bandshed‘ studio using a combination of Open-Source and Commercial Linux Audio software with AV Linux (a Linux-based Operating System specifically geared to multimedia content production). The DAW used was the phenomenal Ardour 5 and additional plugins by Ardour Team, Harrison Consoles, linuxDSP/OverToneDSP, DISTRHO, Guitarix, Infamous, U-he and Calf were also used. We experimented a lot with mic placement, room ambience with a stairwell mic and simple line delays to re-create the natural sounding ambience of the room and also employed additional obvious effects like Flanging, Plate Reverb and Delay. A Presonus 1818VSL was used as a recording interface. An exciting new addition partway through production was the MOD-Duo guitar processor and it is featured throughout the album in various places and was one of many methods used for tracking guitars. We kept the big Red-Zep drumkit very much the centerpiece of the song arrangements but unlike our previous album “Three Walls Down” the vocals and guitars are much more layered on Turnabout. The drums were tracked live with no click tracks and for the most part vocals and guitar solos were tracked in complete takes without extensive digital edits.
We are very grateful for the excellent work being done in Linux Audio by Open-Source developers and are also appreciative of the investments in Linux as a professional Audio production platform by companies like Harrison Consoles and U-he etc.