Phase II EP Liner Notes

History

The Liner Notes
Phase II (EP)

Discography

Recorded at Eaglear Recording Studio near
Johnstown, Colorado. Engineered by
Dwight Oyer.
Produced by Phase II.

Nicholas G. Tesluk: Vocals, 12-string and
classical guitars, flute
Mark L. Andrews: Vocals, keyboards,
electric guitars, mandolin, bass, alto recorder
Bill Gleisberg: Drums and percussion

Cover artwork:
Nicholas G. Tesluk

Photograph:
Mark L. Andrews

front cover

back cover

1. Introture/
(Andrews)

Goddess of Dreams
(Tesluk)

2. Fly Away
(Andrews)

Nicholas comments:

Mark comments:

3. That's Alright
(Music: Tesluk/Lyric: Andrews)

4. Sandy
(Andrews)

     Being exposed at an early age to opera and musical
theater, I was always intrigued by overtures -- composers
taking various memorable bits of melody from the whole
work and interweaving them into one brief, self-contained
program piece to introduce the larger work. In this case,
there are variations on all four songs of the EP in the
order: "Goddess of Dreams," "That's Alright," "Fly Away"
and "Sandy."

     In my memory, this homage to early synthesists
(Carlos, Tomita, Vangelis, Schulze, et al) was a ridiculously
last-minute affair. I believe I stayed up very late the night
before to manuscript the whole piece so I wouldn't forget
how to fit the sections together during the next day's
recording! All the various tracks were overdubbed in
synch to a click track, which was later faded out. (In fact,
we left about four seconds of this click track in the mix
because we liked the effect there. You can hear it at the
very end of the Introture from about 1:08 to 1:12.)

     We had only acquired the two KORG keyboards used
here a couple of weeks before recording. One was a
dedicated string/brass/chorus/pipe organ ensemble (the
very versatile Polyphonic Ensemble 2000). The lead synth
was a MaxiKorg 800DV, an analogue beauty in a natural
wood-grain case, with a primitive built-in sequencer, and
two voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) which could
magically be set up to trigger two different notes AT THE
SAME TIME!!!!! (Yeah, it was a big deal back then...)

     For our later stage setup, I would fill out the Phase II
keyboard sound with a Roland electric piano, and a $40
auction organ (only my therapist knows the brand!) which
I installed in a homemade travel case. And then there was
"Synthia," my lovely KORG MS-20 with her mysterious
dark bank of pots, jacks and mini patch cables...

     I think of this as a song of many firsts. I think of it as
our first true Progressive Phase song. It was also the first
time (not to be the last) that I would lyrically rip off the
great Edgar Allen Poe. (OK, it was only three syllables!).
But most importantly, I believe it was the very first time
Nicholas melded one of his (most haunting) melodies to
one of my (more haunted) lyrics.

     As rich and full as the verses are, I remember the bridge
being one of our first conscious attempts to create a more
dynamic sound; the tension builds, finally exploding into
a joyous wall of sound, only to fall back, to dissolve into a
colorful mandolin swirl of melancholy and regret.

     It is my belief that, with the addition of a permanent
bassist and drummer, we were able to maintain that
dynamic sound live, and as such, "That's Alright" became a
hugely effective song on stage. In fact, I think it ended up
influencing of lot of our songs to come.

     One afternoon during our acoustic phase, Nicholas and
I were driving up Big Thompson Canyon in the Colorado
Rockies to perform at a youth camp near Estes Park. The
day was glorious, the scenery awe-inspiring, the car radio
set to an alternative music program.

     Suddenly and most unexpectedly, the radio broadcast
turned into a eulogy for Britain's highly lauded
singer-songwriter Sandy Denny, who had died of a brain
hemorrhage following a freak fall at the unbelievably
young age of 31. I remember us both being very somber
for the duration of the trip.

     In fact, the warm-up tapes we had put together to play
for the audience that very evening while setting up our
equipment contained a number of Sandy's unforgettable
songs, performed by her both as solo artist and as a
member of the legendary English folk-rock band
Fairport Convention.

     I always think of Nicholas's lovely (and powerful)
"Goddess" as the first song to make the full performance
transition from Phase II's acoustic phase (for folk duo) to
its progressive band phase. It's one of only two songs ("Fly
Away" being the other) for which we have recordings of
both acoustic and progressive versions.

     At the time we recorded the EP, we were still
technically a duo with a hired drummer, so I played the
bass part for this recording of "Goddess" on a very solid
Gibson "Ripper" electric bass found inexplicably hanging
on the wall of Eaglear Studio. All subsequent bass parts
on the EP were performed on keyboards.

     "Goddess" was also my chance to go a little nuts on alto
recorder. (Eat your heart out, Ian Anderson!)

Like "Goddess of Dreams," "Fly Away" was recorded
both acoustically (as part of our 1979 radio show) and in
the progressive EP version heard here. Unlike "Goddess,"
which remained a very effective live number, I don't recall
"Fly Away" becoming part of our progressive live
repertoire. In fact, I don't believe I ever worked out a final
dedicated keyboard arrangement for live performance,
maybe because we'd always had so much fun playing it
with two guitars and/or guitar and mandolin, and/or
guitar and flute during our acoustic duo period.

This is the only Phase II song I had performed while
with the German band Yannis the year before I met
Nicholas. In fact, I began work on the lyric while watching
the sun set from my plane window on a flight to Germany
in 1977.

Mark and I performed "Goddess of Dreams" in its
original form during our acoustic phase (for the song's
history, see #17 of the Afterglow Liner Notes ), and had it
evolve into a more progressive form for the 7-inch record.

I felt that this song truly benefitted from the latter
arrangement as it grew from the acoustic opening which
built gradually to Mark's wonderful synthesizer bridges
to the "explosion" that launches the song into its final
verse, peacefully resolving to the finale. I also thought that
Bill Gleisberg seemed to really embrace the song very well
with his dynamic drum rolls.

     I remember the day that Mark first played his finalized
music for me and I was blown away by how well he had
melded the themes of each of the songs into an overture
for the EP. This was a great time for me in the recording
studio (though probably Hell for Mark :o) ) as I was able to
casually sit back and watch him lay down the tracks for
each of the instrumental parts. As each layer was added it
was astounding to hear the tapestry of sounds develop as
it grew to completion.

     I had worked with overdubbing tracks on a small scale
but this was my first exposure to anything of this
magnitude. We later used these same layering techniques
for the newly recorded songs of Afterglow and were able
to precisely control the position and volume of each track
to create a wall of sound. But back then it was all done on
separate tracks of an analogue tape and not quite as easy
to correct a problem if one were to occur.

     Our intent, from the beginning, was to have "Introture"
fade out as "Goddess of Dreams" faded in but Dwight
Oyer, the recording engineer, told us that there was no
way he could have done that unless we had told him
beforehand (which I believe we did, but he had a habit of
not listening). So on the EP, "Introture" fades to an end
and "Goddess" fades up from the brief silence.

     Fortunately, with the miracle of modern digital
technology, we asked Axel Frank to remedy this situation
while doing his marvelous mastering work on the
Afterglow album, so that now our initial dreams have
finally been realized with a fine cross-fade from one song
to the next.

This, to me, is one of the songs that I would consider a
Phase II "signature song", since it has been with us from
the very beginning. The general feeling of the song is well
accentuated by the "white noise" air/wind sounds. I also
felt the soaring leitmotif of the chorus, when the song
progressed from the acoustic phase to the progressive, was
aptly enhanced by the "space lasers" which I feel truly
enhanced the "flying away" feeling.

The vivid imagery of Mark's lyric struck me deeply
when I was composing the music for this song. The lyrical
lines conjure images of bleak solitude on a cold and snowy
early morning and the liaison that ensued. The structure is
not the typical ABACAB format which made it a great
lyric for our first cooperative composition. Each of the
three verses begins with a feeling of desolation for the
first two lines, building its way through the next four lines
to a climax of rather deep emotions. My hope was to
capture these feelings in the music and when the chords
and melody developed for the portion of each verse with
the first being "I finally had to let you in...", I felt that I had
accomplished what I had set out to do.

A little anecdote concerning the recording of the song
for the EP. At the point of the song, "On a door I bolted to
the world," rather than using drums or sound effects to
create the "knocking" sound, I remember Mark actually
knocking on a door in the studio for that perfect sound.

As both Mark and I felt the loss of Sandy Denny very
strongly, when Mark penned this song, I thought of it as a
very fitting tribute to the lady that brought us so much
with her music from Early Strawbs through Fairport
Convention and her fine solo work. It was a terrible
tragedy that she died at such an early age.

While recording this song, there is a part near the end
where we do a vocal round of the name "Sandy", and this
was a part that we thought would be rather difficult to
record and I believe we did it well on the first take. Later
when we'd walked out of the house/garage known as
Eaglear Studios but were still standing in the driveway, I
mentioned to Mark that it was great that the recording of
that part worked so well. I said that maybe Sandy was
there watching over us. At that, Marked looked around as
though he'd seen a ghost and we both started running
around acting as though we were being chased. It was all
in great fun.