editorials

The story of how Rosa Torras came to work with Recoil may inspire devoted music fans everywhere. She is a Recoil fan from Barcelona who responded to Alan's request on this web site for anyone to send in a recording of themselves speaking in their native language. Her resulting Catalan prose fitted in very well to perhaps the most avant garde piece on the new record, 'Vertigen'. Although she had provided everything he asked for - a written and spoken translation - Alan felt that the recording was spoilt by too much hiss and so decided to re-record her at The Thin Line. "


Rosa: "It was a very exciting experience for me. How could it be otherwise? Everything seemed quite unbelievable at the beginning. I mean, not only the fact that I quickly got an e-mail saying my vocals may be used in some way, but also the web site and the possibility to really contact Alan. It is not something a lot of artists allow. I suppose the Internet is a perfect instrument in this respect. From any fan's perspective, all of this seems, of course, quite amazing."


She flew over from Barcelona for just 2 days in March '99 and despite the short amount of time Alan had to get what he wanted, and the fact that Rosa had never set foot in a recording studio before, she delivered a very accomplished vocal that adds another dimension to the album. After she returned to Spain, the time-consuming and sometimes agonising process of 'comping' her vocals began. Not usually the most stimulating of tasks, this was made bearable and ultimately hilarious by the fact that cycling a small snippet of a foreign language over and over, throws up many bizarre phrases in English. Thus Alan, PK and Hep found themselves in an acute state of laughter when someone made out "Mr Horrifico's tremendous mousse and tits" and "I do rollerball"..............see if you can hear them too.