III.
DAY 1
The first European Isolation - although it bent the rules of Hummingbird Tapes, and it was a huge undertaking. Five musicians from all over Europe (and one Mexican!) embarked on a journey to a converted barn that was too far from civilization, too detached from reality. With a multitude of delays for a variety of reasons, it’s finally here:
Honey, the 5th Isolation from Hummingbird Tapes!
On Saturday October 26th, 2019, Bimpe, Fabian, James, Luke and Vlad left London Bridge station on a journey to Tenderden, making a brief stop at Orpington, a station on the outskirts of London to change trains. The atmosphere was one of excitement, none of us knowing the horrors that were in store for us once we reached our destination.
Luke at the Train Station
The lads at London Bridge station
Having arrived at Headcorn, the nearest station to Tenterden, we discovered that not booking a taxi to the Airbnb had been a mistake. Instead of waiting in the standard English cold and rain, we dragged the gear onto a bus bound for the closest town to Tenterden, getting strange looks from the locals. Once we arrived, we realised that we still needed a taxi to actually get to the house; it was just that far removed from civilisation. After taking the Tube, two trains, a bus, and a taxi, we finally arrived.
Luke and Fabian arriving
OP-1, Minilab, and the audio interfaces.
We quickly set up all our equipment in a circle, so everyone could easily interact with the multitude of equipment on offer.Our gear list goes as follows →
Fabian’s Bronco bass
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Two vocal microphones
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An alto sax bruh it was a Trevor James Classic II Tenor Saxophone
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Epiphone semi-hollow electric guitar, with pedalboard
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Fender Bronco short-scale bass (through bass preamp)
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Bastl Microgranny granular synth
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Critter and Guitari Organelle synth/sampler (with reverb pedal)
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Teenage Engineering OP-1 synth/production station
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Apollo Twin + Firewire interface
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Native Instruments Maschine beat-pad/sampler
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Two MIDI keyboards
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Waldorf Rocket synth
Set-up walkthrough
We all sat down for a beer and talked about what we were hoping to achieve with this Isolation. Everyone had a drastically different idea, and they were all written down in the notebook you see below.
All of our ideas for the Isolation, with the final page summing up everyone’s thoughts.
We quickly got to work on a couple of songs. Our first idea was to make a dream pop song that incorporated electronic elements, inspired by songs such as ‘White Out’ by Warpaint. We began jamming, and the first result we got was based on a guitar part from Bimpe, though this idea was eventually discarded. What was more fruitful was an experimental trap song which began with a distorted loop on James’ Microgranny. With the addition of a drum part from Vlad, and a bass part from Luke, this song would eventually become
‘Honey From the Hive’.