Track By Tracks: Foul Body Autopsy - Shadows Without Light: Part One (2021)

The concept of the next three releases is about going through grief following the death of a loved one. I am doing three singles following my experience going through the grief process and maybe it can help someone else along the way. I added the remixes because I have always loved the idea of 12" singles. The whole idea of them was to make life easier for DJs so you would usually have an extended version of the single for dance clubs, but it later expanded into the original single with remixes and extended versions. I wanted to do something like that with this release and the two following releases, parts two and three.

Shadows Without Light (original version):

I began to write the original version of Shadows Without Light in October 2020 a week before the death of my loved one. I ended up finishing it in around February 2021 then I left for the studio in March. I had considered recording this run of singles in my own studio as I had recorded the last EP in that studio and it worked really well. I remember I was desperate to get out of Leicester for a while as we were still in lockdown and I was driving me crazy. The process of recording this song was very simple, the drums and bass are obviously programmed and multi sampled we did spend a lot of time getting the guitar tone right. I had all my Blackstar amps with me and we ran them into a Mesa cab. The sound was great but we were trying as many boost pedals too get a bit more grit in the tone. In the end we settled on an Ibanez tube screamer and a 1983 Boss HM2. Then the vocals were recorded very quickly using Russ Russell’s custom made condenser microphone and a bunch of outboard compression.

Shadows Without Light (synth version):

When it came to the synth version, I came to the studio with a basic skeleton version of the remix and loads of midi tracks. I then left Russ Russell flesh everything out while I had a nap on the sofa in the back of the studio. I woke up about 5 hours later to Russ saying “hello snoozy! what do you think of this?”

Shadows Without Light (hybrid version):

The hybrid mix was created in my studio using the stem tracks I had brought home with me. I usually get the record in stem form as well as the mixes and masters the reason for this is so I can make setlists very quickly. The mix came about by me just playing around with the stems one afternoon. Then I sent it over to Russ to get it mastered, it was all very simple!