Andy Szikla DARK VALLEY ALBUM LAUNCH
Saturday 27th July @ Cherry Bar, Melbourne
Out July 5th on Rubber Records
Launching his debut album release at the age of 50 at Cherry Bar, Melbourne on Saturday 27th of July, Andy Szikla is not your average artist. A gadget inventor, tour manager, graphic designer and banjo-picker to name just a few, Andy Szikla’s career has had many twists and turns. Yet it’s the intriguing path that led to Andy’s debut release, which also played a defining role in its creation.
The process began in 2007 as Andy mourned the loss of his mother to old age, along with his marriage of some 12 years. Soaked in a summer of long Sambucas and DVDs, it was the music that lifted Andy to a better place.
Andy began acquiring all kinds of musical equipment in round about ways, one day literally arriving home with groceries in one hand and a Fender Precision Bass guitar in another.
Andy explains “I finally figured out I must be going to make a record. I started on some guide tracks using an Mbox 2 and Pro Tools LE, and it occurred to me that if I really wanted the results to sound like angels were beating me in the head with fluffy pillows, then I also needed a high quality mic preamp.”
As it happened, Andy also designs electronic devices in another life and already had some success with audiovisual conferencing products. Resurrecting a previous endeavor, Andy added some EQ, line and instrument inputs, and a FET input compressor/limiter, and his own personal channel strip was born. Times that by two to make stereo and add a high-quality headphone amp and monitoring section and you have what Andy likes to call his Prodigal, an instrumental element to every sound on the Dark Valley album. (Since then the Prodigal has been doing the rounds and has been used on recordings for many other artists: notably for Jon Stevens, Diesel and also the Baby Animals’ new album ‘This is Not the End’.)
Responsible for lead vocals, acoustic, electric, slide and pedal steel guitars on the album recording, Andy also provided bass, mandolin, banjo, piano, organ, harmonium, string synthesiser, wind, xylophone, percussion and drum programming. Actually apart from the drum track on ‘Blood Brothers’, the only other sounds not made by Andy on the album are some of the backing vocals; with the main harmonies courtesy of Rick Plumridge, along with another friend Matt Harding. Great Aussie singer Kerri Simpson also helped out with a scorching performance that features at the end of ‘Take Me Up’, and in the same song the voice of Andy’s daughter Irene can be heard (as well as in other tracks, notably the angelic voice which features during ‘Goodbye Douglas Mawson’).
Mixed by the notable ARIA-winning producer and engineer David Nicholas and mastered by Benchmark’s Don Bartley, the completion of Dark Valley found it’s way to release through Melbourne’s own Rubber Records, set for release on July 5th.
Including the nine minute & eleven second title track and debut single, Dark Valley’s release coincides with second single ‘Into The Light’; a four minute and twenty two second offering – the perfect example of the lyrical poetry on the album “In the shade of a mountain, most of their lives. Now everybody’s slipping, into the light”.
Dark Valley is an intriguing listen and a visual intrigue, with an albums worth of equally enticing videos to complement it’s release – http://darkvalley.tv
Don’t miss Andy Szikla and the Preachers of Fiction launching Dark Valley on Saturday 27th July at Cherry Bar, Melbourne.
