"London Town" sessions #3

About

The air is fresh and clean in high summer across the whole of the peninsula of Kintyre in the Western Highlands of Scotland. It’s quiet there, too. Up near the “Spirit of Ranachan” studio, house martins twitter in and out of the eaves. The cattle and sheep are at pasture. A rabbit scurries across and disturbs a pheasant in the tall hay field.

Then a new sound, quiet at first and swelling to a crescendo – Wings are at work on MULL OF KINTYRE.

It all began back in August when seven tons of Rak Mobile recording equipment was hauled up a track to the house. The reason, more work on the songs recorded in the Virgin Islands and two new songs to be perfected and taped, one of them with the local flavour of Kintyre. Local flavour indeed, for the group were augmented with the full complement of the Campbeltown Pipe Band.

The band arrived in full dress and it was a great sight as well as sound when the drums were tuned and pipers marched off at tangents into the hills, drones echoing across the heather.

Paul has absorbed the local atmosphere and translated it in his own unique style to a song that is of today, yet as romantic as any Scottish legend.

For the technically minded, the Rak Mobile gear is one of the few vans where such a large range of equipment can be removed and installed in a room with all the control back-up. It included a 24 track machine, mixer, a raft of microphones, limiters, digital delay and echo kit. This really beautiful song, Mull of Kintyre, that reflects some of the loveliest scenery in the Western Highlands, might well have stirred the ghost of Scotland’s great poet Robert Burns, for he wrote—

‘As bees flee hame,

Wi’ lades o’ Treasure,

The minutes wing’d their

way,

In pleasure.

Mark Vigars, from Club Sandwich N°4, August / September 1977

Last updated on March 6, 2020

Songs recorded