PASTOR & PURCELL: Armidale-based duo Helena Pastor and Christopher Purcell recording their collaborations in a home studio (photo: supplied)
A PAIR of Armidale-based musicians is producing quality recordings at home during a pandemic that has closed performing arts venues, thanks to a new user-friendly recording equipment made possible by micro grant from Arts North West.
Writer, songwriter and lyricist Helena Pastor has been working with composer and musician Christopher Purcell for five years. They are known as Pastor and Purcell.
“We’ve written an eclectic collection of 27 songs, including the song cycle ‘Lullaby and Lament’ and a series of songs for a ‘Tattoo Songs’ album,” she told Arts North West.
“Generally, how it works with us is that I write the lyrics and Chris sets them to music. The lyrics come first, then the music, and Chris and I really love the magic of bringing these songs to life together. Helena Pastor
“We’re hoping to collaborate with other songwriters and recording artists in the future.”
Helena used her grant to purchase a home-recording Tascam DP-03SD Portastudio 8-track digital recorder, and she said it was early audience responses to the duo’s music that inspired them to use the lockdown period in their impromptu home studio.
“Before COVID-19, Chris and I were regularly performing our songs in Armidale and the response was always resounding. We were encouraged to record our songs so they could be made available to a wider audience,” she said.
“Although Chris and I had recorded a handful of our songs at a local recording studio, we wanted to record all of our material. Our new user-friendly recording equipment is now enabling us to produce quality digital ‘demo’ recordings at home that we can share with the New England community and further afield through online platforms.
“We’re also planning to use the recordings for promotion and marketing purposes to build our careers as songwriters.”
Song-room central
According to Helena, whose memoir Wild Boys: A Parent’s Story of Tough Love was published by UQP in 2015, the recording project is progressing well.
“Chris and I are meeting up twice a week in his sunroom at ‘Invergowrie’, which is ‘song-room central’ for the moment,” she said.
“The sunroom windows look out onto paddocks, and Chris’s two dogs are our appreciative audience.
“We already had microphones and microphone stands, headphones, and high-quality speakers for mixing, we were just missing the final (and most important) item for recording at home.”
The Tascam DP-03SD is light and portable, Helena told Arts North West, meaning the pair be able to take it anywhere once they start recording with other musicians and vocalists.
“It only took a week to work out the equipment, and we’ve recorded three songs so far, experimenting with different techniques to achieve the best results,” she said.
“Chris had previous experience as a sound engineer, so that’s made the recording process much easier, but the Tascam DP-03SD is a little beauty! We’re so happy!”
Songs are being uploaded onto the Pastor & Purcell SoundCloud account:
https://soundcloud.com/pastor_purcell with links on the Creative New England Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/creativenewengland/. For more about the project head to: http://www.helenapastor.com
IMAGE: Chris Purcell (photo: supplied)
IMAGE: Helena Pastor (photo: supplied)