Titan "Hashishins Ohel -we had just finished up writing this one before tour and never really got it tight enough to play it out without it crumbling to pieces before us. Thank fucking god Steve is a magician with pro-tools because we failed to play the song all the way through. So for the sections we didn't totally train wreck, Steve put on his magic hat and got to work gluing all those takes together to form the completed song. Yeah, we cheated. So what!" Titan are from Brooklyn, New York and play an incredible blend of Space Rock, Kraut Rock, Stoner and Progressive, with their roots firmly in the 70s, and their hearts & souls in the present. Their monstrous new album, called "A Raining Sun of Light & Love, For You & You & You" has been burning up the Roadburn CD players and iPods ever since it arrived through TeePee Records. Right off the bat the album goes deep into molten lava rocking freakout territory, and demonstrates the variety of Titan's influences [ranging from Mahavishnu Orchestra to a spaced-out Robin Trower] and the nifty way they blend them all together. "A Raining Sun of Light & Love, For You & You & You" is just over 41 minutes but it'll wear you out, though in the most blissful way, and is a strong contender for album of the year. Words | Josh We started recording "A Raining Sun..." around the first week of August 2006. Literally the morning after our last show of a two week tour with Oakland, CA's Saviours. So we had about two weeks of sitting in a van with a bunch of dudes for hours on end, yelling out the windows to strangers and acting like idiots as preparation. First thing in the morning we met up with Steve Revitte at Metrosonic Studio in Brooklyn. Loaded in, set up and discussed out how we were going to tackle all of this. We did meet up with Steve at one point before the tour at our practice space as a sort of pre-game to this session to talk about all that shit. A few of us ended up spouting off a bunch of extremely broad statements like "Dude, we want it to sound SICK!" and "Like, way fucking killer!" which he seemed to understand. His biggest concern was that A lot of people who come to him want their recording to sound clear, 'like A CD', where as he likes his recordings to sound like 'A Record.' Obviously we were way in his favor. After mulling over some ideas we decided to track to tape and dump everything into the pro-tools rig that was set-up linear to the tape machine. Then any overdubs went right into pro-tools. the desk we used was a Neve 5315 with an Ampex MM1200 2" tape machine. We had about three days to track at Metrosonic and the following week to mix and eat chili relleno tortas at Steve's home studio in Bed-Stuy for like 4 days. Here's a breakdown of the album, track-by-track: Annals Of The Former World This track is probably the most focused and driving one on the record and our first with vocals, if you don't count Dan's weird throat singing at the beginning of "Obelisk Orbit Overdrive". There is actually two recorded versions of this song. The original without the acoustic intro which has a short lone organ line followed almost immediately by the whole band coming in on that riff. Then there is the real gay one you hear on the record. Steve thought it would be a good idea if I used different amps to change it up a bit, so he busted out one of those little Pignose practice amps to use for a few of the guitar overdubs. Hashishins Ohel Man, this one was a motherfucker. There was another version of this song we had been playing out for a while but we weren't too happy with the first half and choose to rework it in a slightly more ambitious fashion. Return to Forever's "Hymn of The Seventh Galaxy" and Mahavishnu Orchestra's "Inner Mountain Flame" were dug out for a little inspiration. But really just to cop some ideas for a few of the turn-arounds. The very last part of the song, during that long stretch of stoned jam, Dave wanted some sort of effect on his drums. Steve suggested that we record the drums alone at a higher IPS to make them deeper sounding when played back at normal speed. Then the rest of us recorded our parts over the slowed down drum tracks. We had just finished up writing this one before tour and never really got it tight enough to play it out without it crumbling to pieces before us. So in the studio we had to practice it a million times before tracking. Thank fucking god Steve is a magician with pro-tools because we failed to play the song all the way through about... oh, every single time. So for the sections we didn't totally train wreck, Steve put on his magic hat and got to work gluing all those takes together to form the completed song. yeah, we cheated. So what! Acide Cervau Fracas Du Rayonnement Uchu Part IV" [Obelisk Orbit Overdrive / Aufruf Der Pilz] This was I think the second one we did. Kris and I both have our amps configured for stereo imaging, and the secondary amp I typically use was all fucked. So I ended up borrowing a Fender Dual Showman and an Orange 2x12 cab from my buddy Justin. The song was tracked in two parts which ultimately ended up being split up into two tracks anyway, "Obelisk Orbit Overdrive" and "Aufruf Der Pilz." For the first part I decided to broom my boss PH-1 phaser in favor of the studios Moogerfooger phase shifter as the weapon of choice for that sonic wall that plagues the entire track. And I mean 'plague' in the most killer of ways. While doing overdubs we had this idea to throw in an oscillator run through an auto-tuner during the super jam-sesh Hawkwindian part. The idea came after seeing a buddy use the same technique in his band using a Theremin. When he does it sounds like Terry Riley taking a bubble bath or something. So when we tried it we used the oscillator on the Juno-60 and some auto-tuner plug in. It didn't end up sounding the way we had hoped and at it's best had a few less then sweet auto-tuning hiccups. So we salvaged the mediocre results produced by running it through this like, parabolic panning Doppler effect that makes it sound like every once in a while a really tiny UFO is whizzing past your head. The ID for the last track was also supposed to be placed right where the clean delayed guitar part at the end of "Obelisk..." where that thick synth drone begins the track, which if listened to alone would have created some sweet tension before the drums came in. But something kept getting fucked up in the mastering which caused an audio glitch where the ID was set, so then it just ended up being placed at a spot with silence right before the drums come in. Technology 1 – Titan – 0.