The wait is over; Godot is here

Originally the material on Margin of Safety's 7th album Godot was recorded for research purposes. The plan was to record the band improvising, go through the material, harvest the best parts and use them as a platform for new compositions. That was the Godot I was waiting for. It never arrived. The material was too good to be left unpublished. So in a way, Godot was already here.

Named after Samuel Beckett's play En attendant Godot, two of the tracks (the scorching Vladimir's Hat and the heavy & burdened Estragon's Boots) are named after the two protagonists of the play. Two of the track names are quotations from the play ("He'll come tomorrow", "We are all born mad. Some remain so") and Still Waiting underlines the mundanity of the human nature.

And then there's the odd one out: Augustine's Aardvark Timing. The name has nothing to do with Beckett, it is just a silly wordplay on acoustic awkward timing. The track was recorded by Jari (guitar) and Pete (bass) at Pete's basement. This 14 minute three piece suite features both on 6-string acoustic guitars, Pete more on the left channel and Jari on the right, plus some shuffling about by Pete's four year old son, Eino. In fact, he was climbing on Pete's back on some parts of the track and it's incredible it doesn't show in Pete's playing.

Every track was recorded with a Zoom H4 hand held recorder (with it's built-in microphones) in two rehearsal rooms and one basement. No overdubs.

Credits:

Mika Hiironniemi - drums

Petri Koivistoinen - bass and acoustic guitar

Jari Schroderus - electric and acoustic guitar

All music by Hiironniemi/Koivistoinen/Schroderus

Recording by Petri Koivistoinen & Jari Schroderus

Editing by Jari Schroderus


Mastering & magik by Mika Hiironniemi



Cover painting by Mika Hiironniemi
Cover design by Jari Schroderus

Where's the station music 2008