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Mills & Cockburn
Out of the Dark - Song Notes
All songs written and produced by Mills & Cockburn unless otherwise stated

Characterized by improved production in our SunGod II Studio, Out of the Dark combines elements of classic rock with ethereal vocals, and a light Biblical theme.

All songs recorded at SunGod II.

Prophet

Main Vocal: Anthony Mills
Backing Vocals: Bella Bloxham
Guitars: Andrew Cockburn
Vocal Arrangements: Andrew Cockburn
Sequencing & Mixing : Mills & Cockburn

The heart of this song is the remorseless rhythm guitar line worked out by Ant and Andrew together, and a tune and Lyrics were swiftly added by Ant. Bella's haunting vocals complete the atmosphere for a song that decries the modern drive to treat profit as a god at the expense of all else.

Goddess

Main Vocal: Anthony Mills
Backing Vocals: Bella Bloxham
Guitars: Andrew Cockburn
Vocal Arrangements: Andrew Cockburn
Sequencing & Mixing : Mills & Cockburn

A simple love song from an original chord sequence by Andrew to which Anthony added a tune and lyrics.

Goodbye

Main Vocal: Anthony Mills
Backing Vocals: Bella Bloxham
Guitars: Andrew Cockburn
Vocal Arrangements: Andrew Cockburn
Mixing: Mills & Cockburn

Anthony's mother Patricia Mills was a wonderful person of grace and joy. She was our biggest fan until she passed at an early age from Leukemia. This song is dedicated to her memory.

Befitting the material, this was performed as a live unplugged song by Ant and Andrew, backing vocals were later added by Bella.

Out of the Dark

Main Vocal: Anthony Mills
Guitars: Andrew Cockburn
Keyboards, Drum Sequencing; Dave Wright
Vocal Arrangements: Andrew Cockburn
Sequencing: Mills & Cockburn
 & Mixing 

The intro sequence created by Andrew inspired Anthony to create this song - an atavistic look at primitive sun worship.

Unusually, Dave Wright (our Band's drummer but also an accomplished keyboard player) helped out with the piano part for this song. He also performed the drums on the keyboard in a departure from our usual practice of sequencing them via the computer.
  
Bloody Hell

Main Vocal: Anthony Mills
Backing Vocals: Bella Bloxham
Guitars: Andrew Cockburn
Vocal Arrangements: Andrew Cockburn
Sequencing & Mixing : Mills & Cockburn

From an original idea by Andrew, Anthony added a brooding melody and matching lyrics to create a somewhat dark song bemoaning an eternity's punishment in the depths of hell. Complex harmonies combined with a tradeoff between Dorian and Lydian modes gives the song an Ethereal feel. Anthony's instructions to Andrew when arranging the vocals were "think Jason and the Argonauts"!

At the time this was our most ambitious song to date. Working with an 8 track audio recorder, we nonetheless recorded 24 tracks of audio material in total. The song demanded a vast choir-like effect for the climax, and many tracks of harmonies throughout, and to achieve this it was necessary to record the song 3 separate times, mix down the various tracks to mono and then cut and paste them from the additional copies to the master copy. With today's DAW technology this is a trivial task, but with the tools we had available it was a herculean effort. We were pleased with the results however.