Filtering by Tag: The Evening Attraction
PREMIERE: "Ladaia" by The Evening Attraction
In advance of their sophomore album, The End, Again, The Evening Attraction share their next single "Ladaia"; a dreamy and building ballad that features a jazzy and layered instrumental bridge and outro. The track follows the upbeat, harmony-heavy lead single "Say You Will," which was released earlier this month along with a music video.
Photo By Kayla Thornton
On the new track "Ladaia," bassist Paul Ansani says, "Miles [Malin] wrote the track as a two-part split between the unaccompanied vocals/guitar intro and then the Brazilian influenced jam progression. For the first half, he and I really wanted to accent the melody with some interesting harmony layers. The jam ending was pretty carefully orchestrated," and also gives a nod to the influence from The Beach Boys in the track.
Lead vocalist and guitarist Miles Malin chimes in about his writing process for the song, adding, "This song was a very emotional one for me. I wrote this one and many of these [songs on the album] during a hard time in my relationship. This one is definitely the most expressive of those times for me. It kind of poured out of me and really came together fast. I really loved the chord progression I made up on my nylon acoustic guitar and the melody spilled out very naturally, followed by a couple days of lyric writing. Without going into too much detail this song lyrically is written almost like a letter or message. It's a reflection of being in a sad, dark and lonely place and explaining to your lover your apology but also finding some self clarity during the hard times. It’s very true that hard times inspired beautiful art and I think this song is proof of that."
The song title "Ladaia" comes from the word for a Brazilian chant or cry, explains Mailin. "At this time I was listening to a ton of Brazilian Tropicalia, and samba music. The instrumental section showcases that style with all of the instrumentation during the second half of the song. It was a daunting task trying to orchestrate the arrangements with the band the way I saw it in my head. I wanted us to try to play jazz the best way we could for a rock and roll band and I think we succeeded that in our own right. This is definitely the deep cut of the record. I urge every listener to listen to the track all the way through because it has so many beautiful moving parts," he elaborates. Malin also recognizes the track "You Don't Know" by Caetano Veloso, which also references Ladaia, as an inspiration of sorts.
The tune all came together at Treehouse Records, where the band recorded all of their tracks to tape, but they called in some friends for this one in particular. "This is the one song on which we used every track on the tape. After the drums, bass, and guitars, and organs we had our friend Kevin Decker lay down the sax solo. He killed it, we were having a laugh in the studio at how perfectly that solo fell together. Nick [Tumminello] layered all of the percussion you're hearing on the jam just one after another. Guiro, triangle, claves, bongos, tambo, cabasa, and shaker I believe. The little triangle bit is my favorite," Ansani says. After all of the instrumentation was laid down, Ansani says he and Malin added the final touch; the backing vocals. "There are 4 oo's/ah's and then 2 divergent call back lines. We used a technique that we did on most of the record where both of us sang both backing vocal tracks in unison. So on this track, both Miles and I did the lowest and 2nd lowest "oo/ah" together. This worked very well as our voices blend but project differently at different notes. Then the highest 2 oo/ahs we had to do on one track because it was the last one available. Miles took the 3rd and I was on the highest. That took a couple takes but we got it. No problem," he says.
Take a listen to "Ladaia" below to see how all of their work came together for the finished track.
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