A new name (Mycah blog)

Though we have been planning this for a while now, today is the day we announced our new name: Mycah. Simple as that. To be pronounced like my own Dutch name: Maaike (m(y)-ka). I feel like giving a bit more background information on the name change and the recording process we’re currently in.

A year ago, we decided to record some songs, and we didn’t really care what the rest of the world would think of them. We wanted to record an album we felt we could be proud of, with songs and a sound that we liked, and that represented us. We were however willing to learn and grow and develop and see where it would take us, ready to discover what was hidden deep inside us. We were crazy enough to fly to America to record our songs, where our producer Francis (Dunnery) decided to reverse the recording process and start with the vocals (usually the last thing to be recorded).

In hindsight: ever since we decided to record our songs, the songs we wrote started to change. They became happier and poppier than ever before. And by the time we were in the recording process, it dawned on us that nothing we were recording was related to the prog/art rock background both Remco and I have anymore. Our old name “The Mycah Principle” didn’t fit anymore; we needed something to match the feel good feel of our current music. Mycah simply sounded catchier and better to us.

After our second vocal recording session in October, it was time for us to start recording some instruments. And we chose to start with the brass lines first. We found a studio (MI5 Studios) and one of the best trumpet players in Holland (Wouter Hakhoff) willing to help us find ways to add a Carpenters-like brass sound to our songs. They have done an amazing job so far (the rest of the songs will have to wait till 2016). Both engineer Jeroen Tenty and Wouter have been helpful to us in selflessly sharing their thoughts and experience with us, something that has been extremely valuable to us. We have been very careful with sharing our songs so far; even my best friends haven’t heard any of our recordings yet, so it was good to talk about our music with people who knew what they were talking about, in every way possible.

We have sent the brass recordings to Francis in America last week, who – despite his awfully busy schedule – immediately Skyped us to tell us how f-ing fantastic it was.

A couple of days ago, Remco has started recording drums for the first two tracks. With old school 70-s microphones, he and engineer Anton van Hooijdonk recorded some first takes. Their second recording session will be coming up tomorrow. Now for those of you who may have read in the Dutch IO-pages magazine or in one of our blogs that Francis has mentioned to Remco “I am the drummer in this project”: Francis reminded us he wants to have a go at the drum parts too. So we will have a choice what drum takes to go with. I’m curious!

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