Eve Of The War

Over the years, many have asked about how the sound of 'ULLA' was created for the album. Yesterday I put the question to Jeff who promtly replied.

Many thanks goes to Jeff for taking the time out from his busy schedule to answer this question for us.

Morning Jonathan

The ULLA was performed by Jo Partridge, one of the two guitarists from
TWOTW recordings.

The ULLAs were notated with accompanying chords from my original
composition which JP then played through a tube inserted into his
mouth. The notes are 'mouthed' into the tube (more commonly known as a
voice box) and connected and played on his electric guitar at the same
time. The 'sound' of the ULLA's was a combination of this device and
JP's performance, coupled with the tuning on the guitar itself and the
processing of that sound by the engineer in the control room both at
the time of the recording, and final 'tweaking' when we mixed the
track.

Separate from my role as composer, I was the producer and the
performance part was guided by me from the control room until we
achieved what became the end result. There were essentially 2 types of
ULLA's. One at the point of 'triumph or most powerful' by the Martians
in the earlier part of the recordings (because of the story itself
telling the listener how the Martians were at that point terrorizing
the Earth), or, again from the story POV, when the Maritans are dying
in Dead London.

The difference between the two ULLAs is in 'triumph/power' mode there
were more notes performed in overdub mode to create a wider and fatter
sound as well as the fact that the ULLA's in the composition (the lead
line) are accompanying are much faster tempo/rhythm.

The ULLA's in Dead London are playing less notes in the chords to give
a more open and haunting quality and it is a much slower 'hypnotic'
tempo and composition to give the deathlike mood of the story. The
chords to the composition are also different which adds to the change
of atmosphere these ULLA's give.

As a point of interest, Peter Frampton is given credit in being the
first guitarist to popularize the 'voice box'. It is a very versatile
'gizmo' as it can be used in most, if not all styles of guitar
performance. I'm not sure how popular it is today as technology has
moved on so much that there are numerous other 'effects' available. Jo
Partridge played it on TWOTW and in an interview he did some years ago,
he too 'tips his hat' in recognition of Peter Frampton's popularizing
of the voice box.

Hope this explanation helps.

Best wishes as always

Jeff

Very interesting.

Thanks H-C and of course Jeff.

great stuff. be interesting to hear what the new ullas for the film will sound like. and how they will be created.