Lāsma – "Man tevis trūka" / "I've Missed You"

Today marks the release of "Man tevis trūka", the first single from the upcoming album by singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Lāsma. Listen on Spotify here.

Lāsma, speaking about the song:

"The words are by Mareks Ruskuls whose poem and drawing inspired me to write this song in the late 2020. It metaphorically describes the feeling of missing someone to being a submarine and the other person – their only porthole that fills them with fresh air."

Written and performed by Lāsma Anspoka

Recording and mix, drums and electric guitar by Greg Hummell

Production, double bass arrangement, trejdeksnis: Mike Bisset

Double bass: David Johnston

Mastered by Nick Lewis (Old Cottage Audio)

Recording “Man tevis trūka”

We began the recording process for “Man tevis trūka” (and the rest of the album), with a beautiful set of home-recorded demos (Which I'll link at the bottom of the page). It felt central to the process of committing these songs to record that the intimacy and delicateness of the original demos was conserved, and this thinking influenced almost everything written below in some form. 

A minor drawback to having a beautiful instrument like Resident’s Yamaha C3 grand piano to record on (if I’m being picky), is that it's so damn good at being bright and bold – and not as intimate and detailed as a smaller upright might allow. Close mics were essential here for capturing it best for the material, and in addition to a stereo pair of omni KM183s capturing the space and general piano, I used a pair of cardioid KM184s under the lid, allowing capture of the piano's hammers and felts, and the sustain pedal compression and lifts with as much detail as possible. My trusted vocal channel for a natural, pure vocal recording was my Neumann u87 into an Avalon vt737 strip (That's the geeky bit over, more below).

Doing it live!

The album was recorded at Resident Studios, NW London, over two weekends with the first dedicated to vocal and piano live takes performed by Lāsma, and the second for overdubs. The arrangement of “Man Tevis Trūka” flows so beautifully, that it’s almost deceptively intricate and complex – including rubato, and tempo and feel changes between sections. It was imperative that Lāsma was the pacesetter and metronome for the piece, in order to achieve the most natural and uninhibited performance – live takes were tracked without click and unusually, rhythm section overdubbed afterwards. I made a custom click track which adapted to the free time piano recording ahead of overdubs recording day to help drums and double bass be tracked accurately.

Never too much

Sometimes doing just the right amount of overdubs in a sparser arrangement can be as tricky as creating the most complicated, bombastic, everything-at-the-wall epic. 

Drums and percussion can be an especially interesting consideration when capturing intimacy, with the easy option simply to forgo a drum kit altogether – but we managed to realise the arrangements to their full potential (in my biased opinion) by included some form of drums or percussion in seven of the ten album tracks. We achieved this by modifying, and dampening the standard drum set or drum parts wherever necessary – for instance, there’s only one 4/4 backbeat on the record – and it’s also the only track where the drum kit is struck with drumsticks.

I sat on the drum kit for “Man tevis trūka”, and the drum sound was achieved by eliminating the bass drum in favour of a more open floor tom. The tom was tuned to C# – the key of the song – which created a beautiful pedalled tone at 1.22, and allowed it to sit alongside the double bass without clashing. I played the floor tom and snare with a mallet in the left hand, and ride cymbal with a brush in the right, Mike then accented upbeats and the pedalled-tom-tom section with the trīdeksnis – a Latvian percussion instrument (the sound akin to a very musical set of house keys!). 

Links

Listen to "Man tevis trūka" here

Follow Lasma on Instagram & Spotify 

Listen to the original demo