 Anthony "Tony" Guyer was one of the first people I worked with when starting to play music. Over the years we've worked together on numerous projects and I've always valued his ear and his feedback. He continues to build his business Forgotten Genre Productions, based in Lancaster, PA.
Tony and I have connections that go farther back than our music ventures, though. His family and mine both work for Wycliffe Bible Translators. Like I spent time growing up in Ghana, West Africa, Tony and his brothers grew up in another country - it just happened to be one on the other side of the world: Papua New Guinea. When the Guyers took a home assignment in Lancaster and we were back temporarily from Africa our two families would often reconnect. In 2006 when I started writing and performing in the Lancaster area, my parents mentioned that Tony was back from road-managing bands out of Nashville, including The Waiting, Smalltown Poets, and Sixpence None the Richer. I got in touch with him to see if he was still interested in music, and found a kindred spirit - someone interested in creating and recording music that would touch people's lives. For this album, Tony lent me some of his recording equipment for tracking drums and some initial percussion at the Crossway Church property in Lancaster, back in 2010-2011. Then when I was in India I got in touch with him to see if he'd be able to record strings. I put him in touch with Yolanda and Sophia, sent him the tracks to record to, and was able to pick up the files from him when I visited the US over the summer. Easy as pie. If you're in the Lancaster area and want to do some recording or just want to meet up and learn from him, check out his Forgotten Genre Facebook page.
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 Over the coming weeks I plan to feature different people or groups of people who have helped make this album a reality. And where better to start than with the people I first started working with in Singapore?
I moved to Singapore in August of 2010 to begin a PhD in Linguistics, and I had been demoing tracks in the US before I came, following a series of small tours and shows in 2009. I usually do my own recording and engineering, but coming to Singapore meant that I could only bring a couple bags, so all my equipment was left behind. In my first semester, once the dust had settled and I knew my way around, more or less, I started searching for a place to record. I found SoundFarm Production Studios on the web and went to meet them. It turns out that the studio had only recently begun, as a sort of side project that was rapidly turning into a full-blown business. Their equipment was really good, their room was nice, and they were open to experimentation. Reuben Raman was the main engineer I worked with, but as time went on I met Mandric Tan, Sikai Goh, and their mentor Geoffrey Low. I started recording with them in October of 2010, and over a weekend we were able to record most of the guitar parts for the album, and demo the vocals. I went back to the US that Christmas, where I then tracked drums, rhodes, and organ with friends in Lancaster. More on them next. |
About meI'm a linguist and singer-songwriter. I write about life, travel, language and technology. Archives
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