Like many people The Printed Sound live in a city called Leeds in the North of England, however the band were originally formed by Rob and Ian across the Pennines in a small Manchester flat. Gareth, Ian’s brother by birth, was travelling in Australia when he received the first four track recordings and agreed to play the drums on his return. Mat McMahon joined on bass and the band soon agreed the name The Printed Sound.

Following on from the early success of being entered in the Futuresound competition, after only a few months of gigging, and playing the first HMV showcase in Leeds, The Printed Sound have gone on to produce 2 well received 2-trackers; Two Cities/Ariel and The Announcement/Lips. Both CD’s generated a wealth of good press and interest in the band, which has culminated in the birth of ‘The Announcement EP’. This 4-track EP was recently completed in HD1 Studio’s and marks the end of a successful year for the Band. The EP is scheduled for a release early next year, which will finally propel the band to the forefront of everyone’s minds!

The recording of the EP was spread over a month of clustered two day sessions between August and September 2005. The original plan was to record a two track EP in a week, but this quickly gave way to being a three track EP.

The first couple of sessions were spent getting the bass and drums just right, from which point the tracks quickly began to take shape. By the end of the first few days we’d completed the bass and drum tracks, and managed to get all the rhythm guitar down!

Then came our first week’s hiatus from the studio, which saw the purchase of a new guitar amp and the subsequent re-recording of most of the rhythm guitar

In the following sessions all the guitars were finished and the EP was coming together far more quickly and easily than we’d hoped. We then got to the stage of adding the ‘glitter’ (as Dave calls it!), which comprised of pi**ing about with keyboard parts and noises ‘til the early hours of the morning and not really getting anywhere!!! Then came the inevitable low point of recording when you think everything you’ve done is actually completely s**t!!! (of course it’s f***ing awesome, but sometimes after spending long nights locked away in a studio you get so involved in what you’re doing you almost lose any form of perspective and energy!!)

It was quite a welcome break over the next couple of weeks, when we got a chance to recharge and think about how to finish the EP. After one particularly pi**ed night and an impromptu acoustic performance of one of songs we decided to extend the EP to four-tracks. We had two more days left in the studio to get all the vocals, backing vocals and a whole new track recorded. Thankfully upon entering the studio, everything just clicked again and ideas were flowing as from an outer body source!! It was an awesome last few days, where every idea just came together seemingly effortless and ‘The Announcement EP’ was born!!!

Here are samples from ‘The Announcement EP’

Track 1 - 4Mb (full track) - The Announcement

Track 2 - 750k (30 sec sampler) - Ariel

Track 3 - 750k (30 sec sampler) - Found a Love

Track 4 - 750k (30 sec sampler) - Lips (Acoustic)

Printed Sound Screen Saver - 10.2Mb (PC only)

All songs are in WMA format and require Windows Media Player PC or Mac for playback.