It's getting harder for musicians to produce recorded music.

A liner note in a CD I received recently says: 'With a single Spotify stream now returning $0.0007 to the artist, the days of deriving income from recording music are receding into the distance”.

This is, of course, old news. But true. And it is especially an issue for New Zealand's ‘semi-professional' music community. Which is about 95 per cent of the music community. Here's the problem: CDs barely sell any longer; LPs are too expensive to manufacture and not yet sufficiently popular to make worthwhile. Which means you can simply kiss goodbye that $5000 or more you spent on recording an album. You did it for love.

People are now constantly trying to find ways to allow them to continue recording the songs they write. Essentially that means ways to record more cheaply. Which means a lot of albums are now recorded in bedrooms or garages. Do the simple stuff at home with a computer and one good microphone and add the most important – or hardest to record – bits in a proper studio.

Some people do drums in a studio, some the vocals or mixing. It's a compromise between quality and cost – the less time you spend there the cheaper it'll be, but every expensive minute will make your recording sound better...

Backing

One thing I'm seeing more is the stripped-back approach. Shirley Ryder's last album was essentially recorded live and acoustic, a quicker and thus cheaper approach but one with the danger of sounding like a demo rather than a fully-accomplished record.

Another tactic is using pre-recorded backing tracks. You can buy them online. People make full-time livings creating backing tracks, from simple grooves to fully-orchestrated soundscapes. You hear about this occasionally when some kid in a bedroom finds a beat he created for Tik-Tok used by a major artist; there are rip-offs but this is usually well-compensated.

But wait! I hear you say – isn't that some sort of new-fangled cheating? A bit karaoke-ish?

Let me point older readers to ‘El Cóndor Pasa (If I Could)' the second track on Simon and Garfunkel's ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water' album. Here's how it came about: Paul Simon heard a Peruvian instrumental he liked on a record by Los Incas. So he bought it and wrote words. I don't mean he bought the rights to the music. No. He bought that specific recording and then they overdubbed him and Artie singing. End of. And I guess if it was okay in 1970 on an album that has since sold 25 million copies then it's alright here and now.

Pilgrimage

That's what Anthony Coulter has done on his new album, ‘Pilgrimage To The Sea', 10 original songs with a summer vibe that were born out of his love for the sea. The music on all tracks comes courtesy of Soulfyah Productions, who are based in Norderney, Germany, though main composer Hendrik Remmers has a local connection: he was a surf instructor at the Mount in 2011. More outsourcing was used for the backing vocals – very good backing vocals – which came from Kingston, Jamaica!

Anthony himself plays keyboards and synthesizers and during the recording transitioned from acoustic to electric guitar. Vocals were recorded in his home before mixing and mastering by Whakamarama's Soundtree Productions. Main-man there, Shane Davies, features on ‘Floating' and ‘Good life'.

It's an upbeat, melodic collection. Anthony has a strong rich voice and it is ably supported by harmonies and infectious, immaculate reggae-leaning beats. The lyrics are mainly a celebration of a simple and happy life. The upbeat welcome of ‘The Island' is balanced by bigger more dramatic songs such as ‘No Rest For The Wicked' while the slower groove of ‘Being With You' could almost class it as ‘Lover's rock'.

But the main sentiment is positive and uplifting, as summed up in ‘Good Life'. Chill out, relax and enjoy, it seems to be saying.

‘Pilgrimage To The Sea' is available on the usual digital platforms. CDs may follow. Anthony will showcase the album solo at Cruise Deck on Maunganui Rd, on Sunday, December 18, from 11am-1pm. Otherwise, you can find him on Facebook and Instagram

Anthony Coulter album cover. Photo Supplied.