The Moon Collective is a reggae-inspired rock band, with a truly authentic, genre-bending catalogue of songs; from beautiful, soaring choral works, to trumpet-infused ska pop.
The Moon Collective chose Dirty Beast Studio to Engineer, produce, and mix their debut album – Escape The City.
Listen to Bloom - the fourth single from The Moon Collective’s debut album, Escape the City.
Studio Album Production
A maximalist vision for natural vibe – with emotion at the core.
Pre-production for Escape the City began in January 2024, when a series of demos, titled The Honey Sessions, were tracked on-location at a farmhouse deep in the countryside of Glastonbury.
The Honey Sessions would become a deeply emotional exploration of the band’s innermost feelings and heartfelt experiences. We came away with the basis for Escape the City – a vision for a raw, eclectic album of emotionally-charged, high-energy music that covered a range of styles.
Full production began in October 2024, with drum tracking on-location at an AirBnB in The New Forest, with further drum tracking carried out at Dirty Beast Studio. Drum sessions were engineered for maximum roomy vibe, with guide tracks cut live in an adjoining room.
From here, all drum takes were comped, edited, and prepped for the next phase of studio sessions.
In the studio
All vocals, guitars, bass, horns, keyboards, and sound design were carried out at Dirty Beast Studio.
Guitars were recorded with a combination of techniques; using UA’s amp modelling pedals, solid state and tube amplifiers, and a host of quirky gear. Each player brought a starkly different style and sonic palette to the table, and capturing their essence took time to get right.
But it was worth it – we wanted to get the target sound printed, so we could hear it in the room, not chase tones and effects in post-production. It’s far more inspiring and exciting to play it in, sounding how you want it to.
Bass recording was given a similar treatment, focusing on DI sounds captured through analogue amp sims, to push the bass out in key moments.
Despite being guitar-driven, horns, synths, and keyboards would become a focal point of most songs on Escape the City.
Trumpet and saxophone arrangements, while simple, add weight and vibe at key moments. Recorded at Dirty Beast Studio with a well-placed ribbon microphone driving some tasteful distortion, horns pop out to support hooks.
Keyboard and synth arrangements were discussed and decided on in advance, to keep things intentional and focused.
Using elements of sound design - like swells, reverb tails, delay throws, sweeps, builds. and to-the-limit saturation – the emotional impact of each section, fill, and transition was meticulously pored over.
Vocal sessions were carried out over an extended period for both lead and backing vocals. Experiments with microphone types, position, preamps, and vocal techniques yielded excellent results, with each song having its own distinctive vocal signature.
Takes were comped, and the focus was squarely placed on emotion, vibe, swagger, and charm.
Mixing was also done in-house, in multiple sessions. Core decisions were already made in the production phase, and each mix was tailored to the clients’ tastes,
Mastering was entrusted to Kevin Tuffy of Tuff Mastering; a Grammy-winning mastering engineer, who gave the final, explosive polish to the lead singles and remaining album titles.
