Montserrat

Nicknamed the Emerald of the Caribbean, Montserrat is an island of raw beauty shaped by the power of a volcano and polished by time.

Tourists who visit are held at the mercy of its eruptions.

We have five souls into Plymouth area, please.

feet of material.

I want to call the monster.

The monster of Montserrat awoke 31 years ago.

Where am I?

Repeated explosions of smoke and rivers of fire swept everything away, including the island's capital, Plymouth, now a ghost town almost entirely buried under ash.

And a big house.

And then we moved on to Montserrat to air studios in the Caribbean for a little while, which actually was quite fruitful.

We got the reflex there and Union of the Snake.

And then we moved to Australia where we were starting the tour.

Recording in a grand hall is less about mic placement than about feeling the space as an instrument.

You're trying to capture the natural swell that happens when sound waves bounce off brick and glass before settling into listeners' ears, which is exactly what George Martin imagined when he moved his operation from London to Montserrat and then back to the massive Lyndhurst Hall.

The idea was to create a living room for music, and not just a room that can be measured on a chart.

It's about the way the orchestra fills the air like a single sonic organism, each section contributing texture and volume through its own physical presence in that environment.

When you record with a main array in place, you're essentially letting the architecture decide which instruments sound louder or softer based on distance, phase, and absorption.

You don't mic everything close because then you risk flattening those natural differences that give a piece its dynamic shape.

George Martin's venture to Montserrat wasn't just a getaway.

It was an attempt to escape the London noise and the commercial pressures that often distort sound decisions.

Tokyo, Beijing.

Montserrat.

Rivers being turned.

Like the Caribbean islands.