The Naturals, Meladies and Gold ‘n Blues a capella groups on campus have decided to collaborate and release an album featuring each group’s best songs.
The album will have a total of 13 songs, four from each of the three separate groups and one combined song featuring all of the groups. The album will be for sale on iTunes and available for listening on Spotify. Nick Clerkin, president of the all-male a cappella group, The Naturals, and a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, said that he is hopeful that the songs will also appear on Pandora.
Clerkin said that everyone in the Naturals is pretty excited to be working on a album.
“We’ve recorded before and we always plan on doing it,” Clerkin said. “This was just an extra, cool thing.”
According to Clerkin, each group picked the best songs they’ve performed this year and are recording those for the album.
“The style is going to be all over the place, but because it’s all a capella music, there will be sort of a similar sound running through the whole album,” Clerkin said.
The a capella groups chose the producer ACappellaPsych from Portland, Oregon, after meeting them at a clinic several years ago. The groups decided to all work with the same producer as a way to lower costs between them. Flying a producer into Milwaukee and getting an album recorded comes with a high price tag.
The a capella groups had to fundraise and make sure everyone was on the same page in terms of plans for the album in order for production to take place. Their main source of funds came from crowdfunding websites such as Indiegogo and GoFundMe. The groups also saved up money from doing performances off campus.
The groups record in the basement of Cudahy Hall.
Clerkin’s favorite song that is going to be on the album is the Natural’s cover of “Electric Love.”
“It’s been one of the songs we’ve done on campus a ton,” Clerkin said. “(I’m) really excited for people to hear that one on the album,” Clerkin said.
“We thought it would be a great way to increase our reach,” Clerkin said. “We thought it would be cool to see if the album could pick up some more traction and get more people to listen to it.”
Clerkin said that The Naturals try to release an album on a yearly basis, if possible.
The groups have not thought of a title to their album yet. There have been a lot of ideas suggested, such as “Sing Wisconsinbly,” however nothing is final.
“There’s nothing better than being able to share what we’ve worked on and we’re really excited to show everyone what we’ve got in our repertoire,” Emily Jindra, vice president of the coed group, The Gold ‘n Blues, and a junior in the College of Health Sciences.
The groups are still currently in the recording process and Jindra estimated that the album will be officially released in the summer of this year. The groups have finished recording about half of their songs thus far.
Jindra’s favorite songs that the Gold ‘n Blues are including on the album are “Say You Love Me” and “Cosmic Love.”
“The arrangement that we put together of ‘Cosmic Love’ really showcases not only the soloists, but also a lot of the different moving parts of the background,” Jindra said.
For the Gold ‘n Blues and the Naturals, recording an album is nothing new. However, this is a new experience for The Meladies all-female group. Erin Pauly, vice president of the Meladies and a sophomore in the College of Business Administration, said that recording an album serves as a stepping stone for the group.
“After having the ICCA competition in February, it’s kind of nice to continue on this very successful journey to release a recording,” Pauly said.
For the combined piece, the groups are performing “You’re Such A” and three different soloists will rotate in, one from each group. “It will have a very full sound,” Pauly said.
The groups have learned a lot from the representative from ACappellaPsych. “He was able to expand all of our ranges and confidence in just an hour of time. I learned a lot about my voice,” Pauly said.
