We love Chucky Trading Co and it’s always a real buzz in the studio when the name reaches the top of our reviews pile! The latest track, Your Freedom, is in our ears today here at the Send Me Your Ears studio.
Chucky Trading Co is the musical match made in heaven of CS Taber and Everett Young. The moment Your Freedom starts, we were all acutely aware that we were in for yet another quality track from this dynamic duo.
Your Freedom has a story telling feel to it. With Taber’s strong and comforting vocals sat front and centre in the mix, this feels at the start, like something that you might hear sat around a campfire. With moments of early Led Zeppelin and in places Yes (particularly “Wondrous Stories”), this is a track that beckons you in and demands your attention.
The start of the song sounds like a combination of mandolin and 12 string, and when Taber’s vocals join the mix, you just know you’re in good company.
The choruses have full drums and lots of extra voices. We noticed a heavily driven distant guitar added into the mix at this point. This was a stroke of genius as it really helps to build the momentum of the track and takes the song from a simple folk song to a much more powerful folk rock with Classic Rock leanings. We noticed, too, how the build at the end has some excellent Lynyrd Skynyrd style leanings to note and tone choices. The electric guitar solo slots in perfectly and effortlessly and it’s not until the end of the track that you realise how gently it had started.
There’s some great messing with majors and minors in this track that piqued our interest. The change from D to Dm7 grabbed our attention immediately.
As usual when we write about this artist, we have to look pretty deep to find any production tips so here are a few we managed to put together. A boost at around 55-60Hz for a little more thump to the kick drum. A surgical cut around 185Hz would reduce an occasional boomy tone in the vocal track, particularly during the opening lyrics. Finally, a high shelf boost in the top octave for ‘zing’.
We searched and searched our minds for the best way to sum up this track and then looked at the notes from Chucky Trading Co; “It’s as if Jimi Hendrix sat in on a Byrds session.” Yes… that… exactly that! What a superb description from an artist that very clearly knows exactly what they’re trying to achieve.