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Released 1999 | Rutis Music Ltd | DOM3CD
Second
Nature is not like First Touch. I didn't
want to make it the same, because that's just not what I do. Obviously a lot
of people wanted me to do the same kind of record, instrumentalists.
First Touch was what it said it was; it was a first instalment and
formed the prelude to Second Nature in a way. I wanted to use more sounds
and textures - I used Manu Katché on drums and he contributed a lot to to
the record: not just his drumming but his musicianship. I used Pino
Palladino on bass, Adam Glasser on harmonica and I used flute on one track -
just different textures. The music is coming from the same place; same
writer, same guitarist, but it's probably a bit deeper. I certainly did a
bit more with Brazilian styles. I started making the album during the world
cup and do obviously I was quite influenced by football, the weather and
Brazil! The the winter came and the influences changed again...
The melodies
to all the tunes that I write are always vocal. As you can hear on
First Touch and again on Second Nature, I'll play two
guitar parts; I'll do something like the melody on the left and the harmony
on the right. At solo gigs I try to do a combination of the two. There are
some solo tracks, but not many. But the melodies are usually in my head -
they are 'sung' and so they have 'breath'. Every so often I toy with the
idea of singing, but I think that would be the end of my career!
Truco
is the name of a card game in Argentina. It's quite aggressive card game -
there's plenty of screaming and shouting. It's a cross between poker and
bridge. I was in Buenos Aires and I had my Walkman and was sitting in this
bar. People are so noisy in Buenos Aires, there's a lot of screaming,
shouting and yelling. Some people were sitting next to me playing this card
game and I remember recording the ambient noise of waiters and clanging and
general noise for a whole cassette's worth. It inspired me to write this
tune which is frenetic - a fast riff with Pino playing some awesome be-bop.
I asked him if he could play the bass part again an octave higher and he had
absolutely no problem with it! So when you hear the track, it's not an
octivider, it's two basses. I also detuned the guitar; the bass E string
went down to D and D string went down to C and I use that sort of harmonic
tapping thing. Then the drum machine comes in with a sort of drum'n'bass
riff. That was fun to do.
Quiero
Decirte means 'I want to tell you' and it's totally Brazilian. It was
written during the World Cup and it's a typical bossa nova sort of thing. I
had the idea of there being narrative in it because I've always liked the
way Barry White used to do all those things that went 'Hey baby, I want
to...' and so I got this friend of mine [Diego Kovadloff] to write me this
dodgy Spanish poetry and put that over the top. I'll probably regret it for
the rest of my life! I just wanted to do a Barry White in Spanish.
In A
Whisper was recorded
live with Manu and Pino. I used a steel string guitar for that one.
It's the last track on the album, officially; but the 'real' last track is
an Elton John song called The Last Song taken from his The One
album. I always liked that song. I'm not a huge Elton John fan, but I
thought it would be wacky first of all to do a cover. I've always wanted to
do a cover and it just happens to be an
Elton John song which I really, really, like and so I've put that on the
end. I pretty much copied the melody note for note and it really
works well on guitar.
Review: from The Times
As part of Sting's
band, guitarist Dominic Miller sometimes gets overlooked. Even
though the 40-year-old has the looks of a lean, shaggy-haired, Strat-toting
youngster, he seems to get a little taken for granted in his role as
guitar factotum. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the recent
string of Sting gigs at the Albert Hall in which he was also
accompanied by such jazz luminaries as keyboardist Jason Rebello and
trumpeter Chris Botti. Now Miller's second solo album has arrived
and it's time for him to take the spotlight. Second Nature
shows a very different side of this versatile Buenos Aires-born
musician. Although Miller may have spent years playing rock'n'roll
as a session player, his own music owes a huge debt to his Brazilian
heroes Antonio Carlos Jobim and Baden Powell, and as a result the 12
songs here sing of South America - ringing, lyrical numbers plucked
and strummed by a guitarist who remains true to his roots.
Review: from Q Magazine by Rob Beattie
The scarily tasteful
sideperson with, among others, Peter Gabriel, Sheryl Crow, The
Pretenders and Sting, Dominic Miller gets a chance here to stretch
out rather more than the bosses normally allow. Instrumental albums
by accompanists invariably lack focus, but Miller's association with
great songwriters has taught him that melody is king. As the band
purrs jazzily behind him, he supplies plentiful hooks on top,
particularly on Unify and Foi Boa, the album's
definingly delicate moment. A good phone book (need a bassist?
here's Pino Palladino) means that Miller's undoubted dexterity is
placed in a proper musical context and on this evidence he's
unlikely ever to be out of work for long.
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