Having negotiated for some time the freedom was granted to post the band’s final recorded output on the Black River House web site. In the process of restoring the master tapes It has been possible to piece together some details about the creation of the songs. The help of Bob Longfellow has, yet again, been substantial and he is perhaps best placed to comment on the nature of Nick Young and Jimmy Cook’s collaborative process. Technical credit for the ongoing process of remastering goes to Mitch Bell, a freelance record engineer who has painstakingly transferred the original tapes into the digital format, and has offered a valuable insight into how the band recorded the varied tracks. The music is available for download on the music pages but one or two aspects of its creation will be discussed here.

The idea to record in the abandoned Black River House, came from Jimmy Cook, though it was Nick Young who expressed the keenest interest in the actual case and who had originally passed the story onto the others after a visit to Ireland in December 1995. The record label was happy to go along with the idea after it had been so enthusiastically pitched by Jimmy. Bob Longfellow recalled having “no reservations at all” about the plans. He goes on...

“they seemed to really know what they were talking about, and I think
as writers we’d obviously caught them when they were just coming into
their own, so … It seemed a great idea … despite being a bit morbid.”

Recording took place in the empty rooms of the Black River House using portable equipment. I am informed that they probably used two separate multi-track recorders. Some material was laid down on a cassette 4-Track machine, with quite varied degrees of quality. Mitch Bell tells me that these machines are often used to make simple demo recordings, but with a little care and expertise can produce quite professional results. Around a quarter of the usable master tapes were culled from these 4-Track cassettes.

Their main device was a more sophisticated 8-track tape machine which was used in conjunction with a ‘high-end’ set of microphones, effects units and a DAT tape unit that had been variously collected over the years or purchased with their record advance. As with the cruder 4-Track material, the quality varies, but the most ‘polished’ songs were clearly made using this machine.

Varied Material

The evidence of the lyric sheets and notes recovered from Black River House in March 1996 suggests that the recording sessions began slowly and in good spirits, with special care taken over the first handful of productions. We can note this in such songs as "Round Every Corner" and "Fresh Paint", which utilize a large array of effects, overdubs and production flourishes. The sessions became fraught after just three weeks but the writing seems to have become incredibly prolific as a result. Despite the worsening relations between the band and Golden Hoof Records and within the band itself, the musical output during their time in the house seems to have been unusually large and varied. Though the project was intended as an album, the works recovered from the house constitute far more than this.

However the material is very varied both in style and its state of completion. There are also tracks which bare the hallmark of being almost solo efforts. Bob Longfellow assures me that before the Black River House project, the band had been nothing if not united in their musical tastes and compositions. The recording of solo material had not even been embarked upon privately and would certainly never have been attempted during band recording sessions.

In listening to the music posted on this web site I have good faith and indeed the hope that listeners will pass their own judgments on the work. I have made it clear throughout this project that the primary reason for the music being made available is my firm belief in its ability to help solve not only the disappearance of The Secret Method, but also The Black River House Murders themselves. However, it is equally important that the work of the talented musicians who made up the band should be given a chance to have their work heard and appreciated. Regardless of the circumstances in which it was recorded and discovered the music is their last known work and deserves to be shared. For whatever value it may have, Bob Longfellow and myself have broadly categorized the music into three areas:

Full Band Compositions

These works are simple enough to identify but some examples would be "Plans" or "Fresh Paint" in which a full band including percussion can clearly be heard. Many also feature more than one voice. These are generally believed to be the earliest recordings.

"Solo" Recordings

We cannot be certain about the nature of songs such as "Doubt Song" and "The News" which appear to feature only one musician, Nick Young and Jimmy Cook respectively. A number of tracks were recovered which demonstrate this stripped down approach, many were finished numbers, others are clearly not much more than a demo. It is here perhaps that the true nature of both songwriters is revealed with many of the compositions demonstrating a searching, often regretful tone. It remains a mystery whether such songs were co-written or were truly solo efforts, and how they would have been credited had they indeed been released.

Instrumental and Incidental works

Among the vast array of work recovered from Black River House many tapes were found which had been filled with instrumental pieces of varying lengths. Once more the state of completion varies from track to track, but in the ongoing process of restoring all the work recovered these will not be ignored. Several of these pieces have now been brought to a listenable state and whilst they do not feature on the main music page they are scattered around the web site as an accompaniment to many of the pages.

Finally the works contain the use of a significant number of musical instruments and whilst it is possible to distinguish between the voices of Jimmy Cook and Nick Young it is not always easy to tell what is being played by which musician. We know of course that the percussion was played almost exclusively by Justyn Kupiec and it is a safe assumption that on the more stripped back acoustic songs the singer also plays the guitar. Beyond this the backing instruments may have been played by any combination of the band members as all three were multi instrumentalists.