Feature: Minuit - Dropping Their Guard

Minuit's Ruth Carr claims to write songs in 17 minutes and prefers first take vocals. Her two band mates are both production and recording whizzes, so on the face of it that should make for fast album turnaround. Yet it's been three years between their inspired debut 'The 88' and their diverse sophomore offering, just released on Tardus Music.

No wonder Paul Dodge is assuring me that 'The Guards Themselves' is not a good example of how the three-piece write, produce and release an album. Actually the album was primed for release early last year, but 2005 was not to be Minuit's year.

Not long after laying down the vocal tracks to the album, in the summer of 2004/5, Ruth became seriously ill. In March her left vocal chord was found to be paralysed, possibly as a result of her health trauma, and she was unable to speak - let alone sing. Specialists couldn't tell her how long this predicament might last, or even whether or not her highly expressive and individual voice would ever return.

"The day you hear that it's like... well, what do you do then? Is this the last thing that Minuit can do...?" says Paul quietly, as we sip coffee in the backyard of the Wellington home he and Ruth share. "It was quite a heart-breaking year for Minuit.

"Now, that hindsight is so beautiful. You look back and go 'What was the problem?' but at the time, when this happened to Ruth, it was basically the end of it. We just didn't know what was going to happen. We couldn't tour which is our main promotional tool for doing an album."
A year later and evidently fully recovered, Ruth now laughs about how her voice sounded.

"It was like I was permanently on helium. It was really funny. Paul had to ask me to stop speaking because he couldn't handle it."
Fortunately for Ruth, Paul, who explains his role as electrical engineer, and third Minuit member Ryan Beehre (also an electrical engineer), her voice returned after about six anxious months.

"My vocal chord stopped being paralysed - for no particular reason - so we were able to put out our album as we were able to tour. My voice was back and we were on a roll! But it was weird because we had months and months of not really knowing what was happening."

Paul and Ryan had tinkered away on the album throughout the year, Paul in Wellington and Ryan in his Nelson studio, each operating Cubase set ups. Ruth is unsure if this delay changed the album much, however it did mean Paul had to give singing a go.

"Ruth had done those vocals, but when you make the songs you realise, 'Oh man, we could do with a bit in here', but she couldn't add any more to it. You've got to work with what you have, so bits have been chopped up and stretched and pulled out and we tried to retune. The bit where I have to sing is a bit freaky," says Paul with some discomfort.

"It's great," enthuses Ruth. "It adds a nice new element to Minuit, a male sounding vocal in the background. I like it."
Ruth's illness didn't influence the content of the album, given the vocals were recorded before she became so sick, but it has given her a new enthusiasm for her band.

"Music is not the only thing that makes me interested in my life. I was a drummer so it was an accident I became a singer. I guess that helped because it wasn't like 'My god, I'm crushed, my diva days are over!' But saying that, when my voice came back I got all excited about doing Minuit again," she explains.