d'Hérouville in Hérouville, France, the same place Bowie recorded his 1973 album Pin Ups, he instead decided to produce an entire album for Pop there. Bowie booked two months of studio time at the château for later in the summer of 1976. Recording Bowie and Pop arrived at Château d'Hérouville in June 1976 to record an album. Bowie bonded with the studio's new owner, Laurent Thibault, the former bassist of the French band Magma, and asked him to play bass and act as engineer; Thibault hired Frenchman Michel Santangeli to play drums. Bowie began composing tracks that ended up on The Idiot on keyboard and guitar. After Santangeli's arrival, Bowie played the tracks for him using a Baldwin electric piano. For two days, with minimal guidance, Santangeli played to the rough tracks (which he assumed were demos), the first takes often becoming part of the final mix. Bowie dismissed Santangeli at the end of the second day, leading him to believe his playing was inadequate, and he would not appear on the album; Santangeli later expressed regret over the final drum sound. Subsequently, Bowie began adding guitar parts. Overall, Bowie contributed guitar, electric piano, synthesizer, saxophone, and backing vocals to the album. After the backing tracks were composited with guitar, keyboards, and drums, Bowie had Thibault add bass to them with little guidance. In July 1976, Bowie brought in his own rhythm section consisting of bassist George Murray and drummer Dennis Davis to provide overdubs on a few tracks, including "Sister Midnight" and "Mass Production". While Bowie composed much of the music for The Idiot, Pop wrote most of the lyrics on the studio floor, often in response to the music Bowie was composing. Pop was also keen to improvise some of his lyrics while standing next to the microphone, something that fascinated Bowie, who later used this method when recording "Heroes" (1977). Recording continued in August 1976 at Musicland Studios in Munich, which was owned by Bowie's future collaborator and electronic dance music producer Giorgio Moroder. Here, Pop recorded most of his vocals, along with additional guitar overdubs provided by guitarist Phil Palmer who, like Santangeli and Thibault, re-recorded some of Bowie's guitar parts with little guidance. Palmer described the creative collaboration with Pop and Bowie as "vampiric" because he never saw the artists during the daytime and the collaboration was stimulating but disquieting. Bowie's original choice for guitarist