It's a cold and rainy Sunday

Spring has sprung...somewhere I'm told. Yet I'll take this cold rain over the snow that other parts of the country are getting. No matter the sentimental notion of spring though...the way the rain looks skimming the lake in clouds of rolling mist is plain beautiful.

It's been over six years since we began work on The Smartest Wall. So much has changed in our personal lives which has inevitably changed our approaches to our art in general. It's interesting from my vantage point to look at this collection of songs, all of which were written at different times in the last six years, and to now see how they are being treated musically. It stands to reason that if we had recorded in the years that followed our first release, a feeling much similar to The Smartest Wall would have been prevalent. But this...there is a very nice feeling of independence on this so far. Now, it's still too far out to see an end product. Sure, I can envision what it might be like, and so can the other guys, but as much as we have talked about it, we are still different individuals, so none of us have the prescience to truly see the evolution of this work. That is the beauty of collaboration.

Okay, now to bring everybody up to speed. We didn't do as much work yesterday as I had anticipated. I tracked principle guitar on Brasserie and my end guitar on Beg the Past. We moved my half stack from the bathroom into the living room so I could be near the cabinet to get feedback on the latter. It'll probably be the last time I use the live amp for this project. My additional guitar work will be done through the Line 6 pod, which has a great AC30 model, but for my principle guitar parts, I really couldn't suffer not micing the real thing.

We attempted to track Joe's old air organ on Brasserie, as I'm keen to eliminate my core rhythm guitar part altogether. I wan't the chord changes defined, but don't want bass or guitar to be the instruments that do this. That's why the organ seemed the likely candidate, but when we finally got going it was immediately apparent that it was a half cent out of tune. We could of course pitch correct it during post, but I don't want to make the water murky so soon into all of this. So, for now I am still undecided on what voice will hold that song together.

One of the major enjoyments thus far on this project has been working with Joe. In the six years since we recorded The Smartest Wall, Joe has worked on many other projects, even helming most of them. He's also written and recorded many songs on his own, constantly refining his writing techniques. Because of that, he's become quite adept at producing. He's quite reserved and allows me the freedoms that a songwriter hopes for, but at the same time, when he comes at me with an opinion on how I might play a phrase, I have yet to not act on his suggestion. Thus far, his ideas have all benefited the song, making each a tighter piece. Also, his involvement as an engineer has taken a lot of pressure off of Scott.

I hope that Scott will be able to track his bass this week, because I know Oliver is anxious to get started. Once Scott has got his parts down, we can get some rough mixes to Oliver, so he can start thinking about parts. I'll also be able to get some mixes to the other prospective vocalists. There are a couple of other instrumentalists that might be playing on the album as well, but I'll want Oliver's parts recorded before they give any mix a listen in consideration of what to add to the arrangements.

I still have yet to record Restore, and I need to track piano on Evenstar to get that song going for the rest of the guys, as it's still just naked drum tracks. We've yet to discuss artwork/photography and have not even considered what the album might be called. I think the project still needs to mature in color and shape before any of that begins to materialize.

Lastly, picures have been posted on our facebook page from this past weekend, here is a link to a ten minute video clip that samples some of what we did, and finally, here is a clip of 2 a.m. delirium.