It’s taking me a lot longer than I’d hoped to set up the studio at the new house. For one thing, several pieces of equipment were damaged in the move - nothing super tragic, but imagine how easy it is to save a new file when you don’t have a working keyboard. More importantly, I’m having trouble sorting out where to put the various elements of my studio setup in the new room. I’m arguing with myself about where exactly to place synths versus guitar stands and the end result is that I haven’t really gotten anything done.
But, somehow, I managed to write an ending to the Mandelirium fractal zoom. The earlier zoom was zo large und zo complexz that it hadn’t finished rendering by showtime. So I faded out the soundtrack accordingly. Now, however, the zoom is complete with an ending, so I had the daunting task of assembling a suitable conclusion… all while my studio is in utter disarray.
Anyway, perched atop a pile of tangled cables, instruments scattered on the floor around me, I pieced together an ending that, I think, fits pretty well. For the keen-eared, there are also a few subtle but significant changes in the earlier bits of the song. It goes live tonight, and I’ve lost count of how many sold-out shows that makes in a row, but it’s something in the high seventies, I think. The Fractal Foundation rocks!
Another song in the can. This song really came together for me with Morgan’s contributions, not the least of which was singing backup. A lot of differences from the last attempt: I redid the main guitar line because I didn’t like the sound of the earlier recording, even though the playing was fine. The bass is also Morgan, and it just fills out the song for me. I added some little solo acoustic licks here and there, but I particularly enjoy the line over the second part of the chorus, where we sing “It’s alriiiiight, everything’s alriiiiieeiiyaiyaiaiighhht…” (and that is the correct spelling, incidentally). There are also subtle synthesizer bits scattered throughout.
So much fun to restructure a song. Remember that this used to be a very hard driving electric piece, but with the help of friends it was able to find itself.
I’m moving again this coming week, so I’m taking another short break. But I’ll be back recording another song in a week or so, in a brand new studio in a new house. Photos to come.
This song has undergone a pretty substantial transformation since I wrote it. Originally it was a much harder-driving song, very electric and groovy (click here for the first post). Then, after playing around with Morgan and Nando, the song grew into a much steadier, kind of gentler thing.
The kernel for this song first appeared in the New Mexico desert many years ago in a song I wrote called “Sow the Seeds”. Unfortunately, the song didn’t hold up over the years, but in it was the line: “You can run around the world but you can’t escape your death,” which I culled and used in this one. I also grabbed the first line (”One thing I know is you’ve got to be strong”) from a song I wrote in college and used to holler from the loggia outside my dorm room window. No word yet on whether that song has held up over time. In any case I thought it interesting to note how much of this song is “recycled”, and how appropriately that fits with the general theme of wisdom passed down.
This cut is pretty raw, with only very basic instrumentation. I’m trying to block out where I want the different parts to go. The best part of the song, I think, will be when I get Nando and Morgan to sing backup. In my eyes, they really make the song.
Another song in the can. The most notable part of this one is the chorus of voices at my traditional grand ending fadeout, which was probably the most fun I’ve had in the studio. Recording like I do can be a lonely endeavor, so it was utterly refreshing to have a group of friends in my room, all happy and singing. A lovely moment.
So this song has been around in one incarnation or another for a few years, but last summer I spent some time with it and sculpted it into a complete piece. I have several old demos to choose from (mostly just me playing the same chords over and over while experimenting with different lyrics) but this take is pretty much as I wanted the completed song to be.
“Old timers” on this site will recall that I posted a nearly-complete version of this song a few months back. I am now reworking that almost-perfect attempt and will have the song polished and complete very soon. Things are chugging along!
