So the challenge now becomes how to transition out of the instrumental middle of the album, back into the regular songs. I saw two possible paths: breaking glass or smooth fade. Breaking glass would mean smashing into the second half, as it were, with a hard, in-your-face number. Problem is there are no real hard songs on this album, so I thought it wouldn’t fit. Instead I opted for a mellower, more contemplative piece.

Like many others, this song went through some pretty radical changes on its way to the album, and a few of the incarnations were captured online (original posts: demo, first cut). The core elements of the song have always been clear to me, but I struggled awfully much with the middle section, originally toying with a much rougher feel, before finally giving into the gentle washes that are pretty much all over this album.

Download Free

What could come next except the middle of the album, the conceptual switching ground that I include almost pathologically as an homage to the Side A – Side B LPs of my youth?

This one has also gone through some changes that I find kind of interesting. It started life as a completely improvised piece created at breakfast in St. Petersburg with an American student we first took to Russia in 2004. The three of us launched into it over my simple guitar chords, and it was free, and pure, and beautiful.

Later attempts to hammer out official lyrics left me unsatisfied, so around the beginning of the year, I chopped ‘em out and posted a version that I liked here. In time, of course, I found that piece somewhat lacking, so I went back and pretty much plunked a “solo” right in the middle of the all-instrumental piece. And that, more or less, is what’s going to be on the album. What remains throughout all these iterations, thankfully, is the sense of lightness and love that I get from this song. It brings up memories of good times.

Download Free

Next up for your consideration is song #4. This is another one with some history. This song came to life in Russia almost four years ago, and started as a droney, meditative, acoustic guitar thing. In time it mutated into a bouncier piece with a touch of reggae in its DNA. Click here to listen to the original, ancient, bouncy version. Nastja, who loved (and performed on) the bouncier version, begged me to include it in this upcoming album.

But no matter how I tried, the piece wouldn’t fit with the other songs. I just couldn’t feel it as part of the album.

Until I got it back to its roots, that is. This involved throwing everything out and starting from scratch; I even ditched the middle section entirely, and that was my favorite part! Anyhow, this droney, meditative song – renamed ‘Anthem’ – has a strong international feel to it, and turned out to be one of my favorite songs to date.

Download Free

This one has been through a pretty public metamorphosis. For contrast: One year ago, raw and hard was the best I had. Fun to play, fun to make, but not entirely consistent with the spirit of the song, really. Click for the original post.

Months later, I was playing it with friends late at night, and the result was gentler and more intimate. Of course I ended up liking it more – the mellow atmosphere, the subtle spaciness… For a long time I thought that this version was the keeper, but in time I saw that the song was still incomplete.

So, at last, to the current version. The biggest changes here involve the lyrics, which I cut and arranged to fit much tighter than before. I’ve added new instruments as well, particularly in the final section, and the result is much more satisfying to my ear. I still need to polish the middle section, but there’s probably only ten minutes of work left on this song and then finally, after more than a year in the shop, I can call the song done. Download Free

This album is collected from many years of songwriting, and most of these songs were in fact never meant to be recorded. I wrote them, well, just because. This has made assembling an album interesting, since I didn’t really start with a general theme or story behind the scenes.

Nevertheless, as if by magic, as I’ve worked on it these past six months, patterns have begun to emerge. And song #2 clearly has to be this one, a song I’ve never before put down on record, but which has been a staple in my repertoire for a long time.

Mixing’s not quite done on this one, and of course nothing’s been mastered, so the official album version will likely be somewhat different. But this is still about 95% there I think.

Download Free