hidden away

"ghost orchid" is the name of the bonus track that is only available to those who preorder the new dream into dust CD, so beautiful and so dangerous.

it's a bittersweet acoustic/electronic song originally intended to be on the album. inspired in part by the film 'Adaptation', a ghost orchid is a very rare and hard to find flower. making it only a digital download makes it similarly ephemeral, while limiting its distribution to dedicated fans and supporters makes it as rare as its namesake.

the title ties in with the running theme of flowers throughout the album. the arrangement uses acoustic guitar, tying it to the songs "end of memory" and "flowers of destruction". it also contains electronic sounds similar to those used in "counterfeit". a deceptively pop-like center and shimmering shoegaze-like walls of guitar bring it along the lines of "secondhand daylight" while additional synth hooks may be reminiscent of "perfect vision". the lyrics also contain a reference to that song.

in a sense, the song encapsulates the sound and themes of the whole album. it addresses the passion of searching for (or even finding) something so beautiful and rare, and the danger inherent in losing yourself to that passion, or in losing that rarity.

in the end, it was left off the album because it flowed better without it, but it's still a worthy song with strong ties to the album's themes.

because there's a 2-week delay before we get the funding to press the CD, and several people asked if they could use paypal, or didn't have $ before now, i'm offering a paypal-only preorder until march 29th, 2012.

during this period, the 14-song digipak CD will still come with the 4-color card insert with download code for a "ghost orchid". postage is included in the USA and canada, but other countries must add $4 for shipping (cheaper than actual shipping cost).

wall of sound

i used to look forward to album releases. the feeling of anticipation when opening up the package, whether from the store or the mail. when i'd get it, i'd excitedly rip open the package, even if i was in transit. i could up the cover and look at the artwork, read titles and lyrics. if i didn't know the songs yet, i'd read the words as poetry and look forward to how they'd actually sound.

sometimes i'd even set aside time to do nothing by sit or lie down and listen to the entire thing all the way through the first time i heard it. it really is a great experience, closing your eyes or staring into space and letting the music and words hit you with no other distractions.

i've mentioned in the past that my favorite album of all time is pink floyd the wall. i don't strive to live up to or sound like that album, but it is a goal to shoot for in terms of something worthy of uninterrupted attention. it also contains songs that in themselves may be enjoyable, but a bit short, and make much more sense in the context of the whole album played in order.

the interesting thing about our new album. however, is that while its order is carefully chosen and tracks are faded into one another, whether you play it like that or on shuffle, you'll be hearing a variety of styles. everything is brought together by the voice, writing, and a few similar sounds. but it is also our most diverse.

hopefully this will lead to a core reason anyone bothers to make albums: that it's something interesting and varied enough that you can listen to it again and again.

the kickstarter campaign is over, but you can still pre-order until march 29th using paypal here.

unfettered

i previously wrote about working with bryin dall in general terms. now that the new album is finished, it's easier for me to see the subtle but ultimately huge effect he had on the music.

bryin is always quick to point out that dream into dust is my project, and downplays his own input. however, he adds his own sound and brings objectivity to the process. we've worked together for years on many different projects, our tastes overlap, and we influence each other to a degree, but we come from different backgrounds and points of view. it keeps things interesting.

the most obvious effect of bryin's presence on the album is the guitar feedback. he's a master of this, whether using multiple effect pedals or just overloading the natural sound of one of his vintage tube amps. at times he will also use his infamous technique of playing with a machete. people may be surprised to know this isn't just onstage showmanship, but done for good sonic effect. with it, he creates noises that sound as if they're slicing through the speakers. at other times, his distortion shrieks, divebombs, or sputters.

a less obvious, but still very audible contribution is all the other strange sounds he makes with his guitar that don't sound like guitar. again, he creates these live in the rehearsal room - there's very little studio effect processing on his sounds, other than at times to add a stereo effect or a bit of echo to make it fit in the mix better.

another of bryin's influences on the new album is his love of old analog synthesizers. i'd always been fascinated by them, but only owned a few over the years (gearheads and synth geeks, read this previous post for more details). bryin had them in his arsenal long before it became hip, and could do things with some of them equivalent to his guitar noisemaking. at times he combined the two by using a guitar synthesizer, where a guitar controls and mixes with a synth to create tones neither could get alone. besides that, i got to play with his synthetic arsenal myself and ended up picking up some of my own along the way.

on "counterfeit", as well as the title track, "so beautiful and so dangerous," bryin got to exercise one of his other talents: overprocessing rhythm tracks. he takes drum loops and runs them through a variety of destructive computer effects, with little regard for "proper engineering", until we end up with a dizzying array of choices. sometimes i would then chop up the results into beats with even less resemblance to the original source. they're then reassembled to fit the song, and accented with additional individual drum hits.

he also helped clarify my voice on some songs through similar unorthodox processing methods. as a result, it's the loudest and clearest on any DID release, even when the surrounding music is intentionally overwhelming.

very often as i worked on a mix, he'd sit back, a few feet away, listening objectively, making suggestions, or jumping in and fixing a problem. his very presence is motivating, and his willingness to sit there for hours a night over the course of several years makes me extremely grateful.

to hear bryin's incredible noises, check out the album trailer video. preorder before march 29.

deep

i actually played bass before i played guitar. it's an instrument i listen to a lot on recordings. i rarely think of it as just the low notes in the chords, something to hold down the bottom end or double the other instruments. it's got its own character in the music.

that's why it was a privilege to work with mario padrón on this album. he's absolutely a better bassist than i am by far, which is one reason there are song-by-song instrument credits on the CD booklet. i wouldn't want to take credit for his superior playing on tracks he wasn't on. even in cases where i wrote most of the bassline, he added his own transitions and notes. but most of all, he added his own tone and feel, which are things you can't replicate.

mario must have gone through at least four different basses during recording. he was constantly trading up to something better or more interesting. he used both 5- and 6-string basses, one of them fretless (on "secondhand daylight"). with all this variety, special attention was paid in mastering to the bass. mario's playing definitely resonates, especially if you have good headphones or speakers.

he also distinguishes himself by the stylistc range he displays on the album. he's capable of playing delicate, halting passages in songs such as the album's finale, "flowers of destruction". in both that song and "end of memory", he mixed his live tone with a triggered bass synthesizer. he stretched himself in both improvisation and texturing during the jam sessions that yielded the 5 instrumental pieces. and on "deaden the pain", he plugged two effect pedals straight into the board and proved he could lay down some serious metallic doom.

that last song i'm especially grateful to him for. i had a title and a feeling, and a desire for the song to be slow and heavy. we'd all jammed together with one of bryin's beatboxes on something drenched in doom and atmosphere but no direction. the very next rehearsal, mario plugged his bass in and out of nowhere started playing a riff off the top of his head. it was perfect, and that became the basis for the song. it may never have been finished if not for him.

to hear mario's excellent playing, check out the trailer video and pre-order so beautiful and so dangerous until march 29th using paypal here.

man of mystery

scott reiter is a criminally underexposed synthesist and sound engineer. he lurks in the studio, crafting sounds in headphones for hours. when he's been onstage, he's generally behind stacks of synthesizers and rack gear, or on the side, doing monitor mixing for some of the biggest names in music. in the past, i've hired him to mix live sound for dream into dust shows.

scott is as elusive as his playing style. he almost always plays keyboards with one hand while the other is changing his sound or tweaking an effect box. he's constantly pushing the envelope of what a piece of gear can do or what a sound can be. what's more amazing is that often he does this in a melodic way.

the best way to capture scott is either while he's jamming with a band, or just letting him go off on his own, and recording without telling him. he's certainly capable of writing great musical parts, but left to his own devices, he is like no other keyboardist i've ever heard.

although he did use a digital/sample keyboard on the new album, scott's weapons of choice are often his korg ms-10 or sequential circuits prophet-5. sometimes he ran these through an adrenalinn to add an extra layer of madness.

as a result, scott's musical voice is probably most dominant on the new album's 5 instrumental pieces. his textures morph from one sound into another, creating soundworlds and then changing the landscape around you. however, several brilliant snippets also became part of other songs throughout the album. the ghostly chorus rhythm in "suspended in fear"; the plaintive wails, sputtering glitches, and epic strings in "end of memory"; lush synthetic washes in "flowers of destruction". he aslo wrote the basis for the intro of "so beautiful and so dangerous", and was the strongest voice in cutting additional section out of "counterfeit" to make it leaner and meaner.

scott's musicality is a huge supportive factor in the album. he may not step out to the front of the stage much, but his musical presence looms so large, you'd definitely miss it if it wasn't there.

to hear scott's amazing sounds, pre-order so beautiful and so dangerous until march 29th using paypal here.

lost in space

the main joy of having your own recording space is what you can have on hand to use at a moment's notice. the new album has a broader palette of sounds than before because more of it was worked on in the rehearsal studio, which also has a recording setup.

previous dream into dust albums were mainly recorded in my home studio, "elsewhere" (shown above). it was originally my intent to just do a few overdubs with other musicians in the rehearsal space and return home to finish them off. but once the album got into the group environment, it increased in scope. for one thing, we had the ability to record live as a band to separate tracks, a technique most obviously put to use on the new album's 5 instrumental pieces.

the studio began as rehearsal space for bryin dall's old band, loretta's doll, and morphed to include a recording component and easy-acces playground of bizarre instruments. over the years, it's been the center of activity for 4th sign of the apocalypse, a murder of angels, and our soundtrack work for the ballad of genesis and lady jaye, among many others.

bryin's collection of analog synthesizers easily made their way into the sound of the new album. i've always loved them, but used to prefer sample manipulation to synthesis as a basic building block. not anymore. i got to use the roland SH-101 and jupiter-8, sequential circuits pro-one, and ended up buying my own juno-106(though technically a digital synth, it has analog filters that fatten the sound). bryin played his ionic performer, cat and kitten.

the other great thing about using a studio is being able to be loud whenever you want. this comes into play when using electric guitars and amps, which happened a lot more on this album than before. there were at least two different tube amps used (vox and selmer), several different distortion and chorus pedals, and i've lost count of the number of different guitars and basses that ended up on the songs. whatever sound was in my head, or if i was at a loss, i could look around and pick an instrument that might hold the answer.

of course, some of this cornucopia of choices turned out to be discarded, but being able to pursue an idea to its conclusion was great. it was also time-consuming, but in the end i think it was worth it for the range of sounds we were able to capture on the album.

to hear pieces of about 5 of the 55 miniutes that make up the new album, see the trailer video, and pre-order so beautiful and so dangerous until march 29th using paypal here.

bringing into focus

audio mastering is one of those stages of releasing recorded music most people aren't aware of. it's always been an important stage, but even moreso with the increasing use of recordings done on home equipment, or anything not involving a knowledgeable audio engineer.

with the advent of affordable recording technology came a lot of musicians (such as us) getting creative on their own time instead of paying by the hour. but that savings can come at the cost of sound quality. untrained people operating lower-end gear has created great artistic results, but also some sonic problems.

the making of this dream into dust album has been no exception to that. it's been an incredible learning experience, but also a long and difficult one. even once a song is mixed down, it may turn out to have sounds lurking that cause problems on some sound systems. these could be things meant to be heard that end up too prominent or disappear, or unheard artifacts that keep the music from sounding louder, or even damage the speakers.

generally, the job of a mastering engineer is to take a final mix, keep its overall original sound, but accentuate or de-emphasize certain frequencies to bring out the best in the track. for an album, the other goal is to make sure all the tracks sound somewhat similar in terms of volume and tone.

adrian morgan is an independent mastering engineer with his own studio, timeless mastering. he formerly worked at sterling sound (one of the biggest and best mastering houses in the US). he uses both analog and digital gear, like we did when making the album. while working in digital offers sonic clarity and the ability to save your work in progress, analog brings warmth and depth to sound.

this additional step makes a world of difference. there were supportive friends saying the album sounded so good it didn't need mastering. but the fact is, recordings get heard in context with other recordings, not just the hermetic environment of a song or even an album. mastering helps bring the volume and tone to a point of reasonable comparison. it's an added expense, but totally worth it.

to hear the final results in their entirety, see the trailer video and pre-order so beautiful and so dangerous until march 29th using paypal here.

our worth made coin

the kickstarter campaign to fund the release of the new album is underway.

part of the reason the album didn't come out last year is lack of money. kickstarter offers a way to raise both money and awareness of an upcoming project, possibly to a wider base of people than the usual channels.

the great thing about it for backers is there's no risk. you can pledge using a credit card, but you're not charged until the campaign is over and the project meets the goal. if the project doesn't get fully funded, no one is charged. if it's successful, the money is paid through an amazon account to ensure the promised rewards get delivered to everyone.

this seemed like a good opportunity to reintroduce a few items from the back catalogue. independent promotion and distribution is difficult, so the results can be uneven. i know there are some people who thought the lathe of heaven was the first release. others weren't aware there was anything out since we were on elfenblut (misanthropy records' non-metal label).

there are also other releases and t-shirts, as well as framed and signed prints of my original photography offered as rewards for donations.

the campaign will run until march 15 2012.

until then, share the video above and the link below if you want this to succeed. thank you.

http://kck.st/wiyOom

p.s. the title of this post comes from the lyrics to "counterfeit"

watching from outside

the video for "bruises never fade" came about on the spur of the moment. as the album release date kept getting pushed back, it seemed time for another video. a more ambitious one has been in pre-production, but delayed. this song seemed the next likely candidate.

i can't be on both sides of the lens, but i don't know any actors. i'm used to shooting inanimate objects for my art photography. so i thought i would use backgrounds, composition, and a human figure to get feelings across.

the figure i used is a visual artist who goes by the name grey heart. she was willing to let me shoot her and give her minimal directions, with the understanding that she was being used as a visual element more than an actor.

the song itself went through a few developments, the most significant one being my realization that it didn't need any melodic guitar (as detailed in an earlier post). i also wanted it to have a slightly distorted, overloaded quality, so the vocals were pushed a bit too hard, and bryin added layers of synth and guitar noise, including an amazing loop that sounds like some wounded beast sobbing. finally, i added the sound of glass crashing backwards in slow motion underneath the chorus.

sonically, there was a slight problem with the original bass guitar, which disappeared on smaller speakers such as laptops and phones - a common problem these days. so the version in the video actually has a replayed synth bass. although it gives the song a colder, more electronic feel, i'll be glad when the album is out so people can hear the original.

tactile ephemera

the new album is essentially finished, and has been for a few months. the only things to work out at this point are the special packaging and the mastering.

as i've mentioned in earlier blog entries, the engineering aspect of recording has been one of the bigger issues faced. the music is often a delicate balance of sounds and textures that may not easily fit together. it's been a long learning process figuring out mixing tricks and sweet spots.

the goal has been to make an album that not only surpasses our own past work, but also stands up both artistically and sonically to some of my favorite recordings. although we've done a lot towards that end ourselves, for that final step, we need professional mastering.

i've learned a lot about how to make things sound better than they ever have before. but there's a certain objectivity and knowledge that a professional engineer can bring. every major release of ours has been mastered, and the difference between the final mixes and the mastered version has been significant and definitely worth the expense.

as for the packaging, it's always been an important aspect of the final product to me. mass-produced CDs in standard jewel cases don't seem to have much point these days. in a time when people can download anything, nothing feels like it has much substance or value. part of the reason people have turned to vinyl is the cover art. i always strive to make ours fit the project and stand out, and this will be no exception.

the golden age illusion

"perfect vision" was originally written on acoustic guitar at a faster tempo, and at various early stages had a second middle section, different music for the second half of each verse, and a classical-jazz instrumental intro based on the verses. in the first demo, the drums were more rock than dance, bass guitar was used, there was a minimal keyboard line.

a synth-riff intro that ended up unused was the catalyst for a more electronic approach. whole sections were dropped, others re-written, and the song was re-recorded more like eurodisco with arpeggiated strings.

it was better, except for one thing. i was aping things i dislike in order to mock them to make a point. unfortunately, in the process, the song was becoming too much what was being mocked. so i redid the production from scratch on vintage drum machine and synth. it gives a knowing wink at retro-futuristic nostalgia, while at the same time indulging in a style i actually like.

bryin processed the hi-hats a variety of ways that punctuate the song's intro, outro, and just before the first verse. and more importantly, he added shimmering accents through a twisted series of vintage pedals that sound nothing like the electric guitar he's actually playing (as is often the case).

the audio is a "home-mastered" mix, optimized as best as possible for youtube. the final master should sound better. the video uses footage from the 1980 TV adaptation of aldous huxley's 'brave new world'. it's been re-colored and edited to fit the song. i hope those changes are enough to constitute "fair use". the movie itself is nearly impossible to find officially.

themes in the book were a direct inspiration on some of the song's lyrics, particularly in the middle section. in the same breath, i chose to salute one of the inspirations for the final arrangement of the song. "images of heaven" by peter godwin is a classic slice of new wave that still stands up today.

the overall sound and meaning of the song are also linked both to each other, and to a central issue of the album. the quest for perfection, its possible futility, and the fact that so often we end up looking for it in the past.

when it's done

as great as it was to get out the "counterfeit" web project, i'm eager to complete the rest of the album.

one of the thinly-veiled messages of that song is a criticism of low-bitrate compressed audio as a sonic baseline for music. MP3s are a great promotional tool. at 320kbps, they can even take the place of other somewhat disposable formats such as the CD single, cassette single, or mixtape. but my ultimate goal is to release uncompressed (in terms of the audio file format, not the dynamic range) recordings, in a physical format. i want them to be associated with specific artwork and design and presented initially in a certain order.

strange how this is now considered old-fashioned. i think of it almost as multimedia, something expressed on several levels: audio, visual, tactile. the final result is more of an art object than a mass marketing tool (which is necessary too...and what MP3s excel at).

i've resigned myself to the fact that this album, more than any other i've worked on before, is just such an "art object". there are overarching themes. various song lyrics reference each other. different tracks flow together. imagery is visually connected to the music.

at this point, 7 songs are done, and another 3 almost finished. in addition, there are 5 instrumental interludes. several more songs and instrumentals were written, and some of them recorded, but those are what made the cut after putting them in order and trying some rough crossfading.

some tracks just didn't fit into the flow, or were deemed not good enough. the decent ones may come out in some form in the future. for a short time i toyed with the idea of a second CD (maybe just a 3") of more instrumental material, but i think that would delay the project too much more as well as make it too costly. then again, just mentioning it, i like the idea, so who knows? the point is, it's done when it's done. but i can say that more easily now that it's actually closer to being a reality.

making copies

on 10.10.10, the track "counterfeit" was released online in six different forms. for streaming or free download from the dream into dust website, as well as streaming (and shareable) on soundcloud. the files have now been removed

the web mix is basically the original, although slightly shorter and lower quality than the forthcoming album version. this is the song i've referred to on this blog several times as being made of dozens of different parts. almost nothing in this song is "real". everything is made up of samples of toy instruments, chopped up and overprocessed loops, analog and digital synths, a circuit bent plastic guitar, and a bass guitar recorded onto a cheap boombox and then severely stretched to fit the song. the vocal was shouted into a handheld mic plugged straight into the mixing board and later tweaked by bryin.

the deviation mix came out of a desire to feature certain instruments and to make it more of a crazy drum and bass track. bryin did his own version, which turned out a bit breakcore/speedcore because of the tempo (and so was named the breakneck mix).

DJ angztek fired up his gear as angztek industries and chopped up sounds from the song and constructed a pounding dance beat around them.

shannon fields of stars like fleas, the silent league, and family dynamics used his catch-all moniker prequel for this cold wave style vintage mix. lots of original instruments added for authentic feel. this is unlike anything he's known for previously.

leech of theologian (formerly of navicon torture technologies and one of the most collaborative and prolific artists i know who retains high quality) utterly destroyed the song. i mean that in a good way. pitched down, distorted pieces from the original mixed with key rhythmic elements.

finally, a no-budget video was shot using the motion picture setting on a still camera and effected to look like the whole thing has been photocopied. an HD version is available on youtube.

online digital releases are far from ideal. but this song and video are a comment on certain aspects of the world we find ourselves in, and that makes this type of dissemination fitting in this case. there will definitely be more sharing of snippets and using video in the future, as well as remixes.

the good part's just getting started.

i sing the body electric

being a vocalist is a pain at times. there are any number of activities or dietary choices that can end up affecting the quality of your voice in both the short and long-term. this can put a damper on the rest of life, especially when you're supposed to be recording final takes, or even run-throughs that you hope might end up being usable. normal and enjoyable things become potential hazards to productivity. each one becomes a choice; to pass it up and have a better singing voice the next day, or indulge and face 24 hours or more of vocal uselessness.

sometimes it's not even a choice. i'm grateful for the smoking ban in NYC clubs and restaurants, but i can't control private areas i may be in. then there's cookouts with family or friends. excusing or repositioning myself in any of these situations can be awkward. no one wants to be a killjoy, especially for such an esoteric, artistic, and wimpy-sounding reason.

at times i envy my musical partner bryin, whose baritone seems to gain an appropriately raspy edge from smoking. for material like our dark hank williams covers, it really seems to work. however, when singing in a higher register, such as mine, it only causes harm. add to that the fact that as much as i've been complimented on my "pretty" voice, i have less interest in using it these days - and harsher tones tax vocal cords more.

singing can, however, be its own great reward. even when not recording or in front of an audience, there's a joy and power that comes from feeling your body resonate with the notes. certain tones, melodies, moments of vibrato feel good both physically and mentally. not to mention those times when you let out a scream straight from the gut.

low end theories

i love bass. any playback system that can't adequately reproduce some kind of bass is, to me, a piece of crap. music devolving into ringtones made for tinny phone and computer speakers distresses me. i don't believe everyone needs a club or concert system to enjoy music, but some kind of happy medium should be the standard. unfortunately, that's not in my control. but our recording quality is.

in the past, my love of bass has cost me. more bass often means less volume (at least, the way we hear volume). it also means more sonic confusion. you can't have downtuned samples, deep kick drums, sludgy bass guitar, and rumbling sound effects all at once. at least, not without compromises.

so much of the time spent working on this album, as i've said before, has been involved in tackling engineering issues. a big one has been dealing with bass. several songs have multiple bass guitars and bass synths, as well as slightly different kick drums. then there's trying to even out the volume on bass parts that sweep up high on the neck (louder) as well as play low (quieter), and trying to get the bottom notes of a 5-string bass or a rumbling explosion to resonate without destroying speakers. and of course making all these things sound good and loud at the same time.

learning different techniques to make sense of all the murk has been illuminating and time-consuming. it's also not an exact science, at least not at my level of knowledge. just when i think "that kick drum's solved the issue, it punches straight through the bass now", i realize "it's tuned way too high, it's like a toy electronic drum", and it has to be replaced.

another danger is in focusing too much on the bass, consequently making the music bottom-heavy. pushing a frequency ends up pushing volume, so that has to be compensated for.

in the end, i have to believe it's worth it, since even unmastered versions of the new songs sonically blow away anything we've released so far. one song has been previewed at a club, and held its own next to commercially released tracks. which, from a recording/engineering standpoint, is all you can hope for.

i'll have nothing, thanks

sometimes creating is knowing when to leave something out. after multiple sessions with both electric and acoustic guitars for a new song, i found myself more frustrated than ever. nothing i played truly added anything to the music except more sounds filling up space. in addition, the organic quality of guitar and the prettiness of the acoustic in particular, took away from the cold, stark feeling the song was supposed to have.

and then the obvious hit me: no guitar was needed.

it's a strange thing to think of myself as being one thing, such as a guitarist. but since it's what i play in the band live, i'd begun to put myself in that box. if there was no guitar, what would i do? i wasn't thinking that consciously, but it must have been affecting my insistence on trying to force a part for an instrument that didn't need to be there.

the other issue one faces as a producer is the overall album feel and flow. the state of things towards the end of an album's recording sessions is different from the beginning. you start seeing the connections between tracks and recurring patterns. not just the ones added intentionally, but also by accident, and by influence.

the longer this album has taken, the more frustrated i've become. that frustration leads to a desire for harder, angrier music. that, combined with attempting to make sure the sound isn't all over the map, has led to changes in arrangement and mixing.

for example, "secondhand daylight" was initially written, recorded, and even performed live with acoustic guitar as the main instrument. it's ended up with no acoustic guitar, and sparse and ethereal electrics added. synths were mixed louder, and vintage beat boxes replaced the acoustic drum sounds i originally used. finally, scott's excellent viola sample solo was pulled out of a section that needed to feature bryin's spaced-out noise guitar. that same section was based on a huge effected drum machine loop which itself was long ago removed, and ended up being the intro to a different song.

bryin himself can sometimes be the foil that leads to these kinds of decisions. he can affect a song without touching a piece of gear by asking "what are you trying to do?" or "why do it that way?"

the answers to these questions lead to better solutions than simply banging my head against a wall. especially if the wall isn't even mic'ed.

the persistence of momentum

one of the most exciting times in making music is as it's coming into being. the ideas you had are transforming before your ears. no longer sketches or vague promises of potential to live up to, you can feel it becoming a reality. a combination of the instant gratification of feeling and hearing what you're playing combined with the more esoteric sensation that comes when doing something new. something most of the world hasn't heard yet.

and in the opposite corner, its nemesis: the loss of momentum. that's a big part of what drives creativity into that special place. on the one hand, you can dream up all kinds of ideas that never get fully realized. on the other, you can spend hours playing for fun, or playing while searching fruitlessly for the right part. but when the two come together it completes a circuit in the brain and gives the work momentum.

lack of momentum is one of the biggest obstacles we've faced in working on new music, whether due to other projects, scheduling, time, sickness, personnel, or technical issues. to have that feeling of being there, or at least getting there, and then having to stop, is almost physically painful. it's like suddenly going from breathing fresh mountain air to being in a poorly-ventilated basement.

being able to work partially on a laptop helps get work done, but not in terms of momentum. in fact, it splits up the process further, into different times and places. there's only so much editing that can be done in headphones while in transit, or waiting for something else to happen. at some point it needs to move to a decent studio and involve live performers and reliable playback.

as i write this, i'm on a train. but my thoughts are elsewhere. back in the studio, with the lights low, listening to bryin's distorted beats and slicing loops while i wrench notes out of a 5-string fuzz bass. hearing the words in my head and making up melodies as i sing along. a version of a song suspended halfway between the flashpoint of inspiration and the final realization.

agent provocateur

working with bryin dall isn't like working with any other musician. he's not a muso full of technique and attitude. his approach is either to play totally from the gut, or from a place that leaves almost everything to chance.

in the latter sense, he reminds me of brian eno, who would also set up a series of seemingly random parameters and then do experimental treatments of various sound sources. the end results, however, are totally different. while eno still ultimately tied his work to melodic and harmonic elements, bryin tends to create atonally, based on texture and rhythm. when he does play notes, he often knows instictively what note to play, even if it makes no sense in the key of the song. a few times i've pitch-shifted him to make it "right", and found that right is wrong and wrong was right after all.

sometimes i go to him with a specific sonic request. a recent one for the new album was something like "make this beat sound like whirling knives". he usually comes up with solutions and methods completely different than mine would have been.

often it's better to let him just go off on his own, whether on noise guitar, original loops, or creative sound manipulation. the results can end up being the beginning of a new song, or the perfect missing piece to an unfinished one. there's a new song now that started from him pulling up a sound, putting his hands on the jupiter 8, and switching on the hold button. some might say there's not enough thought put into such actions, but he's the one who made those choices and set events in motion.

just like with photography, making technical choices and capturing moments isn't enough. what you choose to keep, discard, and emphasize is the final step. if he were to continue on his own recordings (as he does with 4th sign of the apocalypse), he'd probably use what i throw away. several times that's actually happened if he's been in the room as i edit his performances. he'll ask for the clicks, bumps, and stray artifacts to be saved for him. his is the realm of the discarded, the forgotten, the ignored.

what i look for are the peak moments, when he reaches the heights of whatever other realm he's channeling. he gets to those places easier, and edits himself more appropriately onstage. in the studio however, every option, every random impulse, is tried and acted upon. meanwhile, i record it all with a barely-suppressed grin on my face.

the muse is a harsh mistress

my muse wakes me at times somewhere between too late and too early. it interrupts conversations. it makes me hum strange melodies to my voicemail. it gives me a vacant look while walking down the street. it has ruined my life. it has made my life worth living.

it even has fights with itself. one idea can barely be finished or even started before another comes along to challenge the first for my attention.

i try to focus, but it glamors me, tarnishing the skin of the creations it deems unworthy. what was once a work of great promise becomes yesterday's dirty laundry. i'm faced with the choice of choosing to toil away at cleaning it, or turning my gaze to the shiny new object. both approaches have their pitfalls.

one theory is that if something gestates too long, it loses its immediacy and life. that can be countered with the idea that if something doesn't die, it has more potential longevity. i tend to gravitate toward the latter concept.

another side effect of the muse delaying completion of the music is, the longer it takes, the more angry i become. which means i'm less likely to feel like crooning sweet melodies in my head voice. this ends up skewing the muse of course.

fortunately, the muse can make a quick turnaround. what was once out of favor will suddenly be attractive again due to a change of instrument in my head. when that happens, it's best to give in and act on its impulses. before they change again.

through the haze

if a recording of a tree falling in a forest is out of phase, will anyone hear it?

i spend a lot of time fixing things i perceive as problems. the more i learn about why some recordings sound better than others, the more problems i discover. however, with bryin's help, i'm also able to solve or work around them, which makes the music better.

if we had an engineer working with us, we could just point out our concerns and they'd be fixed. or they might not even be a problem in the first place, because we'd have been stopped from causing one in the throes of creativity. unfortunately that's not the case. so we make a lot of interim mixes of songs to listen to on different systems and decide what needs to be added, subtracted, or modified.

i'm gratified that anyone wants to listen to our music. it's not for everyone. this is not being elitist, but realistic about the appeal of the types of sounds we make and the emotions and subject matter we deal with. having said that, ultimately we make music to satisfy ourselves. we have something inside us that drives us to create, to say what we want to say. this isn't driven by trends, marketing, sales, or focus groups. it's driven by the desire to hear something that doesn't exist until we bring it into this world.

however, we do need to consider the final form our creations will take, which is subject to at least some of those very things i just mentioned. the current prevalence of mp3 players and cheap earbuds has thrown another wrench into the gears working towards good sound. certain instruments, or just parts of instruments, end up creating an irritating noise or losing their volume or character when experienced those ways. then there is the recent resurgence of vinyl, which can't contain as much bass, treble, or volume as CD's or even mp3's. this means at nearly every stage of music-making process, we have to consider if a sound will come out as intended.

in a sense, this is nothing new. there have always been poor quality playback systems, and each one presents a different sonic challenge to musicians and producers. the goal is to make the music sound as good as possible on as wide a range of listening devices as possible.

people who think that's too contrived, or only for audiophiles, would be shocked at how much of the power and excitement can be lost from even a straight-ahead punk record if none of these things are considered. on the other hand, there is such a thing as tweaking the life out of a recording. it all depends on the musician's goals.

my goal is to make recordings that aren't dated; that i'd want to listen to over and over; to embed little accents and layers of sound and meaning that reveal themselves with more listens; to create instrumental noises that defy easy description. and, in the end, if all that and more is done correctly, i'd like them to connect with people and become a part of their lives. so maybe ultimately not purely for ourselves after all.