Daniel and I worked all afternoon and evening and got some good takes--including a surprisingly subdued turn on 'God the Architect'/'Pirates.' Mike will come in soon and fill out the percussion on that tune. We also took care of all instrumentation on 'Call Me, K--' and it sounds great, huge and wide, expansive compared to the squashed mono boxiness of the demo. The intricate vocal figure will be done using Pro Tools instead of the analog machine--with the benefit of undos and editing, we can much more quickly get usable versions of those tricky parts that way. Vocals will be an adventure, though. I'm not too insecure about my voice, but I do know its many limitations. Still waiting to revisit 'We've Been Working So Long.'
The idea has been floating around to conceptualize the recording project not as an album, but two EPs. That way there will be a steady stream of new material as it becomes available, and two sets of art direction and whatnot. The recording will be ongoing, but once the first five or so songs are done, they'll become the first EP, and the rest will become the second one. I'll look into this more, as I'm one of those who's generally biased against buying EPs for some reason, but it makes sense for this project.
Speaking of EPs, I've been listening to the Fleet Foxes' 'Sun Giant' EP for a couple of days and have been pretty blown away by it. The tunes are quite simply there and great, but what's really impressive as well is the coherency of the vision--art direction, production values, lyrics, instrumentation, arrangements, and even the band name all fit together into this entity that makes sense and is clear and appealing. Although the music itself is complex and a bit mysterious, the fact that everything works like this makes the band direct in a refreshing way. How to describe this? Mystical, timeless (as in outside of time), spiritual, passionate, powerful, benign, natural...and so on.
I mentioned this record to a friend who doesn't know of the band, and she asked if the Fleet Foxes were women. I said they weren't as far as I knew, but then got to thinking about what she had asked. The more I think about it, the more I start to see their music as quite masculine, in the sense of being aware and engaged with the world, a sort of restrained but acknowledged power that comes through. I guess everyone has an image of what they think masculinity and femininity are--at least in my life the positive aspects of femininity are discussed far more often than masculinity, and I just find this music to be in line with what is good about being male in some way.
Finland keeps squeezing its way into my thoughts. Something about nature, gentleness.
