I went down to Robert Allen Rehearsal Studios tonight to record with Carlos Medina of Vegas band Atomic Nutshell. I’m going to be collaborating with him on a track for their album.
Carlos also laid down some really pretty ambient guitar for “Scarecrow”, which I’ve remixed a bit — new drums, a pretty Rhodes texture, slightly shorter breakdown. It’s very Johnny Greenwood stuff — volume pedals and delay.
I’m trying to decide if I have the stamina tonight to break out my gear and do a final guitar part for “Not In This World (Or The Next One)”. I’m gonna do it with a direct-input electric guitar so it has more of a sound like Jeff Buckley’s stuff. I just don’t have the engineer, microphones or acoustic space to really properly record an acoustic guitar for that track — there’s nothing else to it, no drums or other instruments to cover ambient noise, so the recording would have to be hyper-pristine, and I just can’t do it in practice. I think it’ll sound good this way, though. And it might have some piano on it.
I’m ditching a track or two, so the album will be shorter than I’d thought — maybe ten or eleven songs instead of thirteen or fourteen. That’s okay. Brevity is the soul of…well, something or other. Plus that way I totally have B-sides to mess with.
Also: some Hammond organ on “Scatterlings + Refugees”. It needs it. The other version I put out has it, but it’s going to be much lower-key this time. Just a texture.
I think I’m almost ready to start doing vocal recordings. Ryan and Melissa Marth from the Big Friendly Corporation have agreed to do some backup for me, and there’s a couple of other people I’m thinking of asking as well. So I’ll have to do that around other peoples’ schedules, which is okay — it’s worth it to have that fullness to it.
Once that’s done, it’s final mixes and masters, and I’m done with the recording. Then all I have to do is design the liner notes. And set up distribution. And maybe find a label. And…well, all the other stuff. Sigh.
I have a small secret about the way I’m going to distribute it. I’m not telling yet. It has something to do with the whole “future of music” thing. Don’t worry, you’ll definitely be able to score a copy.