It was an abstract situation… I spent some time in this room, but was not really aware of its details… It was in south west of france, in july… I actually had the good idea to bring an acoustic guitar and a pocket recorder with me in order to play my songs, far from my home in Paris where I currently record them again… well, the sound quality of those acoustic recordings is not good so i’m not going to let you hear them, but it finally allowed me to consider those songs differently… well, I improved some minor details on some of them, and decided to re-write one totally, with the last guitar idea I had when I was in my songwriting period… I love this song that way, it’s going to be on the album… definitely… Ghostly female faces…
Curtain is a song i’ll also feature… This is actually the leading song… The one I was looking for for two months… An overall sound I had to define in order to get a clear path for the mood of the album… An idea i’m going to apply now on everything in order to get the same mood for everything… in order to avoid the eclectic album issue…
So, this kind of sound, for the moment, works quite well on some of the songs, and i’ve got one issue on one, City lights… I still have to record basic tracks, ie drum tracks, bass tracks and one mellotron track, for most of them, but it’s on the way… When it’s done i’ll be able to decide which songs are going to be featured… For the moment i’m shure of those ones : Curtain, The narrow road home, Using mirrors, Ghostly female faces, The frightening door…
What about the drums ? I told you I decided to get rid off that hip hop drum idea for electronica style drums… I already used those kind of sounds a long time ago, for an instrumental track I made with mellotron sounds only, called “Les eaux troubles”… I friend of mine wanted to listen to it so I uploaded it on myspace… It might give you an idea, even if it’s not really going to sound like that…
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So… three weeks I didn’t write anything… what’s up ? well, my “Untimely tales” album recording project takes more time than I expected. Actually, the idea I had on the overall sound I wanted to get was wrong.
I already told you about the time I spent on the drums programming : I had that hip hop beat idea in mind but it didn’t really work… Most of the songs are too fast, so I had to use cymbal sounds instead of hi hats… Well, the drums are closer to a rock style approach, but with looping I feel it’s totally boring…
The second issue is about the guitar, using it as the main instrument. I recorded a few songs with that formula, and it sounded like classic indie pop rock songs… well, I didn’t feel comfortable with it… I had to find something a little bit different… Worse, I spent a lot of time trying to get a decent guitar sound, but the way I play them, on the bass notes, resulted in frequency conflicts with the bass and the mellotrons, so the overall sound was muddy…
So one day (this week actually) i got rid of the guitar on one song, and it fit far better… I also changed the drum pattern, the tempo and the drums sounds, flipping them with mellotron noise samples, and it was totally different. Closer to a style we could classify into what is maybe called indietronica, or folktronica… I don’t know… It just means there is something more surprising and unusual…
Well, because of all of this, I’m going to start the project again with that new approach, focusing on mellotron sample beats, bass guitar, and mellotron melodies… guitar is still an option, but in a sparse way…
October was a good goal, i’m not shure anymore to release the album in october. But I still keep it in mind… Let’s see what will happen… Well, it doesn’t really matter if i’m a bit late… The most important is to get something I’m really satisfied with…
I’m living Paris again tomorrow in order to visit my family… for ten days… so i’ll only be able to work again on it by mid august… A shame I had to stop the working flow several times… well, next time I won’t have to stop again…
Hope you’re on holidays, enjoying the time you spend somewhere else…
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