A Lil' Moron Love
After that we added some djembe to give the song a little more textural interest (how about that for pretensious?). I still can't pronounce the word djembe. Is the d silent? The m? Help me out here people.
A little shaker and egg added to Jim's already awesome drum track, just to give it a bit more bounce. I learned that from hip hop. Randy and I listened to the rough mix and discussed adding some vocal harmonies... I'm in love with the songs on this album but I'm exhausted from working on them... a bit out of ideas at the moment, so we agreed to let it rest for now.
Next we added a guitar melody to "Open", which hopefully is the album opener, ironically enough. Something about the title. I love the way this song starts (Jim and Preston!) and the fact that this song had a super-quick (for us) turn around time from conception to album recording (a week!) makes this super special. Often time I write a song, we arrange it, rehearse it, perform it live for a while, then it gets into the next album recording session... this was broke that mold.
I love the simplicity of the arrangement (despite my best efforts to over-complicate it), the structure, the lyrics... the verse and chorus contrast each other nicely and really support what the song is about. Everyone sings on the chorus on this song, which is a first. We added some jingle bells and tambourine to the chorus to give the percussion a little more dynamics... and to justify my purchase of jingle bells.
After "Open" we worked on "Motion" - another one of my favs that has some fun lyrics inspired by the book "Ghost Rider" (not the crappy comic). The novel by Niel Peart documents his journey back from the depression over the loss of his wife and daughter, and a long period in his life where he couldn't "be" anywhere, but he had to keep moving (across several countries on his motorcycle). It wasn't the destination that he was seeking, it was the journey that kept him alive through that period. Great inspiring novel... despite the heavy overtones, the song that it inspired is fun, hook-filled and hopefully will connect with you when you hear it in a way that works for you.
Ever since we did the initial recording for this, I'd heard this little one-note lick in the chorus in my head... it got to the point that whenever I listened to the song in my car, I had to whistle it... compulsively. Was it worth all the effort to add this tiny miniscule lick to the track? Hell no... but it was like a shadow on the wall from an old photo that was taken down... something had to go there! No one else will care but me.
Randy was thrilled to indulge me at this late hour. Especially when I wanted to dub a worthless djembe part to the very end of the song...
So Austin from Sonic Arts has been busy mixing mixing mixing. He's knocked out four mixes as of today and they sound fantastic. I think a combination of Randy's recording skill and experience and Austin's talent and fresh perspective on the material is going to give us the most sonically compelling Screaming Mimes album yet. Austin is bringing a very different feel to the songs as an objective 5th party. This is our 3.5th (?) recording project yet, and it is great to hear the continued growth. I know our chops have improved. I hope my writing skills have lived up to the growth as well.
Can you tell I'm excited about this?
Next month we plan to master the album, with an early January release date.
Details, album art, and various promotional rah-rahhing to follow.
Dave
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