I've been pushing myself to use new tools and techniques in my recording lately. I think it's healthy for an artist to always feel like they're being tested by their medium. Everything you do is a little bit like a negotiation- you're constantly in a state of knowing vaguely what you want, and trying to reconcile it with what you see/hear, and the capabilities of the tools in front of you. This "negotiation" can be a fun and creatively-lucrative process.
As a listener I want to be delighted and surprised by what I'm experiencing. As the artist, I have to be the *first listener* and part of that means following the things that surprise and delight me in the recording and mixing process. A song with too rigid a plan/execution that does nothing new, will never be as genuinely interesting and cool as something you discovered as you were working. Dan Harmon said in an interview once, "If you want to make something creative that people will actually like, you have to be its first fan."
Putting yourself in a position to make discoveries and be fascinated by your tools encourages you to make something *fun*. That doesn't mean I don't have a plan before I go into recording. I start with a very solid foundation that I've worked on for days, or weeks (or sometimes months...). I know already where I think the energy should build and wane- and what musical moments I think I want to bring out. Then I set off to create a cast of voices and characters with my instruments. I sometimes think of the new parts like creatures that will roam and play and be free to wander in and out of the songs structure. Who is listening to who? Who wants to be in charge? Who has something interesting to say at this moment?
The Moog Grandmother (and more recently, also the Moog DFAM) is an amazing tool for this. It's very much designed around the ethos of discovery and playful experimentation. Other, more articulate people have already written at length about that synth (and why it is so lovely), so I shall refrain from gushing too much here.
I had a wonderful time on vacation last week! ❤️ I met a lot of amazing people and got to spend time with some of my best friends in the world. Pre-Release Weekend was a blast too! I'm going to leave the pre-release masters up on my website for now so everyone who got a QR code can still access the album at their leisure. Most of the tracks will remain basically the same for final release, so, enjoy! (and if you do enjoy, please don't forget to listen on spotify and tell your friends once the full public release is out!)
So... if everything is basically ready, why are we delaying? Something's been gnawing at me. Earlier this week I had a meeting with John Caviness (my mixing/production assistant on The Queen of Time) and we've agreed to go back and re-do some elements of the mix/balance on All Along the Western Side before release. As much as I want this album to be done ASAP, I think this is the right decision.
All Along the Western Side was the first song I worked on with John, and, at that time, certain elements of our workflow were still budding and yet to be established. Frankly, the stems I gave him were a *mess.* Things were tragically disorganized, and while it was in his hands I continued to add and remove parts and re-track things, and send him new stems, and tell him to remove this and that and YIKES! I was new to this! I was very naive to the actual reality of having someone else to lend their hands/ ears to my mix- I was still learning what I could expect from this process.
My biggest lesson learned: People (no matter how smart they are) cannot read your mind. Nobody (no matter how experienced) knows your song as well as you do. You have to tell them what's going on in your mix or they won't know! Receiving a batch of unorganized stems is disorienting! You have to be proactive, specific, and organized in detailing the elements of your song when you give someone your stems to work on. They won't be able to make magic happen if they have to spend hours combing through your obscurely labeled tracks.
By this point in the project we are much more on the same page about what rolls each of us plays in the mixing process, and how give each other what we need to make the best work happen. As the project has gone on, John has also become more familiar with my sound, and has a better idea what textures, and parts to emphasize in my mixes. It's not that the current mix for All Along the Western Side is *bad*, it just stands out a bit from the rest of the album- frankly, it sounds a bit like it was mixed by someone else.
From the outset, this has been one of my favorite songs on the album, and whenever I've shown versions of the album to friends and family- many have highlighted it as one of their favorites too.
Of course, like all things in art/creativity, I can't know if the result of our re-balancing this mix will be *better* than the current version of the mix until it is done... So for all I know, we may end up going forward with the current mix anyway 😅. But I sought some advice from another producer who I interviewed at the start of this phase of the project, and he agreed that it's definitely worth a little delay to try to fix the things that will keep you up at night... and the end of this track *does* threaten to keep me up at night...
The finale of this song wants to be huge, and in my demo mix, I hear a ton of melodies, synths, and percussion elements that just *do not* shine through in the current mix. I didn't realize how diminished all these tracks were until I had some time away from the song and got to listen to it with fresh ears after I got the first round of masters...
There's something that happens to you once you've listened to/worked on a song a lot- it's like "listening in 4D." You hear what's there now, but you also hear the song's past iterations, and all of its future potential, all at once!.. Sometimes you can lose sight of the actual truth of the mix, and blend what you are currently hearing with your memory/ knowledge of the elements you are supposed to be hearing. I think that's what happened to this mix somewhere along the way. It's going to be a few more weeks before we can dive in and re-work the mix (John is about to leave for his own vacation soon)... So in the mean time I'll be doing what I'm always doing- writing, editing and mixing ✨new stuff <3✨
This weekend only, I'm making my album available totally for free on my website! Check it out! 👀
The "official release" is likely to happen sometime in June, and then it will be published everywhere you care to listen to it (Spotify, itunes, Amazon Music, Bandcamp, Tidal, etc...) But for now, you can get a sneak peak right here!
I'm still working behind the scenes on a few tiny details (last minute meetings with mastering engineer and production assistant) but the album is very nearly (or already completely) ready for release. I'm so excited to be able to put it in the hands of friends, family, and you!