Niagara & Album Progress
Earlier this week, battling a migraine, I tried to take stock of what material I have for Albums 2 & 3 and get myself a bit more organised towards getting these both out of the door.
Album 2 is a ‘fake filmscore’ based on a book that is quite well known in the UK. It needs another track mixing then all tracks mastering, one of the trickier parts of the process for me, that could delay its release. It’s looking like it will be 35 minutes long, unless I have some last-minute inspiration for a further track or add any bonus items. (Either one of those scenarios could happen at this stage – I’m planning to get a significant portion of Album 3 ready before I release Album 2.)
There’s already quite a lot of potential material for Album 3, but the styles are rather mixed, so I could need to prune it back drastically to make it a coherent body of work, and I may, therefore, need to write some more new tunes to make it hold together better. There is a huge amount of work that still needs doing on most of the tracks for Album 3: many are in just the early stages of production and some are currently just a loop of an idea.
When the migraine had subsided, I finalised the lyrics & I put down guide vocals for another new song Thieving Autumn^. This song has been in the writing stage since about September last year. I was really pleased with how the vocals went and may even use them as the final vocals with a few tweaks, if I’m not satisfied with how a ‘proper’ recording goes using a condenser mic.
I’ve been arranging a new song that I’m calling ‘Niagara’ this afternoon, and recording some vocals – it has gone from being just a snippet with the main ideas in to a full demo. It’s not easy to sing this one in tune all the way through (I have failed thus far) so I’ll need to practice it a lot more to get the required level of pitch control in the parts that are going wrong.
I also realised today that I have another couple of songs I forgot to include on my list of potential tracks for Album 3. Ooops! With the work on Niagara today, that brings the total duration of the demo tracks to 1hr . It’s starting to look like I could end up with more than an album’s worth of material. There seem to be a couple of different overall genres which don’t necessarily complement each other. Basically, it’s 70s influence and indie-folk-electronica versus 80s synthwave and its progeny. It’s not clear how it will pan out though (no pun intended) as the draft playlist I created doesn’t clash as violently as it threatened.
^Thieving Autumn was provided as an instrumental exclusive with last month’s email news. If you’re not yet on the email list, sign up so you don’t miss out! I only send one email out around every month or so. With definite emphasis on the ‘or so’.
Two more records?!?!?! (drools)
Also, I recommend a visit (at some point) to Niagara. It’s fun. Lemme know when youre going I’ll tell you the best spot for viewing! And the strip is hilarious, as it has always been. Check out Pierre Berton’s book Niagara for the full story…
Good luck on all your work!
I will need to sell a lot of albums before I can go somewhere like that, haha. I’ve seen video footage from a friend who went but I don’t think it captured what it must feel like to be there.
Release your records and I’ll promote ’em over at the KMA. That oughta do it! 😉
The only word I can think nails standing at Niagar is POWER. It’s really something!
It’s only about 4 hours’ drive from our place, but we haven’t taken our kids there yet. Maybe this summer!
Haha I should also note for UK mindset that, given how much space we have here, a 4 hour drive is entirely reasonable for us Canucks. 🙂
You’re right, 4h is quite a big undertaking over here 🙂 I think I could make it over the border into Scotland in that time, or possibly even onto a ferry to another European country…