Friday 30th

After an astonishingly quick 12 hour session today, most of track eleven (Mr Heart) is now complete, minus vocals as I'll be doing all those at once at the end of this mammoth recording project. There are some timing issues and perhaps a little tweaking needed in some areas, but otherwise I think it's about done. Thus I shall be starting work on So Bold tomorrow, hopefully completing all the instrumental parts in the next couple of days. Then on to Harpy's piano part and a great big vocal extravaganza. I'd imagine with the amount of new vocals and retakes for other tracks, I'll be there for two or three days. Lets hope I don't come down with something nasty before I get to that.

Thursday 29th

The wrong conversation leads to a lot more work than I had planned on. It went something like this:

Me: I wrote a new bside, want to hear it?
Boyfriend: Sure
Me: *plays track live*
Boyfriend: Um, that's not a bside.
Me: It's not?
Boyfriend: Really no.
Me: Oh shit. I'm going to have to record it properly now, aren't I?

I was planning just to play it live for a while, and record it as and when it was needed for a release.

I know what the problem is. I dont want to put up my vocal booth again. The thing is massive and fiddly and not particularly stable, so whenever I assemble it, I'm absolutely certain it's going to fall down at any moment and take out something valuable. Plus, it really is fiddly to put up. Really really fiddly.

So I've just been playing around for the last few days, working on the "oops, it's not a bside" which would be it's name if I hadn't already called it "So Bold". Accidentally wrote two more tracks while I was at it. One of them's pretty much done in terms of writing and is demanding the full on orchestral production treatment that I've been avoiding for a while (I play it and I can hear timpanis. Bloody timpanis. If that's not a sign of orchestral, I don't know what is) and the other one might be a live-only track, and still needs work on the structure. And the tune. And the arrangement. Maybe the lyrics.

On top of that, I've still got the "vocal retakes I've been avoiding doing since I started this" challenge ahead, so I'm going to write out a to do list here so I have to do it. Because the internets knows. Here we go:

Retake main vocal 2nd verse for Delay
Retake main vocal on The Wall (because on second thoughts it sounds like I did it at 4am, which there is a good reason for)
Fix the end of Not Up To It (Boyfriend: I like it, but the ending's crap. Me: I know)
Fix the DAMN SYNTH NOISE in Power Cut which just will not be in time with anything else and Is Vital (do you sense my hostility towards this particular issue?)
Retake Catechisms, just as an experiment in "can i do better?"
Record So Bold: piano, bass, guitar, mbira, vocals times a billion
Record My Heart (new piece finished today. Written entirely today, actually. Really not soppy. Don't let the title fool you): reverse piano, weird vocal noises, mbira, full orchestral arrangement including strings and timpani, vocals
Sort out and record Cirque De La Vie (that is, life circus. and that is a working title. Almost every track I'm working on that doesnt have a title has a pun in situ until I decide on its actual title)
Record and produce Harpy (which i've been meaning to do for about three months): piano, vocals, something else and et cetera.

Honestly, I reckon that'll keep me going through most of December :S

So, here is my November roundup:

October total tracks recorded: 7
November total tracks recorded: 10
October total tracks written but not yet recorded: 2
November total tracks written but not yet recorded: 5

Thus the new track listing looks like this:

Mary
Delay
These Are My Catechisms
Power Cut 84
Blank Space
Can't Be Won't Be
Not Up To It
The Wall
Burn
Suburban Paranoia
[Harpy]
[My Heart]
[So Bold]
[Life Circus]

Pretty good for 29 days.

Monday 26th

Despite my desire to finish another album track before December hits (just for that "I recorded 4 whole tracks in November" feeling), I feel it's unlikely. A new track has been written over the last couple of days, but I think it's a B side, as is the other pre-written song I was planning to record soon. I may well record them both roughly together (saves me putting the vocal booth up, taking it down, putting it back up again) as they're both completely written as live versions, which means all they really need is studio tweaking and a few extra arrangements.

The new b side was written over the last two days and is the first track to contain mbira (yay!), though sadly not with crazy effects over it. Just sounds too bloody good plain acoustically. I shall be putting the lyrics up on the website (over at the music page) today, but otherwise I'm having the day off, as it is my 5 year anniversary with Boyfriend, and I'll be wearing a dress and eating something fancy.

On a side note, I very rarely clear out my msn contacts list, so I have people on there that I knew years ago and haven't really spoken to in a long time. One of them signed in a couple of days ago with one of my lyrics as their screen name.

Saturday 24th

So, having finished track ten in record time and then fixed the mixes on several other tracks, I felt I needed a bit of a break. I spent all of one day watching movies, the next I treated myself to some new clothes and a general day out wandering through the Christmas markets (trying to ignore smells of waffles, potato cakes and baked apples) and yesterday I cleaned the entire house from top to bottom (well, both floors anyway). Totally forgot the havoc that was likely to play on my dust allergy and have woken up filled with so much gunk. Urgh. Nevermind.

Now it's back to work, I think. Track 11, here I come.

Tuesday 20th

There is a drum stool in my bathroom and yesterday there was a fresh rosebud covered in snow in my front garden.

My world doesn't quite work right.

Monday 19th

Track number 10 is complete. I started to write it on Friday evening and completed recording and production last night, making it the quickest track of the lot from start to finish. Catechisms took less time to record, but then it's basically a cappella (literally, I might add, in the style of a choir). The longest from start to finish was Mary which (ignoring the fact that I wrote it about two years ago) took three months to record. Power Cut only took two and a half days (with very little sleep or food or any breaks at all) to record, but again it had been written already.

So, welcome to the fleet, little flash in the dark. Track listing is now as follows:

Mary
Blank Space
Can't Be Won't Be
These Are My Catechisms
Power Cut 84
Delay
Burn
The Wall
Suburban Paranoia
Not Up To It

Friday 16th

Having turned the entire house upside down, aside from the kitchen and my bedroom both of which are entirely music free (so as to give me a sense that I have space away from the work), I've had to accept that my Korg ca30, which has always been on the drum stool next to my piano, has disappeared forever. It's quite possibly been left at a venue somewhere. Sigh. Ordered a new one this afternoon, but in the meantime, I'm going to attempt to tune the harp by ear. I feel it's not going to go well.

On the plus side, I've found a pair of gloves I'd lost and about 8 million pens. And, by default, the live room and studio have had a good sort and tidy, so I suppose it's all good.

Heating is on today full blast so I'll be getting no recording done (my boiler is ancient and noisy as hell) but it'll hopefully stop me shivering. Brr.

I'm rebuilding the borg cube today, with some extra tweaks compared to last time. Working on track ten, which I'm starting with an odd set of beats made by me hitting my mbira and then fucking with the noises it makes. And it makes an awesome noise.

Tuesday 13th

Having finally gotten to bed at around 5:30am, I was woken by a friend on the phone at 10am. Should have remembered to put the damn thing on silent. Regained higher brain functions somewhat this evening, just long enough to finish off the last of the problems with the track, and do a quick basic mix to give it a bit of space.

Going into a different studio tomorrow, for someone else's project. All I have to do is turn up and play, no engineering or production required.

Weird.

Work should start Wednesday morning on track ten. That's practically an album's worth.

Monday 12th

This evening was supposed to be some time off to sit and read and see Boyfriend and not have noise in my ears for a while. So much for that. Boyfriend went home around 9:30ish. I thought "I'll just have a go at some more of these vocals".

6 hours later and I've worked out that the reason I couldnt hit those high notes or stop coughing is because I was having an allergic reaction to this new squash juice drink thing I was trying, waited it out, retaken almost all the vocals to my satisfaction (the last part of that statement's the killer) and am pretty satisfied with the whole thing. All 5:50 of it. Needs the levels sorting and the guitars redoing (which I have convinced myself to leave til after sleep), but otherwise, she is complete.

Track number nine. The Wall.

Saturday 10th

Recording in the dark

Should really be the name of the album. Composition seems to be done in daylight, and the actual putting to tape disk after dusk. The new track (track nine) is likely to be finished within the next 72 hours. Vocals and guitars will be recorded/rerecorded this evening (hopefully - turns out some people have gotten all confused about this whole "bonfire night is over, dumbass" thing). May well rerecord the piano too, just for the sake of Doing Things Properly.

Have spent the last three or four days in the living room with my FULL live setup trying to work out where the track was going, whilst leaving up all the mics around the piano so as to not mess up the original sound of the thing, plus my guitar rig (not Guitar Rig, just my pedals/amp/tele). Basically, it made my living room look like the musical equivalent of a borg cube. Lots of cables, lots of flashy lights and one tiny little Leni shaped space in the middle.

Finally worked out all the pieces, the last one dropping into place about an hour and a half ago. It's almost six minutes long, which given the length of the other tracks, makes it the epic by an average of about two minutes. It also has the fewest instruments of all the other tracks - this piece has 6, including vocals, where as the one with most has around 15, I think.

As promised, the track name has changed. They always do. This started out as "Breaking and Entering", went through "Muse", "Famine and "The Weave" and is now called "The Wall", which is utterly perfect for it. And now I have a name that really feels right, I'm certain it's finished, retakes and mixing aside...

Wednesday 7th

The second worst thing about this creative nonsense is having a piece of art which you know is really good, or, more accurately, has the potential to be really good if only you could finish it. I'm standing in my living room every day listening back to what I already have, which I know could be the best thing I've done so far, and going "I don't know where to take this next" (first in a frustrated and later in a deflated manner).

Of course, the worst thing is having nothing that's good and no idea how to make it so. Silver lining, big wet cloud.

Sunday 4th

I am absolutely certain I posted a blog about this at 1am yesterday when I finished the vocal takes for Burn, but apparently myspace in its wisdom has decided not to post it. So here, once again, is the full on celebration:

Track eight is complete.

Track nine is also half done, though I'm now a little tiny bit, as we say in the industry (probably), totally bloody stuck. It'll come, it'll come.

Anyhow, as of the beginning of November 2007, the track listing is:

Mary
Blank Space
These Are My Catechisms
Suburban Paranoia
Delay
Power Cut 84
Can't Be Won't Be
Burn

And a giant huzzah!

PS Also a tip - don't try to do vocal takes on the Saturday night just before Guy Fawkes. It were fuckin' noiseh.

Thursday 1st

Over the last few days (though it feels like one day, though it feels like a month), I've been jamming things out in my live room trying to see where these train tracks are going. New track (possibly called Muse, possible called Famine, possibly called something totally different) now has two riffs, one verse, which might not be a verse, one bridge, which might be a chorus, and a chorus, which might be wrong. But at least I'm both decisive and in control, eh?

Unfortunately, in the meantime I've been messing around with working out how to do things live (a real piano surrounded by my live gear looks a bit strange) and have worked out a much much better arrangement for Burn. Which means I need to totally rerecord it in the new format. Which means I'm now working on two things at the same time. Head constantly on the verge of exploding/falling off/calling in some kind of union representative & the only way to stave off exploding/falling/striking is to record record record. So that's what I'm doing.

Watch me go.

(PS The completion of Burn and Muse/Famine will make the track count nine)