Patience, Determination, Perseverance...

We trekked across the city to go to the big-deal recording studio yesterday. We are still mixing songs, listening obsessively to mixes and making small edits and revisions. It is a pain-staking process, one that isn't all that fun, but is essential and necessary. And it is revelatory. It's how you make songs come alive. Small changes are all the difference. There are a million ways to tackle a track. It is an art, and a sonic alchemy. We are looking for the magic, the lightening in a bottle, the perfect formula. At the same time  we are looking to unleash the power and soul of a band playing live in the moment. It is an art with a bit of science too. We have 8 musicians all giving it their heart and souls to 11 songs. How the instruments are arranged and arrayed across the soundstage, the volumes, what is emphasized, what is "taken away" are all critical to the final realization of the songs. These songs are malleable. Nothing is fixed, there isn't one way, there are an uncountable number of choices and aesthetic decisions. Those decisions can radically change the presentation of a song. It all sounds simple, and, you may think obvious, but really, nothing is obvious. One choice then leads to a deep rabbit-hole of choices. Lately I have been listening to a handful of very different bands, none really like our own, but all quite inspiring: Steely Dan (icy perfection), The Smiths (raw r&r guided by Johnny Marr guitar maestro and arranger extraordinaire), The Flaming Lips  (raucous, wildly experimental, layered madness), The Kinks (maximum, r&r).  Listening to these bands everything sounds inevitable, but, for sure, in the making of their songs and albums nothing was inevitable, everything was massaged, sculpted, and created to sound inevitable and indelible. We are nearly done mixing, just a few tracks left. We are working with two very different mixers in two very different studios. It's all a learning process. We are training our ears in new ways. We have been thru this kind of thing before but this time we have expanded the circle, enlisting two recording engineers and mix-masters who bring out different aspects of the songs. We made the decision to have one do the "rockers," and the other to mix the more "ethereal ones." Listening to the results reveals that the tracks are surprisingly cohesive. Maybe it makes sense, it is our band recorded beautifully, playing at peak form. So exciting. So yes, the process requires patience, determination, perseverance, and a lot of concentrated listening. Working on these songs, we are working on ourselves too. The process changes you, and what you touch too. Funny how that works.