It's all go again in Hi-Sonorous land! I'm sitting on my sofa watching U2 and reflecting on an enjoyable week starting two new records. Pre-production can be a lot of fun and I realised that this week as myself and Sanj hung out first with Alun Leppitt (the first of our recording artists) making noise and re-imagining Alun's songs, and later on our own, noodling with ideas for our own tunes and getting ready to begin recording for real next week with the legend that is Alan Sampson.
So it's two Al's and two albums, and I'm well excited to see what happens over the next month or so.
In other news, I've been sneaking a few peeks at the above and really enjoying the brilliant way they segue from 70's Police-styled retro groove to a great 'current' surging chorus. And his voice really is something.
Current - it's a word we're throwing around a lot at the moment - trying to find the melodies, sounds, beats, chords that feel of now. As I think about it, I'm beginning to fear that we're not too good at working out what is 'current' right now. But we seem to be getting better, faster and more effective at creating. And this seems to be true for the guys we're working with creatively as well.
And, I've said this before, but I really think the genus of 'current' is just you being the most you you can be. Maybe I've never said it that ineloquently before but you get my meaning. I think the past few months Sanj and I have been discovering more of how you do this, for yourself, and (as with producing) do this for others. The tunes are coming out bolder, more individual and more polished than ever before and that does give me confidence.
But it's not all instinct: there's a fair amount of analytical cut and paste that goes on throughout. We jammed out a cool hip-hop groove as a new possible direction for an old tune we're going to revisit for our record, but listening back there was this really clichéd chord turn-around that had felt great at the time but really dated the sound on second listen. It's funny, because anything that becomes retro surely starts out being dated and then becomes cool again. And it takes someone with enough confidence in its greatness to defy the notion of 'current' in order to make it cool again. Take the 80's!! (To be honest, I'm not even sure that has become cool again, but that kind of wrecks my point...). Anyway maybe my Bflat9 will stay in after all...or maybe it's just cheese. Time will tell I guess.
Anyway, this was the sound of me coming up for air, blathering on and on, before diving into the next vat of creative soup (or, in more familiar terms...Slough).
Icelandic blessings!
C
Ps. Bit disappointed by Mumford. Finally got new Sigur Ros album and loving it. Excited about this. And really want to hear this.
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