And so ends a short retreat from this medium. I've been putting off a return, hoping to have some modest tidbit of news to report that could inject a little excitement into my project, and I hope that some kind of news regarding a finished "Aloud" is just around the corner, but in the meanwhile I thought I might flex my writing muscle a bit and see if I can't get back into blogging shape.
Following my recording sessions in early December, I'd taken a few weeks off from A Hypocrite & Slanderer, and then a couple more with the onset of the holiday season. In fact, I scarcely visited my studio during the month of December. The only musical endeavor indulged during that time was hastily getting together a cover of Joni Mitchell's "River" on acoustic guitar for a staff holiday party at my office (if I ever come up with a good way to video myself performing some of these acoustic numbers maybe I'd post them).
I'm trying to get back in the swing of things, running through some of my newer compositions to keep them fresh in my mind (the only place they are presently stored) and also reviewing some older tunes. The next step will be going over some of the songs that we've tracked and ruminating on embellishments and such things that I might want to add to the mix.
The performing outfit of AH&C (Nov 2010-April 2011 or so) was a three-man unit, with me handling all guitar duties and vocals, not leaving much room to experiment with layering parts or anything like that. I kind of like that formal purity of that set-up in many ways, so I waver on how much to forsake that on the recordings. One of my most admired guitar players is J. Robbins, and his two albums with his trio Burning Airlines are a lesson in crafty guitar line writing. With the seamless interleaving of rhythm chunks and lead riffs, he almost achieves a sort of trick-of-the-ear effect whereby one could easily be fooled into assuming there are two guitars going (he cheats in a few spots on the records with overdubs, but relatively little). This is possible by letting the bass do some of the heavy lifting, and it leads to some of the more memorable bass lines in rock music. The vocals, bass, and guitar summed together give you enough harmonically that you never feel like anything's missing, yet there's a feeling of space, punctuated by heft when things collide together on some power chords. It's an incredibly neat package with little wasted space. I'm a fan of efficiency in music, and in fact it may be the one thing that many of very favorite bands have in common. How else do you reconcile Low and Yes? While Yes is certainly maligned for being boundless maximalism, at their best moments (say on Fragile and Close to the Edge) there a distinct neatness to their work; each player shows remarkable restraint and taste, sharing the space and playing off each other in an uncluttered fashion.
Despite this predilection, I do feel like my compositions can in some cases can be embellished in ways that help get across the tone I'm trying to convey and add interest in key places. That was certainly the case for "Aloud," whose main riff in truth perhaps overstays its welcome a bit and I think gained some contour from evolving clean guitar lines during the verses and some synth-gadget futzing in the bridge. I feel10 Miles calls for a more understated approach, but I would like to experiment with some ethereal "padding" to give a little depth, while maintaining the underlying texture of the clean electric guitar chords.
And I end with a Burning Airlines song, which may or may not actually validate my point.
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