A Substitution

As I alluded to in my previous post , "Answer" has taken the place of "10 Miles" as our second release.  It's more of a piece with Aloud than Ten Miles is, but certainly quite different from it in many ways and I hope it will help flesh out listeners' sense of our sound a bit.

Answer has a somewhat interesting history in that the opening/pre-verse riff (which I just call RIFF in the structure chart below) and verse riffs are quite old, dating back to high school.  I developed them contemporaneously, consciously aping the style of Sunny Day Real Estate on the verse riff in particular, and quickly situated them together, with a chorus sandwiched in between.  It often takes me weeks, sometimes months, for the pieces of a new song to come together.  In this particular instance, however, I never reached satisfaction.  I toyed with a few chorus riffs, landing on one that I would hang onto in the back of my head, but never felt good enough about it to bother putting the song forward to any bands I was in at the time.

Flash forward to 2010, when I'm trying to get a band together in the city.  I had convened a jam session with two friends (neither of whom would go on to be part of AHAS).  After running through Aloud, Scared and Steal as my little showcase of the material I was writing, someone said "what else?"  Not having anything really worked out, I pulled out the riffs and gave some vague instructions on how I thought it would be arranged.  Thankfully, both musicians either weren't listening or misunderstood my intent.  The bass player ended up continuing the chorus riff, a descending bass line, over the verse riff.  The drummer played the whole thing in double time (at inception I had imagined the whole thing at the slow, half-time tempo you hear in the chorus and bridge/outro now).  This revealed some new things.  While I can often be rather incorrigible with my compositions, I was very opening to re-imagining this one a bit given that it had never really come together for me. I still wanted the chorus riff to have a slow plodding feel, so I asked the drummer to try starting out with that and then switching to the double time feel when the verse riff came in.  Now things were really shaping up.

We played it through a few more times before I had one of those rare moments where one is able to  conjure a riff out of thin air and it works.  Since the verse and chorus tentatively had the same bass line (which itself evolved significantly from Pat's tinkering later on), I took the opportunity to dump that very mediocre chorus.  I stopped the jam for 5 minutes to contemplate where I thought the verse was actually leading and managed to come up with what is now the chorus riff.  I played it over a few times to figure out exactly what I was getting at, and then we ran the song again with the new segment.  I also conjured an accompanying melody to go along with it.  Initially the section was in straight 4, but after playing it a couple times that way, someone commented that it was boring and I tried to make it interesting by messing with time signatures a bit and adding a little liason at the end of the phrase.  The exact timing was refined later on my own, but the foundation was there.  I thought it would be interesting to try playing the chorus with a dropped quick beat on the second chord without actually changing the timing of the melody at all.  I follow with a dropped long beat during the liaison at the end of the phrase, giving a a mathematically elegant 8 - 7- 8 - 6 count.  This effect, while probably not noticeable to many listeners, makes the chorus riff and melody a bit more unpredictable and a bit less Billy Squire (with all due respect to the named).

The bridge section of the song was added later, pulled from my mental compendium of orphan riffs.  It adds a little intrigue at a point in the song where I was worried about it becoming cloying in its poppiness.  Not unlike Aloud, Answer has a slightly interesting structure in that it doesn't bring the chorus or verse back post-bridge, merely the teaser pre-verse.  The format is RIFF-VERSE-CHORUS-RIFF-VERSE-CHORUS-BRIDGE-RIFF.  This makes the bridge function more like a "B section" rather than a traditional bridge and gives the song a proggier feel, despite it only clocking in at about 3:30.  It's interesting how cutting something out, in this case a conventional return to the verse or chorus after the bridge, actually makes the song feel more expansive/grandiose.  It's calls to mind ever so slightly the mini-epics of Field Music, a band I much admire though hadn't yet discovered at the time of writing this particular song.  I also like how the song is bookended by what I'm calling the "RIFF," and I tried to lyrically bookend the song too with the first and last lines, which are sung over the aforementioned RIFF.

Enough about that.  Lyrics follow:

ANSWER

(intro)
It started off, I guess, fairly well...

(verse)
In the wake of what's become of our lives
It's hard to tell you that I tried
Called away, called away
I guess there's something I'm yet to find

(chorus)
Another answer there beyond the line
A new reaction nothing can outshine

(verse)
Do you remember when I used to talk like
I couldn't leave you if I tried?
No way, no way
Try to remember what it felt like

(chorus)
Another answer there beyond the line
A new reaction nothing can outshine

(bridge)
How far I go you're never far behind
Until I'm broken I won't let it slide
I can't reclaim the pieces that were mine

(outro)
All in all it went fairly well...

A Gratification, Delayed

I am pleased to report after a prolonged silence that the next AHAS track is on its way out for mastering.  It has been a particularly busy stretch for me, and my obligations outside of music have made it difficult to make time for the laborious mixing process over the last few months.  At long last however, after a graciously granted evening session last night, the next song is mixed and out the door.  With luck it'll be posted within a couple of weeks.

I know I had said that the next song would be "10 Miles," but that is no longer the case.  Instead, "Answer" will be the next one out of the gate.  Why the change of plan?  I was struggling mightily with 10 Miles as we were trying to pull it together.  The arrangement as it was performed was exceedingly simple and minimal and my initial thought was to keep it really stripped down, with a single guitar, and let the vocal carry the tune (it's a melody I'm relatively pleased with).  We tried various techniques to widen the single guitar by panning mics, adding reverb, or using a delayed signal panned opposite the source, but I ultimately found them all to make the guitar sound a bit "squishy" and lose most of its character and attack.  I ultimately decided to take some time and rethink the arrangement a bit.  After several long sessions at my own rehearsal space experimenting with keyboard and guitar sounds and trying to come up with stuff, I finally hit on some keyboard sounds that worked at the 11th hour, with a mixing/recording session scheduled for the following day.  I had also devised a washy, heavily delayed guitar sound with tremolo to play open ringing chords during the dramatic parts. Suddenly the song was taking some shape, and at the mixing session the following day I tracked the guitars and keyboards (using the patches I had already created) and started shaping the thing.  We also did some doubling of the vocals for emphasis (and help).

Long story short, the song is coming together really nicely now and I'd say is about 85% ready, but during this time we'd made significant progress on Answer and when push came to shove Pat and I decided it would be a better second release anyway.  I'm really pleased with how it came out for a song that I've previously been on the fence about, often considering it my weakest contribution to our repertoire.  I think it gained a lot from a brief practice session just before our initial tracking sessions.  Pat had been fussing with that bass line since day 1, never quite satisfied with what he was doing with it.  But he had finally settled on something he liked and I insisted that we go through it several times and really try to lock up the groove so that my kick hits would fall on his bass hits.  Not only did we get a better groove going, we nicely developed the contrast where the chord shifts during the verse by switching from an on-the-upbeat groove to an on-the-downbeat one, then back again.  I also had suggested a few rhythmic things I was doing on the kick during the chorus that Pat could follow on bass.  The thing just sounds a good deal tighter than it ever did before, and the sureness of the groove lets the melody propel the song.

I also threw in some complementary shaker and tambourine stuff during the half-time bridge section, giving it a nice chunky backbeat.  A little organ here and there rounds the thing out in what is arguably a less dense arrangement than Aloud, but still surprisingly challenging to balance.  That said, I do think the finished product exceeds our first effort sound-wise and I hope y'all will like it.

Stay tuned for more posts and a release date.

A Mark of Approval

As many of you have learned I have received the final master of "Aloud" and given it the okay for release tomorrow, January 30th.  It's been a long time coming and it's going to feel good to get that sucker posted, get a little feedback from some friends, and get cracking on the next mix.

I opted to have the mastering engineer keep the level on the cool side, which will let it really sing on a decent set of speakers/headphones with strong dynamics but may force some people to have to reach for the volume knob when it comes up after Rihanna on their iTunes.  It's a risk because, as many people know, the brain perceives louder things to sound "better."  One can simply turn them up of course, but the blistering increase in mastering levels over the last 15 years owes itself in part to the quest for that awesome first impression, that blast of sound that outshines everything played before it.  I'll leave a lecture on the loudness wars for another time...

Let's just say I'm really excited to have this music finally reaching some ears.  As I had alluded to earlier, downloads will be free in any format of your choice.  I will ask that anyone who enjoys the song please tell one other person about it, preferably someone who I don't know.  Social media is great too and posting links on facebook and all that can get things moving but I know for me a personal, verbal recommendation is a lot more likely to get me to listen to something.

Thanks to all who have provided me with much-needed support during this process.  I can only hope to make you proud.

I'll be posting the link to the song on facebook tomorrow morning. If you haven't "liked" our facebook page, now's a good time: facebook.com/ahypocriteandslanderer.

-Terry

A return to form

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.

A Song to Come

I had taken three days of work off this week starting Wednesday to knock out some serious recording at Let 'Em In Music.  I'm also in for a half day tomorrow (Saturday) to get in some extra time while my gear's all there.  It's been immensely convenient to only have to deal with load-in and drum set-up once.  Pat and I have been able to knock out rhythm tracks for several songs over the first two days, with me switching over to guitar tracking when I was too exhausted to drum anymore, then simply picking the sticks back up the next day.  We've laid down rhythm tracks for Ten Miles, Far, Answer, Deny, and Missed, and hope to take care of Steal today for good measure.  I hadn't even intended Missed to be on the list as it's a song I thought we'd have trouble doing well too a click, not to mention the fact that I had only practiced it maybe once or twice on drums.  However, come about 4 o'clock yesterday, when Pat and I were feeling a bit weary and mellow, Pat wisely suggested we give it a stab rather than trying the uptempo Steal then.  We actually nailed it in two takes, really locking into a solid groove.  I don't think anyone would know that it was done to a click.  Who woulda thought?

I think I will talk a bit more about the technical approach we used on the drum and guitar tracks in a future post since I must soon be on my way for today's sessions, but I'll leave you with lyrics for Ten Miles, which I intend to be the next song we move towards completion.  It's a down tempo tune, with a slightly hip-hop-like 16 beat in the beginning of the verse that opens up into a nice loose 8 beat on the ride at a key chord change.  The chord structures themselves are somewhat reminiscent of a Chris Cornell ballad.  Lyrically, this song is a bit abstruse, but I do think it's one of the better ones in that sphere of my lyricism.

Ten Miles

(verse)
Needed to stay
Ten miles away
We dared to feel emotion
So we couldn't help but cry
Till we refilled the ocean

Can't talk through walls
A thousand feet tall
We tried to live forever
Now we're dying all the time
To recapture that notion

(chorus)
Call to me forever through the wind
I'll atone for what we've done

(bridge)

(chorus)
Call to me forever through the wind
I'll atone for what we've done

Call to me forever from within
I'm a ghost out on the run

A Tough Call

After receiving back the first mastered version of "Aloud" from John at Spleenless Mastering, I have made the somewhat unexpected decision to go back a step and revisit the mix.  Somewhere during the transition from the final mix that Nadim and I settled on in our last mixing session to the version Nadim produced without buss compression for John, the balance of the song got totally thrown off.  I think compensatory adjustments were made  when the compression was removed and some of them ended up actually weakening the song.  The primary difference was an increase in overall level for the guitars.  This had the unfortunate effect of burying the vocals (especially during the chorus, where they were already on the low side) and swallowing a lot of the sustain on the drums, making them sound flimsy.  Going back to the original final mix, I was surprised at how much more propulsive it felt, but after conducting comparisons with some of other driving rock music I own it's become clear that prominent drums and bass and fairly understated guitars are commonplace for that style of music.  You really need that strong rhythmic underpinning to be prominent for the song to hit hard.  The plus side of all this is that I will get to revisit the mix and implement a few needed changes, like an increase in volume for a couple guitar riffs and perhaps some changes to the processing of the vocals.

All in all I feel like I'm still on the right track here, it's just going to take some extra time to get things right.  This is very much a learning experience and one that will immediately inform the other upcoming recordings.  For one thing, I'm going to give myself a buffer of a week or two from the time the next song is "finished" before I send it out for mastering, in case I have second thoughts about a particular decision.

This stuff is hard!

-T

A Time for Patience

The final mix went out for mastering at the beginning of the week.  A few days later the mastering engineer sent me an email inquiring as to whether we had applied any leveling or compression to the output buss and if we had requested a mix without.  I wasn’t specifically aware of having done so, but I inquired with Nadim, the mix engineer.  As it happens he had applied some very minimally, only to flatten the highest outlying peaks in a couple of spots.  It doesn’t seem to me like this would adversely affect the mastering process, as these peaks would clearly be squashed out of the final mix anyway, but I decided that I’ll just take it as a sign that the mastering engineer is paying attention and I may as well oblige him.  Nadim was on vacation at the time, so I lost a couple days while waiting for him to come back and send out a new version sans dynamics processing on the busses, hence the lack of updates.  I had initially hoped to perhaps have the whole thing ready in time for release after Thanksgiving weekend, but that seems rather unlikely at the moment.  We're now bumping up against some scheduling problems with the mastering guy so all in all this could take quite a bit longer than I initially hoped, which is frustrating because I had pressed to hard to finish the mixing.  I remind myself that the most important thing is quality, so I will exercise patience as necessary.

Since we’re not producing an album in the traditional sense, it hadn’t initially occurred to me that we didn’t have any imagery to associate with the new song when it’s released.  Thankfully I had recently hung out with my friend (and former bandmate) Justin Drobinski, who’s a talented filmmaker and photographer (I highly recommend his recent short, Snowfall at Goat Hill Farm).  He and another friend had expressed interest in working with me at some point on a video.  I wasn’t ready to think about a video, but a few days later I emailed Justin about creating a photograph to go along with the song, the idea being that we could plan to produce a new image for each song as it's released.  We exchanged a few emails back and forth and settled on idea he came up with that I think captures the aloud/allowed imagery of the song in a way that’s literal but not too cheeky, and not so dark as make us out to be more serious than we are.  I’m very interested to see how the visual aspect of the band develops; it’s something that I think is important but haven’t really had much of a chance to think about.

That's really all I've got to talk about at this moment, though I will soon continue profiling some of the songs to be recorded at our next sessions, which begin December 7th.

Thanks for reading.

-Terry