Friday
A day of horrible storms. It was a teacher workday, and the weather was severe enough they let us go home early.
Did I relax? Nope. Take the evening off? Nope. I finished Hannah's room and cleared out most of my chores for the weekend.
Why:
It's impossible for me to record music when it's storming. All I need is for the power to go off while I'm running all that equipment. Probably it'd be like when they shut down the grid in Ghostbusters.
So, if Friday was a wasted music day, I turned it into a work day and freed up my entire weekend.
Saturday
The storms ended. I woke up at 3:30 am to get started recording, and worked that night until 8 pm. That's . . . 16 hours of studio time. Obviously I'm serious about completing my next Jamendo album. Serious bordering on obsessed.
See, time is running out. When we move to Virginia, the house -- and my entire musical life -- is going to be packed away in boxes. Sort of like a mortuary, except you come back. Maybe.
Sunday
I repeated my early bird special. Today, waking up at 3:30 wasn't really special -- it was shifted to 4:30 am, within an hour of the time I have to get up tomorrow.
Accomplishment:
This evening, for the first time, I listened to a disc of 9 complete songs.
They still need to be properly mixed and balanced (I use a program called Audacity for all of that). Also, I have a few tunes that I wanted to do that haven't hopped over the Wall yet. There's still a lot of work to do.
Yet here sit nine tunes.
They're not in order yet. I'm going to list them here in the order they were recorded. Some of the titles may change, but consider this the first draft of the new album. I chose the title Points of Departure, because all of these songs are about endings, beginnings, and journeys. (Also, it's a Babylon 5 reference.)
- Falling into the Dream
- Vale Avis Tenebrica
- Let it Burn
- Love and War / World on Fire
- In memory of Dorothy Blair
- Casualty of the Battle of the Bands
- The Wind of Distant Planets
- Points of Departure
- Organometallic
Last time I released an album (La vie sous la mer), I wrote a storybook to go with it. Not this time. Some of the things I put into the songs above are just . . . private. Or personal and obscure. I think I'll publish the lyrics for a few of them (I do instrumentals, but I always make up lyrics -- it helps me make melodic phrases that work). However, most of these are going to be presented as-is, take it or leave it.
I will give you a preview, though.
Here's the lyrics to the first track. This song was the first one I wrote after the last album. I've felt it for some time, and I'm glad it's finally made it into the real world.
Falling into the Dream
Falling, falling, into the dream.
Awkward innocence,
you know you let the madness in:
each time at night,
each time you lay down your head.The colors in motion,
like waves on the ocean;
the battles you have fled.Falling, falling, into the dream.
The future is content
to let you wander through its maze.
The past surrounds you:
but can you run from your fear?Closer and closer,
the huntsman approaches.
A most dangerous game.
