Recording update

I am a little tardy with this, but the album -- less one track* -- is all mixed!

The past week and a half, Major Matt and myself have been working on the last 5 unfinished songs. They needed some backup singing and a final mix. This was more hellacious than it should have been.

I have always been fond of doing backup singing on ENB recordings, but I am not a technically good singer. So the ability to hold a note without wavering -- which is required for the kind of backups I hear in my head -- is often out of my grasp. Add to this the change of seasons, which has messed with my respiration and hindered my breathing, and you have one pissed-off inadequate singer.

A balance has to be struck between my perfectionist side (no really, I have one) and my more, shall we say, "antifolk" side, which doesn't want to sacrifice the spark of life from a performance in the service of getting it "right." People who are more talented than me can get away with only doing it once and saying, "Let's just go with that because it's fresh and unfussed-over." I even did it with a tune or two on this record. But, this time, I just had to sit in that fucking sound booth and do it over and over again. Sometimes the end product still isn't in tune.

Fuck.

Well, I've finally allowed these raw tracks to be pried out of my fingers in order that Matt could mix them and... I'm pretty damn happy. I think this album is fucking awesome, and I hope the reaction of listeners is at least half as excited as me.

*(The one track that remains to be mixed for the album is a tune that John Mulcahy and myself wrote and recorded in his parents' basement in New Jersey, and John will give it a final spit polish the next time he is New Jersey.)

That is all the news for now. Matt is on a tour with Barry Bliss and Toby Goodshank until mid-October, so we're taking a forced breather before the final mastering session. In the meanwhile, I will edify you with more Profiles in Fandom and Collaboration, so keep checking in.