a new project

so, i've had 3 months to think about what we might do for our next project. bec and i, and blake and bec and i, had a few assorted conversations before that as well, to kind of give a vague idea of what people might be interested in doing. so, in summary...

bec liked all the remixing idea for the last album and was thinking of ways to incorporate lots of people again, but in a different way. one suggestion she had was to get a whole bunch of people to make source material for us, which we can then incorporate into our own production. so, i guess, readymade samples. keep that thought in one hand. blake suggested he like the idea of abstract, freeform music. keep that thought in the other hand.

i've been thinking that i'd like our live set up to be more portable and possibly more electronic, though still with lots of playing rather than singing to backing tracks. so utilising ipod/phones/pads etc. so that's lead me to want to try the idea of using new instruments, electronic ones, to play our music - samples and things not running locked into each other - i guess like we've been doing with heartbeatings and to me and things like that recently. just without all the bulky bits of gear. we don't have any gigs booked and i'm not seeking any at the moment, and blake is not keen on doing them anyway, so the gig aspect is not really a concern at the moment, but has led to ideas for how to go about stuff. stick that on one foot.

another thought is that it would be nice to work on new things in completely the opposite way to what we've normally done. normally, the production might start the process with songs later being fitted into the sounds created or, at least, be done simultaneous to the songwriting. i thought it would be nice to come to a new project with a collection of already formed songs. they'd be written on simple instruments - guitar, piano, whatever - but only have lyrics, melody and (maybe) chord structure - no actual preconceived sound arrangements, riffs etc etc. we then deconstruct those in the process of producing new music for them. that's the other foot.

i've also been attracted to the idea of really pushing the limits of the contrasts between great pop songs and out there production. we do that already, and i think it's possibly the thing that may set us apart - so let's see how far we can take it. i've been listening to lots of things with very disjointed production and other things with great songs, but the two don't often go together.

sooo.....my initial idea is to spend a few months writing the best pop songs we can, without any concern for musical arrangements. then, when we have a collection of these, we see what we can do production wise to push them. we get a bunch of people to give us random pieces of music they've created, then we chop those up and 'play' them collaboratively, alongside our own playing. in a room. together. freeform. which will involve using technology in ways we haven't really done before which will, hopefully, push us into new ways of creating and sounding. but the songs survive in that process.

yep, long winded, but it's been a few months. feel free to tear the ideas apart or add to them. please.