re: love on the second stair

in one of the final sections of 'aeowyn and the absolute truth,' there is a vocal take that sounds a little out (but besides that, the track sounds great with all the new vocals, which i hadn't previously heard)

i am not convinced by every note in the 'i can't make you love me' guitar riff. maybe you can do some chopping to make it sound less straight? unless you like it as it is... (i am really liking the whole song though. it works great as an intro i think.)

i really like the flow of the tracks. our chorus vocals sound quite good i think.

i have listened through the album, up to 'cover'

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now i've finished the listen

i don't really have any more suggestions at the moment

album update and what to do beforehand

having had a chance to listen through, i'd be keen to get everyone's fine print on what else needs to happen or change on the recordings. here's what i've got so far...

i can't make you love me
record tibetan bell for ending
what does eliza normally play in the ending live?

smells like rain

but i lose myself
re-record cowbell
record shakers

the quest for love aboard the belafonte

æowyn & the absolute truth
re-record all vocals
originally, i had thought that we'd do 4 voice harmonies on this one, but from what we've attempted of that so far, it doesn't seem to be working as it's all pitched to my voice. bec suggested everyone just make up new harmonie which best fit their voice which we could try. another option may be just to leave it at my voice overdubbed for everything. it seems to work fairly well as such at the moment. the actual singing would still need to be redone as the current ones were all first takes using my laptop built in mic. thoughts?

cover
the current version has both bec and eliza singing the main melody from the outset, at equal volume levels, and i think is the best vocal solution for this so far. bec's vocal probably still needs re-recording to iron out a couple of wavers. should any of the harmonies be taken by male voices, or does the subject matter of the song work best if it's just female voices (bec?)?
i feel like the acoustic guitar parts still need to be made more obviously as a loop. should the ending of each riff be cut off more roughly?

time to move the nest
record piano (current recording is a synth piano)
second verse piano changed to toy piano
second verse record abstract piano cluster chords (eliza)
re-record blake's voice?
mix eliza's voice higher in ending

don't speak for me
lift volume of claps to sit better with kick

the separation prepare this for another marriage
re-record eliza's voice
more beef in drums/bass


also, are we settled on the title?

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i've also been thinking that it would be good to release a single maybe 6 weeks before the album, to help promo the album. the quest for love aboard the belafonte seems the most obvious choice as an early version has already been fbi playlisted so we can use that fact in promo-ing it to other places. i was thinking that a free download single with maybe 4 tracks would be nice. but what should those other tracks be? could it include blake's original skeleton of what became the song? remixes by other people? songs we have that aren't going to go on an album? old tracks from other releases?

sorry to be such a persistent nag

but my guitar in the separation is a tad behind the beat

re: smells like rain... i am still not totally convinced by my voice in there, but i guess a better judgement can be made after we record it better

re: i can't make you love me... i think the ending is a little too far drawn out and bland. if the ending is to remain that long, i think there needs to be more dynamic, melodic, rhythmic changes and accents

re: time to move the nest... are you and bec going to sing in it still? i really like what the voices of eliza and myself sound like together in that song... but it will be even better if you and bec sing in it, i think.

those are my main thoughts on the new album demos.

the separation

another updated mix of the separation is now up on virb - the separation demo 18-9-08. i've removed a lot of sounds so there's a lot more space, and re-dynamicised it, as well as clean the ending up a little.

i'll also get around to converting the virb site into a kind of blog for progressing demos. my idea is to just upload them as we go (i don't think there's a limit to how much you can upload on virb, though i could be wrong) and give a brief written explanation for each.

the separation prepared this for another marriage

eliza did a quick recording of a vocal - one take, hand held sm58 so it's pretty raw. i did an even quicker mixdown with a simple reverb and compression on it, just so the idea is hearable. it doesn't end as such as we just cut and paste the middle section on the end to fit eliza's words, and that also causes the dynamics to move etc etc etc...but you get the idea. i've uploaded the track to the virb page, so have a listen and make any comments.

newness

i've updated the files on the archive.org page with all the current album tracks. i've been playing around with some different track listings, but i'll leave my thought on that until later so as not to colour perceptions. the upadated ones are this is the new thing (glitches removed), gem and requited love (both now with much more in tune vocals - a big thanks to autotune), and tape noise. tape noise itself isn't any different, but i've faded in the rain underneath the ending and it runs right across into the beginning of this is the new thing now, just to hear how that sounded.

the fine folk at sound & fury (whose sadly defunct shop was probably my all time favourite music shop and where we played an instore a couple of years back) have put out a call for demos for possible releases and for compilation appearances. their stuff is generally more on the outer limits and i've thought it might be nice to put some things together to send them. hopefully one day next week some of us can get together and do some improvisation. if there's anything sonically odd in the archives in london, send them across - even if it's just snippets of sound to play around with. i've already started some tentative bits involving piano and wind up music boxes. it would be good for telafonica to do new and different things - or perhaps it should be viewed more in terms of getting back to the odd tangents like our pushed into oxygen collaboration a number of years back.