Here
are a few songs from recent endeavors, as well as some early
recordings. Nothing here is really emerged in professional
quality (especially the old stuff!) but it is still fun to listen to.
Archipelago (Islands Part 1) (5.28)
This song had a drawn out conception. The main riff came while Danielle and I were banding birds off the coast of Nova Scotia. I didn't do too much with it at the time, but that winter when we were in Minnesota,
I got lots of time to record in the evenings. Once I started, it
came together quite quickly and I had a working copy. But it
wasn't until the winter of 2009 that I revisited it and tweaked the
recording a bit. For the most part, I'm happy with it now.
Least
Resistance (7:25)
The guitar part for this song originated
during my
time at Long
Point Bird
Observatory. I had decided that I was going to try
playing in
an alternate tuning, and went about changing strings until I found
something that seemed to be promising: EAEG#C#E.
Later,
while in Guelph, I mapped it out (with much difficulty due many changes
in timing!) and added bass. In an effort to fill it
out, I
also added a low volume percussion track. There are some
really
good riffs in the song, and I really like the bass parts, but all in
all, it seems a bit hollow to me, and there probably remains much work
to be done.
The
Medley (Triumph over Adversity) (9:47)
This was a medley of riffs that Tim Piggott came up
with, to
which I jammed along until I played something that sounded good, which
usually took a while. But I got lucky with this
song. The
first time I heard Tim play the last part, I was blown away, and just
played along side, not really thinking much of what we were
doing. When I listened to our recording that evening (for
once we
were thinking!) I couldn't believe it. I set to learning my
improvised bit until I could play it exactly as I played it that one
day. The mood of the piece blew us away, and we couldn't
think of
any title more fitting than, "Triumph Over Adversity."
As far as a final sound goes, this song is probably the best we got in
our few studio sessions (and it's not really that great!).
Keil
had come down that weekend and recorded a djembe track that helped fill
out the background where our two guitars were lacking. But
once
again, we didn't get a copy with Adam! And we never did end
up
naming any of the other parts...
Journey
of the
Istari Part
I (7:01)
Journey
of
the
Istari Part
II (9:37)
Journey
of
the
Istari Part
III (7:48)
Journey
of the
Istari Part
IV (5:59)
This is the
electric epic we
recorded late 2003. The entire band had parts written and
this
recording occurred in the garage of drummer Keil Simmons. The
energy he contributed to the sound is unmistakable. The
quality
of the sound, however, leaves much to be desired. Keil only had a
couple mics for his drums (sadly capturing only his snare and bass),
Adam had only 50w of amp power for his bass, and Tim and I both had our guitars plugged into
one 100w amp. The result is a very
muffled song. This really was a song that had no
end (we joked about calling it the "Never Ending Ending").
Riffs kept coming and changing and they just got tacked on.
We
never did figure out how to end it... it just faded
away when our timing faltered for the last time!
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