F.J., Ash and I had an extremely productive evening in the studio yesterday, and all four or five hours of the session were dedicated to the recently-unearthed "Solar."
If you read or recall my belated post yesterday, I was quite apprehensive about this session because of F.J.'s directive to keep the song very minimal. While I am a fan of minimal recordings, I am not a fan of recording minimally. I like records that use many layers to sound mammoth — the whole greater than the sum method of production — and also those recordings that are multi-layered but are mixed in a way that emphasizes sparseness and empty space. I knew my natural inclination to take up 13 or 14 tracks with guitars alone was going to create problems on this song.
Well "minimalism" promptly went out the window yesterday, and we have Ash to thank for it. While F.J. watched a one-legged wrestler get the crap kicked out of him on national television, I cued up the track for Ash and he pulled up his loop library. It should be noted that the man is a connoisseur of electronic sounds as well as a fastidious producer. His taste in programming - rhythm programming in particular - calls for an obscene amount of creativity on the artist's part, and his own work always exceeds these high standards.
As he plowed through loop after loop, we knew we had something good going on. The track's density grew exponentially in the next two hours, with Ash adding everything from funky rhythms to a brilliant synth line that is similar in tone to NewOrder's introduction to "Crystal." Midway through his computer-based jam session, I picked up a guitar and started jamming along to his wall of rhythms. It was like having a live drummer in the room. I quickly worked out five or six parts for the verse and chorus, and F.J., like a wise producer, sat back and let it happen. The tune really came together for me last night, and Ash's rhythmic instincts and F.J.'s hands-off production technique were the elements that allowed it to happen. All around, a brilliant evening.
I was quite elated today to find "The Distracted Lover" listed on Amazon.com. While this is far from earth-shattering, I am extremely gratified that the CD is available so easily. Both F.J. and I have some rather esoteric musical interests, and we are all too familiar with the arduous process of tracking down records by bands with little to no distribution and promotion. Now if some kid listening to college radio in Trenton hears "The Sweetest Soul," he won't need to jump through hoops to track us down. Nice work, Tinman.
Less than one week until Duran at Webster Hall. in the meantime, F.J. and I were browsing eBay for Power Station tour jackets...
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