Creation Phase

For the first time in weeks, I made it down to the studio to get back to work on HF2. I had so much energy because I had been itching to get back into it. Hit the ground running and finally did the long awaited arrangement on 1956, which is now a lean mean fighting machine. Of the course of two hours, every time Brandt and I would say "it's done" and play it back, we'd get a new arrangement idea. We shaved a minute and a half off of it, and I'm loving it. Then B played me the new parts to TWO BASSES that they did while I was away and I was really into and was double pleased I didn't have to change a thing in the song. They've really smoothed that tune out and made the two very different parts appear to be seemless. Awesome work.

My next task was to tackle the new intro to EXIST because the newest version B sent me seemed messy. He has so many cool parts in it that it became just a matter of giving them room to shine in the intro. Quick work. I then extended the bridge Robin and Ash wrote for the song, simply because it deserved more ear time and is quite possibly the best 20-30 seconds of the album. Nuff said.

Then, as a nice surprise, Robin and Ash appeared and the band was in full swing. We first just reviewed the songs as everyone had notes (well, ash actually had writtern notes) and comments on the new mixes. Everyone is almost on the same page and even where we're note on the same page, we're at least in the same chapter of the book and quite close. Which is really good. Once we were done reviewing the tracks and set a gameplan for the day, we listened to some of our recent non HF work (i.e. Chemlab and Ass Cobra) and hammered out some internal MOG politics, which is wack, but has to be done sometimes. However, I'm happy to report I'm digging the Cobra.

Then we got back to the problematic SOLAR, which is less and less problematic finally. Robin recorded some new basslines for it while Ash and I watched New Order at Finsbury Park on DVD and checked out the new Peter Saville book. Awesome stuff. Watching the New Order gig sparked a new musical idea that everyone seems down with. Anyway, Robin did an amazing job and then I laid down some hooky goodness over some of the stuff. I now have the parts loaded up and will spend the next few days trying to bring that tune together.

All in all it was a successful evening. We now have 9 songs for the new album. 7 of them are ready for live drums and the other 2 are close. We will probably need one or two more songs. I've given us no timeline to finish this record. Its too good to rush. I've learned my lesson before, but on the flipside, I'm not going to let it go TOO long.

And now, some rest...

F