(Let's skip the 1000 words where I apologize profusely and lament about how I haven't kept up with this like I should, and how not posting more defeats the purpose of this blog. Okay?)
Writing for this album has always been a problem for me and now that most--maybe all?--the beats are done I've been putting a lot more energy into it, and so far it's worked out great. Early on I realized that I wanted to go really hard at this project with everything I had, and I think I've done that with the beats, or as least as good as I could. But it wasn't until about six months ago where I felt like I could finally put that same energy into lyrics. Now that I'm here thinking about words rather than song strucutres it's great and I'm seeing things totally different than I ever did in 220.
That change in perception, how there's this newfound clarity at looking at lyrics, and even music, instrumentation, beats, makes me think that in a lot of ways I hope that this album will fucking destroy everything we've done before it because I feel like those past experiences have held us back in making this album. And not that that's our fault either. When we started this we really didn't know what to do, exactly. We knew what needed to be done--record these vocals to this beat, edit them, etc.--but we had no process for doing. We still don't have the process down, probably won't have it down by the time we finish and I think that's directly a result from having never done this before. In 220 we would get the urge, find the beat, write, record, listen and that was it. It was quick and it was self-contained, which is the exact opposite of making this album. There has to be a constant dialogue. There has to be a firm, steady, easily accessible organization system. There has to be honesty. Everything needs to be readily available at all times and everything has to be done in a timely manner. Everything has a "need by" date, even if that date is a long way away. These are things that are hard for any band or group so I don't think by any means that we have failed ourselves. I just think we have learned a lot, possibly at the expense of inexperience, which okay.
I don't want you to think I regret our times in Baird, or 220, or in mobile studios, or The Rail or Georgia or Asheville or anywhere else because I don't. Nothing can take away the best and worst of times we had 10 years ago. I don't regret anything from the past, and I never will, but that doesn't mean I don't want the future to be better. We didn't know how to do this--we're still figuring out! But I think we're having a great time and I think the payoff when we release the album (FINALLY) will be more rewarding than we could imagine. I hope it's that way at least.
Here is where I would describe where we're at, except that things are still too discombobulated to properly articulate. Besides that it would be boring to read, much less write. If I had to sum up our current progress I would stay it's "slowly but surely coming along" or some other contrite cliche that bands always give magazines when they're a year away from releasing a new album . That does NOT imply that we're a year away from final release, although full disclosure, we still don't have a final release date. That's just where we're at.
I can tell you that you should be on the lookout in mid-November for #RW4 hashtags. This is for our big semi-annual/annual get-together which we call Reclamation Weekend. During that time we'll try to post vauge, confusing, mostly uninteresting news from it on twitter. So yay for that!
Rather than showing off things we've finished recently and giving you, the reader, dare I say the fan?, something substantial to consume relating to this album, please take a look at the "Money In The Bank" video, or listen to the "Blood In Your Throat" song again, won't you?
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