Any More Than Four Strings and He'd Be Lost

Hi, my name is Ben and I'm banned in the state of Utah.

I often talk about how I'm so lucky to be surrounded by friends who are either more-than-adept musicians, or avid afficionados of music in general. I never used to consider an appreciation of music to be an unusual quality in a person, until I started growing up a little bit and meeting a much wider variety of people. Now, in the same way that I've grown to be the only person in certain groups of friends who (thanks to a healthy time spent living in the countryside) considers two miles to be well within walking distance, I've come to realise that living surrounded by musician friends is more of a rare gift than I'd previously imagined.

If it's rare to find enough of these people around to figure out an at least semi-functioning social group, I can't even find the probabilities or metaphors to say how fortunate it is that I've got the best of them all for a brother. Yesterday, Joe and I went to Luke's studio to carry on recording the new album by spending the day tracking bass. Building on Frank's still-steaming drum parts, the recording process went very smoothly - Joe's managed to write and learn bass parts for nine songs on the album whilst juggling changing jobs and planning moving away within the next couple of weeks, so to be honest I'm amazed he even managed to wound the tracks, let alone kill them completely.

Joe and bass playing, sitting in a tree

Joe describes his bass playing as being popular through being unconventional and if I can offer any unnecessary analysis of his contribution to my solo recordings, this is exactly what makes his parts so perfect. He's not playing restrained by any (and I mean any) knowledge of silly things like 'musical theory' at the best of times, so when my solo projects push his playing style further away from the music we've made together in the past, it doesn't faze him in the slightest - possibly because these different styles all just twist and meld into the maelstrom of musical misapprehension that is his bass playing anyway. I think the best way to sum it up is that he's able to communicate his musical ideas without having to translate through scales or time signatures - and I figure that's not a bad way to be.

K-I-S-S-I-N-G

As far as the state of the album goes now, with the rhythm section at least recorded (if not mixed or treated at all yet), the songs are really starting to take shape. The drums have given each of the songs their general 'feel' and now, the bass lines have filled out these suggestions and started to colour them in a little - where before there was a simple, mellow break, now there's an ominous musical landscape; what used to be thrashed out power chords for a chorus has now become a running, melodic sing-along. All of this is going to help me over the next few weeks in figuring out final guitar parts and vocal arrangements.

I hate to announce timescales like this, because nothing is ever as simple as you first think, but at this rate (and with Luke and I both away for a couple of weeks coming up) we should have a finished album by the end of March, ready for release around late spring. This is, of course, open to a lot of change, but that's the plan at any rate.

Look at Luke's positive mental attitude!

I'll try and keep you posted if anything interesting happens over the next few weeks - it'll be a bit of a wait before I record guitars, but who knows what may happen before then?

YOU ARE UPDATE!

- Ben