It Even Includes The Cold-Gel Feeling On The Stomach

Hi, my name is Ben and I dispense blueberries from my nose.

We're going to need more than one page for this.

It's the night before the weekend where we finish the album. This post shouldn't be too long, but I thought you might like an insight into what's going through my head right now:

We've got a lot to do over the next couple of days - Luke and I have chatted about the best way to approach the work we've got to get through before the album's done and we feel like it's the time in the recording process to switch from part-by-part to track-by-track. Basically we're going to sit at each song until it's done (done at least before, next week, spotting all of the things that we've missed), mixed and ready to be mastered. 

We've got extra guitar parts, vocal harmonies, synths and a whole bucketload of other little tricks to finish off before the songs are even fully recorded and that's what I've been working on over the last couple of weeks. At least, I'm supposed to have been. As far as vocal harmonies and synth parts go, those are fine; it's fairly straightforward to start hearing those as I've been listening through the songs as they stand. On the other hand, additional guitar parts need actual figuring out and practicing - which is no problem for me normally, until life slaps a hand on my shoulder and says "you have to do it now". What is normally, as you can imagine, one of the happiest and most satisfying facets of my life soon becomes a whole lot like work when I put a deadline and actual aim to it.

I'm actually in a bit of a quandry over these extra guitar parts - when I'm noodling through the tracks, there are several parts that work (and some that work so well as for it to be criminal to leave them out), but I can't decide whether my general feeling that 'less is more' is a symptom of unfortunate laziness on my part or a sign that the songs genuinely don't need any more. I don't know, but I'm kind of hoping I'll figure the answer out at some point over the next two days (although tonight would be nice).

Having possibly made this blog entry sound like I'm dreading the next two days; possibly having made them sound like a horrific ordeal of work and effort that I might not even reach the other side of, you have to believe I'm really more excited than I've been in a long time. It's been a long process writing and recording this album - in fact I was recently looking back to the blog entry from early on last year when I'd first starting writing the songs for it, which now feels like a long time ago - but it's nearly done. Not to draw too strangled a metaphor, but I've been looking at the ultrasound scans of this album, watching it develop eyes and ears for weeks, but now it's time to get the hell in with the caesarean and drag this sucker kicking and screaming into the world.

YOU ARE UPDATE!

- Ben x