journal

So I left off in 2003 with some preliminary work on ideas for a new Electrum record. While we were making decent progress from the fall of 03 through mid 04 it did become clear to me that I would have time to continue to work on my own material as well. Much of this new material are leftover bits of things that were not used on any of the Electrum songs.


Now back to this percussionist who had so foolishly bravely volunteered for this most un-prestigious gig. His name incidentally is Bryan Powers. As I mentioned in part 1 we were introduced by our mutual friend Lenny who is the IT/Networking guru at the software shop I work at. Just from talking to him a couple of times it was clear we shared a lot of the same influences and he enjoys the playing of a lot of the same drummers I do. So it seemed like a good fit. But since I was still short on material for a full release and had work to do with Electrum I didn't want him to spend a lot of time cranking out drum tracks till I had a full CD of material and was sure I would publish it.

So in 03 and 04 some new pieces came together. The first is a song tentatively titled "The Water Discipline" (see Dune novels). It is based on what was originally a big chunk of the middle section of "Seven Falls, Eight Rises" from the Second Electrum CD. I elected to cut it out of that piece to make it a tad more concise. Its got a hypnotic groove and a gentle melody and I'm thinking it might make a nice closer for the record.

Next I came up with a jazzy piece called "Celestial Navigation" that was originally intended for Electrum. I presented a very rough arrangement to the guys but it didn't go over all that well. Time with Electrum is too scarce to waste on music we aren't all sold on so I decided to pursue it on my own.

I had a couple of ideas I was having a very hard time fitting to anything. Eventually after many months of sitting on my harddrive these became a piece that presently has the unfortunately working title "Fires of Autumn". Its a really bad working title, but I really enjoy that season, one of the themes is a variation on an old Irish folk melody called "Autumn", and it was written in the Fall of last year. So while the title is likely to change it probably won't be called "Spring Break".

At this point I knew I was close to having enough material. I just needed one more piece, preferably an energetic one to go near the front of the record. So I set to work on a variation of "Frames of Mind part 1" off the first Electrum record. The idea to do such a thing occurred a year or two ago when I accidentally stumbled on a variation of the quiet theme but played on piano. So I coupled a melody to that, came up with a couple of rhythm guitar parts for the heavy themes that bounce off each other and a day or two later "Don't Mind Me" was ready to go.

Now you might wonder why not play that song with Electrum....well Gino would probably kill me if I made him record the same song twice.


Speaking of bass playing, who the hell is going to play bass on this record? Good question, but that's another entry.