Inner Ear: Days 4 & 5

well into the sessions to complete this beast of a record. hunter and i have finished up all of our parts (drums, samples, the "R2D2" drums, glockenspiel, percussion, guitars, mellotron). as such, he and i are falling back into the normal (incredibly frustrating) life of work during the day while making our appearances at the studio in the evening times.

carlos, tom and eamonn are still at it strong though... even in spite of making consistent stops at the now venerable institution that is weenie beenie (mmm... bacon egg and cheese on toast... it'll get you movin' in the mornin'... and the afternoon... and as the essential last minute run to grab more of that addictive grease prior to this particular institution's closing time of 6pm). i'm not sure how one can remain "strong" eating such things with such frequency... but some things are better left untouched and unsolved. those three cats are simply beyond explanation.

so let's see:

i don't think any of us had any expectation to be as far along as we are. basically, every track for the 7 songs we walked in to record from scratch (as well as every track for the 6 previous songs we had recorded in session #2 back in the 'ol 2008) are done. this is highly uncharacteristic of bellflur. i suppose this is a tip of the hat to the pre-production and rehearsals. so we find ourselves with 5 additional days to record strings, horns, and vocals... and some extra time to screw around with things (which lord knows where that will go).

the stunner so far for me (while they all are sounding mighty fine) is we can build you. quite possibly because this was the one tune we didn't quite know how the end result would pan out. one of those walking the line songs where the recording has an equal chance of success or failure. but damn, its sounding great. hunter came in at the last minute with some incredible drum/synth samples. tom's bass line. carlos' doubling the piano with the acoustic guitar... its his own guided tour to pleasure town for all future listeners of this song (apologies, we were watching anchorman last night). AND... we had "our" cellist elizabeth come out to work through some ideas and did an impromptu recording at the outro of we can build you and, my my... it sounds like a cello (much to eamonn's relief)... and it sounds absolutely incredible.

** and by "our" cellist, i mean a person of considerable cello-ing skill who was kind enough to come record some cello on this here record of ours **

tom was able to record his long awaited quiqa (i don't even know how to spell that damn word) part on ghost ships. i still haven't heard it, but my understanding is that it somehow works well. i'm sure he'll get into it in more detail on his next posting (which should be sometime very soon and include pictures).

we're currently weighing the debate of sample clearance for two samples used in two separate songs. i'll not say which ones at the moment. perhaps that's a new blog survey... to clear or not to clear a sample? i feel i've said too much on this subject.

hunter and i did lots of percussion overdubs last night on rhythms of waking and sleeping... to include eamonn bringing down an old marching drum from the loft of inner ear studios. also a few drum overdubs on activate your cancelled check and ghost ships.

mellotron stuff on ghost ships and we can build you. lovely rhodes piano and dual guitar single note picking on fits and stops and starts.

i myself got to have some fun at the bridge of the new and improved version of insect politician. reverse reverb using what turns out to be a completely useless reverb pedal (hardwire stereo reverb) on any other setting in the pedal's sound portfolio... along with some teaspoon. ahh... the teaspoon. yes. the teaspoon is an effect pedal... and it saves my ass when i'm on the verge of fucking up a take.

anyways, things are moving along splendidly. i'll be redoing a glockenspiel part this evening, reamping a guitar part through a kaoss pad. but other than that, i believe carlos and tom are heavy into vocals today, with guest musicians later in the week. one or two special guest vocals on a couple of songs... possibly saturday the 7th!! the exit clovers (susan and emily) as well as elizabeth cello are slated to come do group string sessions on friday... assuredly an event that we will document on video as they are all better musicians than we :)

so until the next posting... take care. sleep well. keep your cute hat on.

patri-flur