Ouroboros

Prelude:
The week after Christmas, eight of us put together our divine heads for a few days of recording. This process concluded a stretchy yearning having been wanted by us all for quite some time. And finally, amalgamation.

Three from the group reside in Charlottesville, Va, which has made it fairly difficult to collaborate expressively through music. Despite this ramification, Charlottesville has been a sort of inspiration for their musical influence, bringing the mountainous sound we have all been wanting. Another of the Three is classically trained, and harnessed the violin, flute, and saxophone for this session, all of which added an unconventional accent to the music.

I, the drummer and percussionist, approached a very heady and difficult experiment. Though I have been playing with most of the crew since I began my musicianship, this process was alienated. Being akin to studios and careful structuring, this sort of collective improvisation was interesting to envelop. Most of my playing was minimalistic in nature, and very cut back (with few necessary exceptions) with hints of bluegrass, indie, latin, jazz, and post-rock. Blend.

Three of the others live in the house which permitted the session. Sitting chill in the Church Hill district of Richmond, Va, the home has become a sort of Mecca to develop our hive mind of expression. One of the other three plays solo around Richmond and introduces a soft-indie, greenish, melodic sound to the material. Another, his little brother, hosts the blog RagReg and occasionally jumps on the synth or accents with falsetto vocal melodies. Lastly, another tenant of the Church Hill abode has recently returned home from a quarterly move to Colorado. Needless to say, it was a vibrant and bassy effect on the music for his return.

Though we approached it with next-to-no definite or unified material, we left with twelve very organic pieces of music. The arrangements came together almost effortlessly after a short briefing discussion and loose planning. The ensemble consisted of myself, Justin, Mark, Shankar, Franklin, Duncan, and Nick.
First Child:
On the first day the equipment was assembled, mics were tweaked meticulously, and sounds were developed. Shankar (or Shankfiddle) primarily conducted the recording aspect through a single preamp and ProTools. The mic placement varied depending on the amount of drums and instruments used, as well as the vibe and basic sound of the song. We took our rounds of checking the mics, which took up most of the afternoon and evening. This led to dinner.

During a rich meal prepared by all of us, we discussed the project's main goal, which entitled the x amount of songs produced, and an accompanying documentary about the process, further representing us as a whole through visual. With heavy stomachs, we got to work.

Justin and Mark, being the figurehead of the ensemble, presented us with their version of the songs. For hours, we jammed out the songs repeatedly, slowly gaining structure with each pass. Every time, our individual parts were finely chiseled in shape. Shankar, though, mostly played improvisational and unconventional instruments over top of necessary parts through the whole process. It all came together by the next day.

Post Scriptum: Shankar bewildered our imaginations by twirling fire in the audience of the city. Constant circles.


In Stone:
That next morning, after waking up in arbitrary but comfortable spots, breakfast was made. (One always gets fed properly at the house). Allegorical morning conversation arose, and a well-needed coffee trip was made to Captain Buzzy's. Now, time to work.

We began with a short early sun jam to assure the mics were sounding well. We woke up our dreary ears. Though the jams lasted a little too long, we eventually go to work, beginning with a briefing. This consisted of differentiating the song we would play live as a group, and which songs would be over-dubbed later by the appropriate part. We also noted ideas for songs, and I wrote down my parts in word-for-word descriptions. This helped alot en masse of the songs.

The live songs naturally came first. If I recall correctly, the most takes we took was around six for a particular song, so the process went fairly easily. Though when the ensemble approached the over-dubbing parts, it became arduous. Abhorrent tempo differences (since we did not record to a click track) were the biggest issue. So, we decided to do a quasi-live, loud drum tracking to necessary tracks while guitar accompanied softly, as a sort of scratch guitar. Scratch vocals also helped to map out the songs while we recorded the "OD" songs.

After ghoulish hours of constant recording and silence in the house, Patrick Henry housed us and fed us.

The rest of the night was focused on Franklin's influenced songs. Drums were reduced to minimalist percussion, riddled with simplicity, as appropriate. These few songs were recorded using the "live" method. They were technically different than Justin and Mark's styled ones, but fit as though they were all uniformly sounding.


Destination:
By the last day, I had left. From word of mouth, I have heard that the recording was successfully accomplished. Currently, it is being mixed for release in the near future. As said above, a short film will be released synonymously with the music, which I will all link in my blog.

This session was a true boundless ascension--that which we all collectively traveled together, linked at the head. As I do with every act of musicianship, I cultivated and flourished. Exposure to the endless variety of sound reverts to versatility, something I mainly consume as pragmatic.

Though no name has been given to the ensemble or album, the thing we created is beautiful. I hope you will enjoy this nameless form, and keep updated for the album and video.

-FaceMouthEar