VIRB

Just a few thoughts I've been having about musicmaking, releases, and whatnot. My newer songs are a bit more conventional than the older ones - not because I necessarily want them to be, they just seem to come out that way. Although they do seem to be lacking choruses - somehow an instrumental crescendo seems more effective. I'm also no longer doing so much sampling and electronic rhythms - mainly because I've lost the habit, I suppose. But the question is, do I want to spend time recording these more conventional songs, or do something more elastic, with more noise and less structure? Once more, with feeling?

Also, I've been thinking about my release plans. The original idea was to release the 2001 CD, "Car Alarms are Entertaining", and then follow that with a new album, whenever that might be ready. On the other hand, as I re-mixed the songs on that CD, it became clear there were some songs I never liked, and some that I wouldn't really release. Also, I wanted to do different vocal takes and mixes with some tracks. So it wouldn't really have been the 2001 album anyway, more of a 2007 version of it. And who apart from me would really be interested in that 2001 release? Or the fact that it was recorded in 2001? People just want good songs. So maybe it would just be better to gather the best songs that I've ever recorded, and make that my first release. Otherwise I'd just be stuck with explaining to people, "oh well, you see this is an older song, I have newer songs now, but they're not out yet".

Which brings another problem - coherence and cohesiveness (hmm, the lingo at work is getting to me). Car Alarms felt a bit scattered already, so what would this new 'compilation' feel like? There would be some Car Alarms songs, then - maybe - some Paris songs like 'People in My Sleep', then the 2005 songs which are quite a cohesive bunch, and then maybe some new ones? The thing is, I'm not really sure about these new songs. On Saturday I contemplated resuming the recording of 'Bubbles', but concluded that it wasn't really worth it. It would just be a second-rate song, nevermind the gymnastics (capo 2nd and 4th fret) involved in recording it, let alone playing it live. There's also the tyranny of the computer - no matter what worthless snippet I happened to record at some point would qualify - but what about those things which were never recorded and which are ten times better?

Last week I recorded a new song called "Wolf Lake" - and it really is a new song, written just two weeks ago. But I'm not really comfortable with the way it sounds yet. Maybe I should try playing it entirely on keyboards? On the other hand, I enjoyed writing on the acoustic guitar again. Will see.