A nice day yesterday mixing the vocals for the last four tracks. The Jabberwocky was the most complex, it varies a lot in dynamism and mood so the instruments can clash. Vocal mixing isn't difficult. The only real key with vocal is cut out the bass and add the right amount of reverb; rarely are vocals processed in more complex ways but one of my favourite effects remains a panned single-tap delay fed through a band-pass filter. It gives a distant memory quality.
The next track was Herr Kasperle which had more emphasis on vocals. Tracks vary on how much emphasis vocals get. Country music tends to put the vocals front and centre of the mix, twice the volume of everything else. Other music types can blend as much as desired. Def Leppard's Hysteria has vocals so quiet you can barely make them out - well I can't hear any of the songs all of the way through. I think that's an example of what not to do, I surmised the singer lacked confidence and wanted to bury his vocals, but sometimes the sounds of the words can matter more than the meanings; I love a few French and German pop songs without understanding them.
Then Dead Hand, our answer to Wuthering Heights which is so dark and brooding it makes Kate Bush's song sound like bubblegum pop. This is an amazing track. I wrote it as a solo piano work about two years ago, for my 99 Men Falling project, an album of lonely piano music in the mould of Erik Satie. The idea for that album is that all of the tracks were improvised in one take to capture the mood I was exactly feeling at the time, so the piano was recorded live in one take; an ebb and flow of 'real-time' mood, which is the essence of all good music.
I wanted to include it on the album but it seemed too long and dreary, but I thought it might work with some words, so I asked Deb if she would like to read a poem to it. The bleak mood of Dead Hand seemed perfect. I added some genuine Northern English wind to it, recorded two days ago, and the backing track was complete. Deb listened to the backing through headphones and read her words. The words fitted so perfectly with the ebb and flow of the music that it's amazing that they two parts were written completely independently. Her poem itself was written years before I met her. And yet, the result has become one of the unexpected most powerful tracks of the whole album.
The last one to mix was Siamese Twin Domestic, which, as I've written before was tortuously long to write, but has worked brilliantly and is nothing like anything anyone has made before. I don't think anyone would have produced the five minutes or so of music I've written for it given the ten short lines. In one last twist I reversed the vocals and overlaid them onto the forward vocals - sort of conjoining them, in the same way that sole melody is reversed at the end.
So this music is done, pending final listens and tweaks, which need a few days pause. What a luxury it would be to only work on the music of an album, and/or the live performance. But I have the artwork to make, any and all music videos, plan single releases and far more... yet I ideally want to keep working on my music... my important work. So many times have I wanted to go back to Beethoven and prod him to keep working on hit 10th symphony, irrespective of his mood and health and finances, to prod van Gogh to paint more, than his work will, one day, be appreciated. Ever since I became an artist I feel spirits from the future telling me this.
The artwork and videos are mainly important to me as art; to make them the best I can. I also hope that others will find and like the music, that something will be a breakthrough hit and lead to great wealth and fame, or at least noticed. I know or, well, believe that the music I'm making is good and pushing new boundaries of all sorts, but I'm aware than my work is ignored. I read that Nick Drake sold less than 5000 copies of his albums. I've sold less than 3 for almost all of them; The Flatspace Soundtrack has sold about 10, which is the biggest seller, and of course not at all representative of my music now. Of course thanks to streaming, most tracks have had one listen at least, and sometimes several thousand.
This of course does not discourage me because I'm aware of similar problems with many artists of the past. Being the best artist and best person I can is the important thing. I am aware that sometimes feedback from fans or critics is unhelpful, perhaps it is always unhelpful, and most artists try to ignore it anyway. An artist can't make art to please others, only himself, and the temptation for 'hits' or other prizes generally creates bad work. It also, at least, creates generic work that blurs and blends in with the times rather than being truly new and different. Perhaps, like Steve Hackett said when he left the band, Genesis should have stopped becoming mainstream and continued to embrace creativity. Of course, the flip side is that sometimes making pop songs or catchy music can be new and different... in the Genesis context, they had made lots of experimental and fantastical work and wanted to make new and different material. Even my most pop-like music was made not for commercial attraction, but to be different and to explore different areas of music. I do and will occasionally aim for the mainstream of music for this reason and for cultural relevance, which is important. The potential commercial or popular impact isn't because it's a fickle and stupid target. I am digressing.
I can't function as a person in other context except as lone artist. Even the easy 6-months of part time work at Red Shift Radio made me suicidal in that time; the sheer soullessness of that life. A normal job is one where if you quit, someone else would take over and do exactly the same thing, making your life pointless. Most people create a family to support, and their meaning is therefore to support them, the job is only means to that end. Artists, will never have or need such a thing, though van Gogh and Beethoven foolishly strove for this. For me, my work and my art is my life and my purpose, joyously so.
What a long post! Now, to a new day of creation. A first day of rest after weeks of work on this music. I will permit myself an hour or two; not much more. I have a duty to humanity to fulfil. Onward!
