A busy couple of days, finalising the work on the Remembrance Service album. These last stages take a long time, partly because these final looks, listens, checks need a clear palette to appreciate them anew... ideally I'd wait a week or few days, but I can't afford to wait, really. I've been working on the cover art too, which has take a long time. I quickly settled on several options which were the same apart from a myriad of colour choices. I showed about eight to Deb and she chose two:
She preferred the first, I prefer the second. I still haven't decided. A face is best visible on any cover, or generally, any art, as humans are attuned to faces. There is also merit in choosing another's preference. If I chose everything and toyed with it to my ideal preference, all of my covers would start to look similar, and all of my music sound similar too. I will use the second cover elsewhere in the printing, if any CD copies of this album are ever printed, which would only occur in the case of some wild future success.
Musically and creatively, this is among my best work, after a few intense years of steady improvement and hard work (including programming upgrades) on production, vocal, and guitar work. The full title Remembrance Service For Those Who Died Homeless Postponed is such a mouthful that even I keep forgetting it - but this was the phrase which I read and became inspired by, so I must retain it for reasons of artistic authenticity. This is an art album; art rock, surrealist rock, whatever, but anything unusual about the cover and title, in these circumstances, are merits. In art, what is strange now, will be mainstream in future.
I must now charge into more albums, and some more recording and use of new timbres from my MODX. I'm happy and full of energy for new music and new art.
