I'd considered moving into painting today, but I found I had space to sing, so recorded the vocals for 'More'. I'd planned for many layers initially, but these were gradually paired down, and in the end only a sole lead vocal was used. The rest of the day was spent adding those vocals and making a million tiny changes to the song, including adding the organ solo which was played live then quantised in MIDI, for the sake of two notes which were annoyingly out of place.
Then some more stabby organs in the main song (these are all sequenced, they're crude Korg samples), and finally a telephone effect and other little things. I'm thinking that it might be nice to have a phone conversation in here.
I've re-listened to a few older songs today. Not too old, from Remembrance Service and The Golden Age; two, three years. Mike Drew said that The Golden Age was my best album, or at least his favourite of the ones he's heard, which are only the two since it. The Golden Age songs are the more rocky than the albums after that, and I can agree with him while appreciating the good songs on the other albums too. I remember how I was happy with Remembrance Service at the time, that it sounded good and produced well, but now it sounds in need of better mixing; too heavy in bass and the vocals too quiet. We Robot was the first album which to use the oh-so-useful spectrum analysis feature in Prometheus.
I can do better now. All of the albums since 2020 were experiments, intended to be re-mastered later. Only The Dusty Mirror has been redone so far. I can't wait to do the others, but making new work is more important than polishing old work.
My singing is certainly better today than ever before. How much better some of those old songs could be (though there's no way I'd mess with the expressive vocals on tracks like Be My Jesus). I must add more feeling to songs. Quality of production must not compromise emotion, but this tightrope is easily fallen off, especially today. Good art is an equal balance of order and chaos, no more, no less.
What next for art? Who can say. I must learn to slow down a little. I must roll my rock rather than push with all of my intense might and speed.
