Hello everyone!
After our first few locations were heavily stacked with studio time, Portland was a chance to stop, take a breather, and catch up on some tedious, but much needed, detail work. So, with some classic Northwest cloudy weather and excellent coffee to keep us fueled (thank you Heart Roasters), we spent quite a few hours editing tracks and revising lyrics.
At risk of being a bit repetitious, let me just take the opportunity to explain exactly where we are at with our three songs for this first EP. Before we began this trip, Ben and I worked hard to create demo versions that accurately represented the structure, feel, and direction we envisioned for each song. We then took these demos with us on the trip and used them as the starting points to rethink the tracks. Beginning with the drums then moving to the bass and keys, we have used the expertise of those we’ve worked with in each city to make the songs even better. Sometimes that means keeping the original parts just as they are, but sometimes that means cutting them out completely, re-recording them to be even stronger, or adding in something entirely new that takes it in a different direction.
As you can imagine, that method has brought in some unique elements that we are incredibly excited about, but it also has left us with lots of pieces that need to be drawn together to maintain cohesiveness within each song. Thus, along the way we have been composing new melodies, changing parts, and editing each element of each song so we are ready for the next phase of recording.
But we’d be lying if we made it sound like we were “hard at work” the whole time we were in Portland…
In the excellent company of our friends John and Dana, we explored a bit of Forest Park, went to several thrift stores and unique shops, took full advantage of a day of sunshine with a hike to see Punchbowl Falls, and ATE. With Dana’s fantastic cooking (we celebrated her cookbook being released while we were there, it’s AMAZING and you should check it out), delicious tacos, brunch with Ben’s cousin, gluten free pizza, and grilling with new friends...it’s a good thing we spent a lot of time walking around the city to make up for it!
We are now finishing up our time in Austin, Texas and will be headed next to New York to work on the guitar tracks. I’ve never been, so send us some recommendations!
- L
