STORYTOWN: The Album

OK y'all, we are recording an album, with initial sessions in September.  I have a name for the album as well as a tentative list of songs.  ALL SECRET FOR NOW :-).  

Choosing which songs to include is hard.  We have limited time in the studio to record what are called the "basic tracks" -- the fundamental instrumental parts played by each band member.  Those tracks will constitute the songs that will appear on the album.  Not surprisingly I'd like to record more songs than I think we have time for.

The basic tracks need to sound good (no - great!) and be relatively free of flubs.  In subsequent weeks we will record the vocals separately as well as add additional tracks -- guitar and keyboard solos, extra percussion, etc.  

In our most recent gig we played a new song called "Broken Promise Land".  It has a guitar part that originally I had conceived as a sung part, somewhat in a style called Qawwali.  I have found a Qawwali-style singer who has agreed to sing this part on the album recording, and I'm pretty excited about that.  More about this and about the singer as we get closer to the recording dates.

In that same gig we played another new song called "Sad".  It has very little instrumentation other than guitar and a bit of bass and a bit of piano here and there.  A good friend of mine has agreed to play upright bass on this song, and I'm pretty excited about that TOO.

I may have mentioned this before, but a painter friend intends to paint the album cover.  He's due to show me some stuff soon.  And as you might have guessed, I'm pretty excited about THAT.

I will report on progress once we're underway.  So stay tuned.