Here's how I've been spending my mornings when Mikey and I aren't recording or writing. I've been scoring the whole piece. The first 2 movements are almost complete, save for lyrics and a few percussion parts. The completed piece will take 42 musicians to perform and we won't have a conductor either. The idea is to have 4 - 5 separate click tracks running to each of the sections. Alright, I have to stop talking about this stuff and finish it!
Mikey and I have been at work pretty hard over the past couple of months. We decided to record an old song to be released within the next month or so to keep you at bay while we wrap up the Decameron. Wende finished up with the texts over Thanksgiving break and they are quite great! We are putting them to the music right now and will hopefully be finished with the piece and score by spring. We have also been talking with a local orchestra and are working out the details for the premiere (we'll keep you up to date as we find out more).
The good news is that we'll have a new song up on the bandcamp site very, very soon. The bad news is that...there is no bad news! Things are going great!!!
Enjoy this short, silly, and poor quality video of Mikey recording his guitar part to the new song. We're recording at his house with his pet snake, Snake. We are still recording string parts and an F. horn part but the trumpet & trombone tracks are finished and they sound pretty amazing.
The majority of the music for the album is done. It's been going so smoothly I'm a little concerned there might be some rough roads ahead; but I'll keep my fingers crossed. Beginning in late May we've created around 45 minutes of music with 9 individual songs that are grouped in movements of 3. Mikey and I will be meeting with our lyricist this weekend to hammer out the details of the texts. Our videographer will be joining us too. The idea behind this is to have a making of documentary to accompany the album once it's complete. Maybe we'll post some of that meeting after it happens...maybe? For now, you should listen to Leo Brouwer's "El Decameron Negro". This is the piece from which our story will be derived. This is just the first of three movements; enjoy!
There has been a long period of silence from us over the past year it seems. The last thing we did was the Barroco Festival at the Goat Farm in November 2010. (That's happening again this year so be on the lookout). Mikey and Brett are in the beginning stages of a major undertaking that we think will be a great tealights record. We have brought in a writer to help with the lyrics as the story of the album needs to be told in a comprehensive way and none of us posses the literary prowess to accomplish something as big as this; let alone translate the original story!
So here's the deal, We'll release something soon, just as a teaser of the new writing style and aesthetic but we can't say when. We want you to know that we're still very much alive and kicking! Thanks for your continued support and we'll see you soon!
In the meantime, check out this video/song that brett made. It won a composition competition.
