Thoughts on the Recordings

When we recorded "From the Lamplight", we had such a vague idea of what being in a studio meant. We'd basically walk in, say "OK, what songs were we going to do?" and pick from the ether. The parts were simply what we performed live. Live was what we did, experiment and share.

It was nice, because the basement of CMU became our stage. We just jammed, the way we do it. There were no pauses or punch-ins. Riccardo is very well versed in capturing classical performances, where a mistake would mean re-recording the entire piece. If we weren't happy with my part of the performance, theoretically I could have re-done it, as I was isolated, but Will and Jason couldn't, and I think I chose that option only once. There were so little frills that all the extra vocals on Afar, the last track on the album, might seem like a crescendo.

Tracks like Evergreen were tricky. Sometimes, we couldn't capture the essence, sometimes the melodies weren't in perfect harmony. So, we took a break from that song to record Boomerang, and, last minute, like, "ok we can do one more if it will take less then 5 minutes", and we said, "one more time?" and it was the best of the bunch. Not perfect, but we were still learning to communicate through the windows.

In the City was one that was recorded in one take. Just , *~Bam*! Done. Jason added in the lead line and we had a song. I don't think he'd written the lead before entering that booth. I re-worked the pre-chorus behind the mic. There was a lot of that kind of improvisational certainty.

I can't wait to share some of these dooper-new songs...

Goodnight, diary, & perhaps our friends out there!
emay & BL