I've just returned from a weekend away, with the bulk of my time spent recording music in a studio. It was invigorating and tasking in equal measure. We started on Friday in the early evening and worked well past midnight until we could barely keep our eyes open. We went to bed in the early hours of Saturday morning for a few hours, resumed recording by mid-morning, and put in another long day in the studio. Sunday was less intense, seeing as we wrapped up in the early afternoon, just in time for me to board the train home. In the coming weeks, I'll share more about my plans for the resulting body of work, but for now, the moment feels right for some reflection.
The seed for this work was planted 2 years ago. We decided to have a go at recording a single track to see how it would turn out. One track turned into a few tracks, so we talked about putting out an EP, but as we worked towards the EP, even that didn't feel right. I had this nagging feeling that the work wanted – no, needed – to be something more, so here we are, many months later, on the cusp of a full-length album. What started without a solid plan has turned into this full-blown project with a roadmap, one which we've worked towards with intention, and for which we've had lots of support along the way.
I say all this not to brag, but to highlight the fact that the unusual genesis and subsequent evolution of this work has afforded me an opportunity to compare where I was 2 years ago to where I am now. I don't have to cast my mind back or rely on unreliable memories for this comparison because the evidence exists in the form of the first track we recorded in the summer of 2022. During one of our sessions this weekend, in between song recordings we re-listened to that first track, and what struck me was the difference between the track and the other ones we'd worked on this weekend. The difference was clear as day, so much so that my friend and producer remarked on how much better my vocals had gotten in the 2 years, as well as how much smoother our recording process had become, especially pertaining to recording the guitar parts. This might not sound like a big deal, but it is to me, because when I cast my mind back to our first session, I recall that my guitar technique was a lot more tentative and I had a lot less confidence in my vocal abilities than I do now.
Of course, this isn't to say I've maxed out on confidence, or that there's no more room to grow in this regard. Far from it. That said, the recording from 2 years ago serves as a solid benchmark for comparison, and the discernible delta between that recording and the most recent ones provides concrete, empirical evidence that I'm not where I used to be on my creative path, that I've not stagnated on this musical journey I'm on, and that things are trending in the right direction. And that's all I could ever hope for, because, at the end of the day, isn't that what this is all about?
P.S.: My debut non-fiction book, Art Is The Way, and my middle-grade novella, A Hollade Christmas, are out everywhere now. You can get them in all good bookstores and from all major online vendors.