BURN

pardon the lengthy absence
i have been slaving away at the microphone and mixing desk
i have been picking and plucking
crooning and comping
ooing and aahing
to get this thing finished
and now ive just burned the first master of menagerie
twelve tracks tended lovingly to fruition
a single-handed forty-five-minute audio symphony
courtesy of fireseed studios
album number six
the second in eight months
i guess that makes me prolific!
but is it any good?
well
a new record always feels like a personal best
fresh, clean and vulnerable
at least as fresh as the result of hundreds of man-hours can be
tweaking and rerecording and correcting flat vocals and dodgy timings
listening to it all the way through on a proper hifi
it's like birthing and nursing a new-born babe
there are a few innovations that i'm quite pleased with
there are a lot of piano ballads on this one
plus a few more upbeat piano songs
certainly not so many jangly guitars
although they crop up here and there to add colour and warmth
an aura of ethereal mystery or a touch of hard-edged angularity
writing on piano has definitely freshened things up a bit
moving further away from the old formula of guitar, bass and drums
the vocals continue to improve
i've learned to relax and croon instead of straining for more volume
of course there's a bit of a concept going on
i guess i don't need to tell you that
i like 'as wide as the sky' for its wide-eyed innocent beauty
'shopping aisle' for its tongue-in-cheek humour and observation
'renunciation' for its melty middle 8 and vocal performance
'meniscus' for each spirituality and emotion
an eleventh-hour coup de grace
a nice a range meant
there's some very pretty guitar flourishes on that one
i think there are some pretty good lyrics too
though i say it myself
i put that down to divine inspiration
being just a conduit (nitwit?) and all that
anyway i hope you'll like it
even if you don't buy it
i'll put some tracks up on mice pace for your free peru sal
happy listening!