At Mexicali Live w/ the CS Gray Band. Photo by Vernon Webb.

This time, I set myself a schedule to write six songs over the course of January: one every five days. I came up with the first two songs in ten days, but I ground to a halt shortly after.

My friend Chris Gray asked me to fill in for his band’s bass player for a gig on January 28. It was a hell of a lot of fun — the rehearsals and the show. Aside from one duo gig in 2006, I hadn’t played with a group of any kind in 8 years(!) and I really missed it.

I suspect that it was some combination of setting the January writing schedule and playing with the group (and who knows what else) that shifted my album goals. I recognized that I needed to define the scope of the music more.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I had a lot of influences fueling this project. Here’s a quick recap of my main preoccupations: Jeff Beck’s mid-70s fusion records; Jimmy Page solo stuff; Led Zeppelin; John Scofield with MMW; The Meters; Booker T and the M.G.s. There’s a lot of difference in that music, but the list splits pretty cleanly into two categories: amp-loud and drummer-loud.

Drummer-loud, to me, is the volume level of a band that uses the drummer’s level to calibrate the rest. Amp-loud is the norm in rock: the guitars run the show and the drummer has to be miked to be heard. In performance without a PA, the amp-loud drummer has to hit harder to be heard: the kick drum gets lost and the cymbals become white noise. The amp-loud band is at home on the bigger stage, with a good PA. Then nuance returns to the drummer and the rest of the band.

Beyond mere volume, though, I think the music you write is going to be different for an amp-loud band vs a drummer-loud band. I’m not sure exactly where the difference lies, but I can feel it in there.

Amp-loud playing has its charms (believe me — I’m a guitar player) but my own project needs to be drummer-loud. And I think some of my recent songs were written with an amp-loud band in mind. (See the last post about writing for a phantom band: The Band That Did Not Exist.)

Another dividing line that got clearer in January involves the rock shuffle. I’ll try to get into that next time.

Oh, and here’s the split: amp-loud: Zeppelin, Beck, Page; drummer-loud: The Meters, Booker T. and the M.G.s, Scofield w/ MMW. One caveat: you can, of course, make any drummer-loud band amp-loud in different settings; basically, introducing a PA can do it very easily.

CS Gray Band - photo by Vernon Webb

I’ve been thinking a lot about style and arrangement lately. In fact the closer I get to wrapping up the composition phase of this album, the more important it seems.

I’ve gone about this album in an unconventional way. First of all, it’s an album for a group that doesn’t exist yet. And it’s not easy to write for a group that doesn’t exist. Duke Ellington famously wrote for the specific musicians in his band. Most rock and jazz composers do that.

It’s been a challenge. For one thing, the idea of what the band sounds like changes. One day, depending on the musical ideas I come up with, the band sounds like Jimmy Page’s solo album, or one of Jeff Beck’s records from ’75-’81. Another day the band is lean and interlocking, like The Meters. Another day it’s laid back and sophisticated like John Scofield with Medeski Martin & Wood. Or it’s a bit post-rocky. Or slightly Radiohead. Zeppeliny. Or, in one case that gave me a particularly hard time, early Pink Floyd.

One begins to feel that one is shooting in the dark (and probably missing the mark).

I expected this particular challenge from the start, which is why I tried to consciously model some of the writing I was doing on certain records. To borrow a band, so to speak. I’ve written a few of the pieces like this, but most times the ideas that I find most interesting don’t fit into the program.

To counter that problem, I set my goal at 18 compositions, figuring I could discard 6-8 once I had them all in view at the same time. It may work. Hopefully I’ll find that I have a unified group — that I can then make even more unified by bringing in a group to play them.

As of now, 14 tracks are written, and 4 more planned by Feb 1. I’m a little behind on my writing at the moment, so we’ll see if it happens like that. And of course, worst case, if I find in February that I need more compositions to round out a group, I can take some more time for that. More soon…

There is no one who, if he listens to himself, does not discover in himself a pattern all his own, a ruling pattern, which struggles against education.

– Michel de Montaigne, quoted in How to Live, or, A Life of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell (translation: Donald Frame)

This is an album of experimental guitar sounds, often constructed around Beaudreau’s instrumental skills, but equally likely to foreground aleatory elements such as the sounds of accidental contact with the strings or body of the instrument, or environmental sounds such as passing traffic. Where the focus is on melody, various strategies are employed to disrupt a conventional response. The result of all this is not to make something difficult or forbidding, but to focus the attention on the act of listening, and to share Beaudreau’s pure love of sound. He happens to be a guitarist, but he seems to be a man who experiences the world through his ears, and this album represent his experience in a way that is certainly challenging, but is also highly engaging, and to my ears, beautiful.

Many thanks, Oli! Some other very interesting titles listed too: have a look here: oliverarditi.com.

And of course you can listen to the album yourself

Sheet from the calendar of Johannes Regiomontanus, printed in Augsburg, Erhard Ratdolt, 1499.

After Java St was released my attitude changed. I had gotten some attention for the album and I wanted to build what momentum I could. I released Fresh Twigs in 2008 and Astral Law (serially) in 2010-11. But after the wrap-up of the sustained-release of Astral Law, which culminated with a physical issue on CDR, my attitude started to change again. The music was changing too. What I’m working on now is very different from the music on those first albums. It’s simpler, more direct, communal, and a return to my “roots.” Hate to use that phrase, but that’s close to it.

I now find it to be positive that the new stuff is so different from my first three albums. Initially the idea of “starting over” was disturbing, but now I’m alright with it. In a way it’s not a new process — Java St Bagatelles was very much a fresh start after playing rock for many years. So I’m embracing the sense of starting fresh. I’m not feeling any pressure to move things along in any timeframe; there’s no momentum to keep up, since I’d imagine that the audience for the new stuff will only tangentially overlap with the first albums anyway. And even if that were not the case, it feels better to work on this project without extrinsic pressure.

Right now there are 9 songs sketched out — some more fully than others, with 2 more in the works. I’ve also been thinking that I’ll include “Dunebuggy” and “The Devil Is a Sad Spirit” in the bunch — though whether I use the existing versions for the demo or try new ones I’m not sure yet.

Then, whenever I have enough tracks done — I’m thinking 15, but maybe more as they seem to be getting better as I go — I’ll take the bunch of them and go looking for a co-producer to make the album stronger than I’d be able to make it on my own.

My 2006 album Java St Bagatelles. Note the composition.

My 2008 album Fresh Twigs. I guess this one is pretty obvious.

My 2011 album Astral Law. Note the texture and concept.

And, of course, the working title of the album I’m currently writing is IV.

I say “demo,” because once I have an album’s worth of material — a bit more, really, because I want to be able to choose only the best stuff — I’ll approach someone to help me produce the record. And possibly (probably) re-record it at that point, with a proper tracking engineer and good equipment.

I don’t know how that’s going to be paid for, but since I’m only about halfway through with the composition stage it’s not urgent that I figure it out. Yet.

So that makes six demos recorded — well, really more like five demos and one sketch (“Union Square 2″ is currently only two guitars approximating the whole arrangement). Close to a half-hour of music.

I hope to post a sample of something here soon. So far the only sounds I’ve posted from this project are in-progress work on “Urhixidur, and a video of drummer Scott Persson tracking “Eris.”

It’s been a long summer. Long, long, long, and I’m glad that autumn is (supposed to be) here in New York.

I’ve been paying attention to Peter Green a lot lately. Peter Green and the fantastic sound of that first Fleetwood Mac album. The next track I attempt (I think) may take some inspiration from that record.

In addition to Peter Green I’ve also been learning some Jimmy Page, Leo Nocentelli (The Meters — you should know his name!), and John Scofield. Oh, and on bass I’ve been taking a good look at some Tommy Cogbill (of Muscle Shoals fame) via Aretha Franklin.

I have — as always — been buying a lot of records. So many albums that I could spend all my listening hours with only new (to me) stuff. I have to occasionally remember to dip into the archives for some near-and-dear standards.

In that (near-and-dear) department: Gentle Giant, Acquiring the Taste (a fall/winter album if ever there was one); Lou Donaldson, Alligator Bogaloo (Lonnie Smith plays a real nice bass line — hell, everybody’s amazing on this record); Otis Redding, Dock of the Bay (no comment necessary, I think); John Scofield, Bump (I have most of his records and love them all — this one’s a sleeper); Judas Priest, Hell Bent for Leather (the original Columbia CD sounds damn good); John McLaughlin, Devotion (another technical note: I recently bought the original CD issue of this 1970 album on the weird Celluloid label, licensed, I believe, from Alan Douglas who owns the tapes — and my appreciation for the album is up on a whole other level thanks to the clearer sound); Traffic, The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (what I was listening to while writing this post. Ahhhhh… 1971 rock)…

It was like putting months into wooing a woman only to abandon her because some new pretty thing passes by. That’s a little weird, I guess, but it felt like that.

Unfortunately, the new girl might be crazy. The first problem is that her name is “Hermes.” Second, she’s half hard-rock-biker-chick and half psychedelic sylph. Third, she’s pretty, but not exactly deep.

Anyway, I feel like maybe I’m going to pay for my caprice.

The tune has been morphing every which way. It’s got a killer riff as a chorus (I’m going to have to run it by a few people and make sure it’s not someone else’s) — but that’s really the only solid part. The verses are based on a wisp of an idea (and a goofy one at that): an arpeggiated major chord with a flicker of a minor third above it. A little cute, a little annoying, and a lot stuck in my head (which is, I guess, what made me run off with it).

I’m on the fourth version of the “quick” demo now: that little figure has, in this order, a) become minor, b) become a bass line, c) become a campy sort of psychedelic thing (think “25 O’Clock” by the Dukes), d) developed a Jamaica-via-Britain accent, e) reverted to the original idea, and f) started to take on something a little more dignified and soulful. I’m not sure which of these personalities will assert itself, but I do know that writing music is a pain in the ass.

But of course it’s lovely. (Sometimes.)

There’s been a lot of exciting stuff to do at Masterdisk recently, and I’ve been spending more time doing it — full-time, basically. Then there are freelance projects that need wrapping up, and regular music work in the mornings (without spectacular consistency, unfortunately). As my grandfather used to say, “there’s a limit”! So, I’ve dropped way down on blogging and social media activity. At this point, it has been at least a month and I’m adjusting to the new schedule. Hopefully I’ll be able to find the time to get more involved online again soon.

Here’s what’s been happening music-wise.

I put a guitar solo on “Eris” on August 7. I was tired and didn’t think I’d be able to get excited about it, but the energy came and it worked. A very rock solo. The woodshedding I had been doing paid off, and it was easier to pull off than I had expected. I had a great time recording it.

The arrangement for the next track, called (for now) “Union Square 2,” is set. I recorded a sketch of the whole thing — a single guitar — this past weekend. When I was writing this one I had The Meters in mind, via John Scofield and Medeski Martin & Wood. I’m happy with the tune — it’s simple, but (I hope) effective. The main melody of the piece came quickly — inventing the right arrangement was work.

My working habit in the past — for the albums Fresh Twigs and Astral Law up through the first songs for this next album — was to work on a single track to completion before starting the next one. But (I’m surprised to find) the part I really want to work on right now is the writing and arranging. So instead of beginning to flesh out “Union Square 2″ I’m combing through my “idea” recordings for the next song.

As regular readers will know, I’m composing the music for my fourth album. And I’ve written a number of posts touching on the difficulty I’ve had with the fourth of these new compositions, “Eris.” When I last wrote about it on July 12, I had re-recorded the guitar, bass and percussion parts to a click, and had been attempting to come up with a satisfactory drum track. It wasn’t really happening. To the rescue: drummer Scott Persson and recording engineer Casey Chester.

Casey and Scott

The quickest way to do the recording was to do it remotely. Scott lives north of Manhattan, where Casey has a new company called Audible Playground. Audible provides “full service audio production for TV, radio and film,” but Casey also has the capability to do “regular” music recording. I zipped up the “Eris” Pro Tools session and sent it off to Casey, and on July 23 we had the session.

I say “we,” because Casey’s company makes smart use of the internet. Casey and Scott were set up in Chappaqua, and I was at my computer at home in Manhattan, but I was able to listen to the session streaming live (in surprisingly good sound), and communicate with the guys via chat. (We started the session off via good old telephone.) I was amazed at how effectively this worked. It didn’t feel that different from sitting in a control room with an engineer. I mean, of course it did, but not to the degree that I thought it would.

Musically, Scott did a fantastic job, as I knew he would. And the recording is beautifully done. I’ve now got the session with all the drum tracks back on my hard drive here, and have a rough mix to use as I put the rest of the parts on the track — hopefully I’ll finish this monster soon. “Eris” started out as a borderline-throwaway idea: I thought it was really slight in content, but there was something I liked about it anyway. I decided to record it, figuring I wouldn’t spend too much time. Hah!

“Eris” is finally getting to where it needs to be now, and I’m thankful for that. The fifth composition is waiting in the wings though, under the working title “Union Square II.” I’m hoping this one will be easier, but you never know.

Here’s some video of Scott at the “Eris” session.

You can reach Scott Persson at scottpersson AT me DOT com and Casey Chester at casey AT audibleplayground DOT com.