acadiasound

[acadiasound]

5 Months: Consolidated.

Damn! Tough to believe I have not posted since September! Well, what has happened in my life?? I quit my job in late September (after 4 excruciatingly tedious, unfathomably stressful, borderline suicidal years that allowed me to invest 100% of my net earnings into my Studio Zoot. Call it a fair trade, I guess and end the discussion) and shortly thereafter finished "in the moment of the meantime," (check it out here: https://acadiasound.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-moment-of-the-meantime). Highlights are "on my own" "expansion" "connection" and "nostalgia"  I immediately took a vacation to Portland/Seattle to see a few DJ Shadow/Cut Chemist shows and kick it. FYI -- NY has way better pot than Portland, Washington and Colorado (where I lived for a year or so in my mid twenties. NY represent! Fuck those clowns.). The meantime was released digitally on October 14th and physically sometime in December. When I returned from the West Coast, I worked on The Unknown Woodsmen's debut album "Beauty in the Machine," throughout October and November, which they released in late December after I mixed in 9 days straight in early December. It was fuck-ing-intense... and we are stoked with how it sounds (check it out here: https://theunknownwoodsmen.bandcamp.com/album/beauty-in-the-machine). Highlights are "Sun Moon Truth" "I am the Cosmos" "Angel" and "Ghosts." Check that shit out! About two weeks later we threw an epic double CD Release the day after Christmas at the Cortland Beer Company -- over 500 people showed up and it was totally fucking crazy. Now I am working on new music -- more upbeat, grooving music. I got a lot of the trippy, spacey, psychedelic stuff out of my system for a while... now I just want to focus on instrumental hip hop... Headnodic grooves. I just want to make some dope beats that people will dig... and I am also finally getting out there with my live DJ/Guitar show. Stay tuned, as the saying goes. Lots of dope beats shall be dropped. Mix in a bunch of Terence McKenna videos and living (again!) with my girlfriend (of, just recently, 4 years) and trying to assemble this post-slave-job life of mine, and things are going pretty well. I am going to stay up with this blog again... in all honesty, I have written a whole bunch, just never published anything. Check out this new idea for a song that is part of a new instrumental hip hop EP that I am working on -- I literally just started it tonight - http://instagram.com/p/zD3ql0itld/?modal=true Let me know if you dig it by liking my facebook page and saying what up. Peace! ~Alex (Acadia)

[acadiasound]

I'm central to nowhere.

John Frusciante - Central

I specifically remember sitting at my parents house - a few months before I moved to Colorado in 2009 - listening to Central for the very first time. I probably listened to it - I don't know? - maybe five or seven times in a row... and then on repeat for the next few days. My parents came into the room with their friends - and the youtube video has a photo of a rather disheveled looking John Frusciante - and Mike (one of my parents friends) said to me, "Are you watching something on Jesus?" haha. Touche, Mike. Touche, indeed. John was certainly in a very Jesus-esque phase back then.

This song is incredible. It is played incredibly. It sounds incredible. I love the lyrics. I love the vibe. I love his solo at the end. I love the delay on his vocals. I love the drums. I love the rhodes breakdown that leads to the ending vamp. I love the words "I'm dreading a time that is not near. As a man on a cross I have no fear. I can't believe these words I'm saying. You've gotta feel your lines." I love John Frusciante. Anytime I listen to John Frusciante, I hear everything that I have been influenced by... and there have been some solos that I have recorded in the past few years that are straight up Frusciante. Someone even told me a few weeks ago after a show that I "capture Frusciante on acid. Beautiful acid." That was fucking awesome.

I mean, it's not like I want to be John Frusciante or Brendan O'Brien. I think a lot of people might think that is the case... that I am so obsessed with these dudes that I want to be them. Incorrect. I just connect so much with what they do. Their sounds/vibes speak to me in a way that no other guitarist or producer/mix engineer can match or has affected (effected :) ? ) me. My music and studio sound exists because of them. Period. There are a myriad of other bands/artists/producers. Old Dave Matthews Band/Steve Lillywhite/Tom Lord-Alge, STP,PJ,RATM/Brendan, Jeff Buckley/Andy Wallace, Old-Incubus/Scott Litt. Old-311/Ron Saint. Fiona Apple/Jon Brion. The combination of great bands/artists and great producers/engineers has and always will continue to inspire me.... but John Frusciante as a musician is by far my greatest musical/guitar influence... and Brendan O'Brien is by far my greatest production/mixing influence. John has been influencing me since before I picked up a guitar... and so was Brendan. Soul To Squeeze has been my favourite song since I heard it in 1993 on MTV when I was nine years old. Brendan Recorded and mixed it. It made me feel home. Like "this is it... this is what I connect with... This sound, style, feeling, energy, instrumentation. This is it. Me. My music. This is it."

My life would not be what it is without John Frusciante and Brendan O'Brien. I am who I am because of their influence. Two people I have never met. Two people I might never meet. Meeting them in this life is, to a large extent, irrelevant to me. They gave me more than most people I know in real life and I will never forget or lose their influence. Ever.

Long live genuine music made by profoundly and unapologetically creative people.

[acadiasound]

Endtroducing..... the wave.

It is 1:40am and I am in a hotel room in Philadelphia after seeing one of the best shows I have ever witnessed in what will be 30 years (in a few short months). More on that in a minute.

If you know me, then you know that I have a tattoo of a wave on my arm. It's like a combination of a celestial body combined with an ocean wave - and from a distance it looks like a wave, but up close it looks like an eye. I found a black and white version of it in this book on consciousness a long time ago - and I got it tattooed on me because I like it to be a reminder to myself that we are all in this ocean of consciousness together. Like it or not. Friends come and go. Sometimes you thought someone was a friend, and they weren't. Sometimes you thought you could trust someone and you could not... sometimes you think you could never let yourself down again like you have in the past, like you are older, more knowledgeable, experienced and somehow prone to only success, entirely growing out of the possibility of and achieving a level in which you can allude failure, emotional adversity or mental instability, ad infinitum. But waves rise and fall - and so does life. So does music. If music is not dynamic, then it sucks. If conversations are always agreements, then they accomplish nothing. If your relationships do not cause you to think about yourself and how you could better yourself, then you need to dig deep and figure out what it is that you want. Ishmael said, "I don't think you can want something until you know it exists." I thought that line was bullshit when I first read it. I still sometimes want to look at it and scoff, like Daniel Quinn was just being super preaching/far out and being like, "whoa, man... that's...... deep."

But it is the truth. If you don't know something exists, then you cannot want it. You might think you want something, because you know it exists... and it seems appealing. But more often than not I have found that what I want, based on what I know exists - a lot of it really goes south quick. I am an idea person. I always have tons of ideas. Constantly. When I was younger I feel like I had even more, but now that I am so on track with my music, producing, engineering, mixing - on top of working my days away and trying to maintain somewhat of a semblance of a social life, if such a thing really even exists for people like me. I like to think I will find an equilibrium in the coming years. It is a trial and error type deal, and trying to not be so hard on myself... because I really am. I feel like if my records do not sound like they could be played on the radio, then I am a failure and need to work harder. But the bottom line is that I simply need to work more intelligently. Not harder. Working harder does not even mean anything... it just means less time doing things you enjoy, being outside, walking around, talking to people, interacting with the world and connecting with people and nature... all the things that are vital to happiness and personal growth, yet are often blocked out because, well, if you live my life, then you would get home at 5:45 monday to friday, leaving hardly any time to make dinner, let alone clean up the mess I made during dinner, before I hit the studio by 7, so I can bang out 3.5 hours of work before I have to go to sleep and wake up the next day at 6:30 to do it all again.

But when am I most productive? When things are down to the wire. That's when. Not when I am meandering, taking my time on mixes. Sure, I get to have them sink into my consciousness and feel them on an emotional level and then connect it sonically though editing/producing/mixing to make the emotional connection the most profound that it can be. When a band comes in, I produce/engineer their sessions and mix each track in 10 hours... that's when things - in my experience - sound the best. The tracks that I slaved over - turns out - I am always going to hear something that I am not crazy about.... and that's because when you are so anal retentive and detail oriented - basically, chasing perfection - which is what it is that you are really chasing - if you work like I have often worked in the past, up until a few months ago - is driving yourself insane and being beyond unhappy, but purely miserable. There is something wrong when you have everything going for you and are entirely unhappy because of your own doing. When you can't even blame it on depression... what can you blame it on? You have to take a few steps back. Hike out into the middle of the woods. Sit next to a pond with trees all around... and then it is all lifted. All the bullshit. All the cynicism, bitterness and self entitlement that goes along with being a privileged white man in very tail end of my 20s.

Yesterday was a low point. A really low point. I cannot recall feeling so frustrated with life and generally speaking depressed and alone. But then I met a friend out for lunch - well, not just a friend, but the girl I dated for three and a half years up until recently - and it was not all great (because there is a lot to process from three and a half years of a lot of actions on my behalf), but it left me feeling really happy. I think it was just seeing her again and knowing like, you know, when you wake up from a nightmare, you think, "oh man, so glad that was just a nightmare. Totally horrifically terrifying" ... I think seeing and talking with her was like, "oh, this is how we dated for so long. Because we really do love each other and have a special connection." There is, however, much more to a lasting relationship than just having that, and that is where I shall end talking about that... but about an hour before we met up (I was still raging in my head as I have been for the past few weeks), I read an NPR article about DJ Shadow. His tour with Cut Chemist, spinning Afrika Bambaataa records kicked off two nights ago (three counting tonight, I guess). Last night was the second NYC gig and tonight they played Philadelphia. Since Philly is only 3.5 hours from where I live, It made perfect sense to hop on the opportunity the universe presented to me to not just see some great music - but to see a once in a lifetime show. Two of the best DJs around spinning all the classic records that were and are the foundation of hip hop, and thus, a large part of all of the music that I listen to... aside from rock, funk, ambient and acoustic... hip hops influence in the myriad of generas in which I play, produce and listen to on a regular basis is indubitable, vast and rather incomprehensible. Tonight helped me realize just how vital hip hop is to me as a human being, musician and philosophical thinker. <---- Whoa, right?! Yeah. Shit is no joke. Tonight was crazy. It was like a time warp, where everyone inside witnessed something that no one will ever see again.

So today I forced my exceptionally hungover self (last night was very reminscent of my college days at strose. lots of beer. lots of pot. Probably talked about a bunch of crazy shit to a bunch of different people. I know one girl in particular was NOT stoked to be talking to me. But, I didn't want to be talking to her, either, she just happened to be next to me at the bar. Fuck you too, bitch.) to eat breakfast, pick up my apartment a bit and then head to the studio to hop on the internet and figure out a gameplan for heading to Philly. Ended up hanging out for a while, you know, doing the internet thing, answering emails/facebook messages. Gotta keep the studio running, ya dig? The hustle cannot stop. But then I was like, "man, I didn't even finish my coffee." So I grabbed my shit, tossed the cup in the microwave at the corset building that doesn't heat anything even if you leave half a cup of coffee in for a minute. Fuck that microwave. But whatever. Coffee heated to lukewarm, my backpack/laptop (for writing this, later on, which is now, ugh, now.), my acoustic a water bottle and I rummaged around my disgustingly cluttered backseat for some CDs to rock on the way. One of the CDs I grabbed was Soulive's "No Place Like Soul" it's a good one. I liked when Soulive tried to do the pop thing. I think they could have made a better second album had they worked with a better producer, but I am glad they are back as a three piece. Love those guys. So, one of the tracks on the album is this instrumental called "Bubble."

At so many points tonight I thought, "man, this beat is totally *this song* or *this band* or *this album*" ... one of those tracks made Bubble sound like it was pretty much taken right from the collection of Afrika Bambaataa. My mind has been pretty much blown repeatedly tonight, and I am pretty certain that I am going to have to fly somewhere to another city to catch another one of these shows. Legendary does not quite hit the nail on the head. It was beyond legendary. If there is such a thing.

The music tonight was SO. FUCKING. GOOD. If I had to list my top shows... it would probably involve Soulive at Revolution Hall on November 30th, 2005. Galactic at The Westcott on August 9th, 2013. Fiona Apple at the State Theatre on the blazing hot night of June 19th, 2012. DJ Shadow at Club Soda on November 13th, 2010.

But tonight... oh, man. Tonight. What happened tonight? Tonight was an experience I will never forget. Shadow and Cut Chemist worked together to create a 90+ minute set of the heaviest beats, funkiest horn lines, syncopated - and at times synchronized - scratching. From the heaviest, funkiest beats with shadow spinning trippy vocal samples with delay and reverb on top, or shadow spinning a super heavy, funky beat, with cut chemist scratching horn hits, more vocal samples... they both often had several of the same record spinning, switching back and forth. It was just an incredible experience. I did not know what to expect... I knew it would be good. There was no way I could have known that it would (or could) be THIS good. Tonight, a new level of music was reached. DJing and all of music is changed in my mind. After seeing those two dudes on stage, having what was visibly evident the times of their lives, cutting up sick ass classic vinyls... I do not think I could look at music or anything the same ever again. It was like a live-action, interactive history lesson in where so much of my music comes from... and, in a way, giving me a clue into what I should do with my own music, with my various bands, and how to approach producing and engineering.

You know, so often musicians like to think that the most complex stuff is what is the most impressive. All guitarists want to be able to shred, so they can be like, "Oh, hey, check this out... It's pretty fast, huh? Pretty cool, right?" When, in reality, that shit is cool for about ten minutes. If that is all you can do, however, and you cannot or do not play melodically, rhythmically, with syncopation or interact with fellow bandmates... then you are basically just a useless musician. You are just indulging your own desires without regard for the entire point of music - to get people together and connect with them, and with yourself. Typical modern rock will always exist, as will typical sugar-coated pop (different side of the same coin if you ask me)... same thing goes for "super original music".... but a lot of that "super original music" is rather, I guess I would have to say, self congratulatory... making music for the sake of being able to play it, not necessary because it grooves and you can bob your head to it or sing along to the lead melody. What I got out of tonight is the fact that originality does not necessarily have to be entirely original. If you are doing something that someone would call "played out" or "over," and you are doing it with passion, intensity, creativity and an open mind to take your music to new places in which the progenitors of said music ever thought of taking it... then is that not originality? I think it is. Which means that the flood gates are open. We should not feel like we have to play covers at bars. We should not feel like we have to shred our faces off to impress as many people as possible. We, as musicians, should just be trying to make the most grooving, vibed out, socially, personally, emotionally and mentally uplifting music that we possible can. There is nothing else to it. That should be the goal... and if YOUR goal is to get famous playing four chord songs in a three piece band, or to write songs with 100 chord changes and 20 band members... then I am not sure that I agree with your reasoning about why you play music. Music should be made for self expression, that should be the number one... but you are expressing yourself in an attempt to connect with other people, who can be moved by your music as you are moved. Unfortunately, I do not see a whole lot of that happening these days. It's transient. There is a LOT of good music played by a LOT of talented musicians... but... but but but... after tonight I know that - personally speaking - I am going to try and make sure that everything I make is not complex for the sake of being complex. If I want something to be complex, then I need to make sure it has a balancing aspect to it so that it is not, for lack of a better term, masturbatory. There is so much music left to be made by humans, especially Americans... especially New Yorkers. After the show tonight, right now, I am so stoked to get to work on all this new music. Tons of new studio projects coming up. Tons of new music of my own. It's an exciting time, and I am ready to move onto this next phase of my life. The big 3-0. I am ready. Let's end this on a good note, 20s. We were good enough to each other. Let's not let things get too too crazy.

It is now 3:00. That was a lot to get out tonight... and I am not really tired enough to go to sleep, but I should probably put my computer down and see if the utterly-dead feeling that my legs feel will float up to my head so that I can shut my eyes and sleep for a few hours before driving home tomorrow.

[acadiasound]

in the moment of the meantime, è finito!

At some point in December of 2012, the world ended. Just kidding.

At some point in December of 2012, I made a song one night in my studio (that looked and sounded a whole lot different than it does today). It was called "Wax" and it got me working on music by myself for a solo album. I was sidetracked often throughout 2013, working on various records and singles in the studio, getting some demos together for my music, working on the aesthetics of the studio, upgrading/selling gear... tons of interpersonal stuff, tons of in-my-own-head stuff... December of 2013 arrived in what seemed like no time. I was 29, playing in a band, working full time during the day, and nights/weekends at my studio.

One day a friend said to me, "that one thing on soundcloud is cool... you should make a whole album like that." The song he was referring to is "the addict" - and I DID make a whole album, but it was not all in that vein... it was the album that I have been wanting to make for a long time. The current culmination - which is nothing more than a continuation of creative progress - is this album, in the moment of the meantime. It means so much to me. I have worked so hard and for so long to make it.

Now it is finished. I have final mixes for all of the songs and one little part on one of the songs needs some Rhodes (performed by the ever-talented and super chill Mr. Zac Doob. Thank god for that man. He is a really awesome person and an incredible musician. Thanks, Craig's List!). The music turned out as well as I could have possibly hoped. I slaved over this for so long and so much of my life was sacrificed through the years. Now it is finally finished. Finally.... Finally. Finally. Finally.

This music would not exist had it not been for all the musicians (aaron, zac, steve and dom) and everything and everyone who helped me become who I am and turn my life into what it is.... I could not possibly type everything up, so I will not even bother trying. I will say, however, that it is as important to have dreams as it is to follow them to a resolve you know exists. It is important to not feel bad about being selfish with your life. You life is yours to live. Don't live for other people. You would be doing a disservice to all of humanity should you not live for yourself. This is purely my opinion, and please do not confuse this with being 100% selfish and refusing to take care of other people... but I feel like so many people sacrifice so much for others that they lose a little (or a lot) of themselves.

Don't lose yourself. We need you. Everyone needs you. In the moment of the meantime there is a whole lot of amazingly incredibly beautiful and terrifyingly horrific things. There are more paradoxical aspects of our existence than could possibly be stated. But, whatever you are doing. Make sure you don't stay entirely on course, but keep your eye on the prize. Focus too much on the end prize and life can pass you by... focus too much on the course, and the mirage of a prize fades. I guess what I am getting at is the fact that moderation is as important to philosophically approaching your life as it is to approaching your physical life. There are no rules in this place. Go wherever you want and be whoever you desire. Compassion is a virtue, but so is selfishness if it is done out of compassion for yourself.

My blog titled "in the moment of the meantime" is now finished. When I figure out a better title for an ongoing blog, I will rename it. Until then... stay tuned for the album to drop on September 24th (aka the date that my favourite album of all time was released in 1991).

Thanks for reading and listening.

~Alex

[acadiasound]

There must be a reason - at this audaciously positive, yet subtly vitriolic, apex.... this strange juxtaposition of confusion and certainty of a juncture in my life... a point in which I am vehemently lost within my own specific direction toward a goal that is in essence a pure delusion created by my own mind - while at the same time a manifestation of all that I have worked toward, for, because of, and against - that I should find myself alone in my outrageously expensive apartment, wondering why I am there, why I consciously chose to move there, why I have so consciously and unconsciously followed this path that doesn't always make me happy or make sense to anyone else or myself... a path in which happiness and connection are as transient as cynicism, regret and general bewilderment, love of and toward the world in which I and we all exist.

I wonder why I am living the life in which I am living, but not questioning my path and being completely indebted and grateful for my own impulsive decisions, grievances, conceptions and misconceptions of what reality is and what my place within it even means.... there must be a reason that the two dvds I continue to watch are relating to dreams, consciousness and life... there must be a reason that I connect so much with the black and white documentary, "The Cruise" that was created in 1998.

I do not claim to know - I will never - what it is I am doing... I can only promise to myself - and, thus, those around me - that I will continue to improvise my life in the same way that I improvise my music. To me, my music is truly an analog to my life.... because, honestly, and I rarely state this: I have absolutely no idea what I am doing with music. I am a life-long musician, but I have no idea what I am playing. I don't know what notes I am playing. I have no point of reference other than knowing what sounds good and what I feel... and bridging the gap between those two elements of my pure existence.

There is a rant from "The Cruise" with which I especially connect... and I would like to share it with you all. It's, ya know, something to think about on this fine Thursday morning.

::video of a white comforter bunched up underneath a small space beneath a stairway with someone - not shown - underneath::

The image makes me think of this conversation with this woman the other day. She was a fastidious, Judaic-type woman in very sexual slacks. And we were talking about the grid plan. And I made the comment about how, "You know, the grid plan emanates from our weaknesses. This layout of avenues and streets in New York City. This system of 90 degree angles. And to me, the grid plan is puritan. It's homogenizing in a city where there is no homogenization available. There is only total existence, total cacophony, a total flowing of human ethnicities and tribes and beings and gradations of awareness and consciousness and Cruising." And this woman turns to me and she goes, "Well, I never even thought of that." She goes, "I can't imagine it. Everyone likes the grid plan."

And of course, the question is like, "Who is everyone?" I mean, it's just what I had said. And I mean, whoever that is under the white comforter, cuddled up with 34th Street and Broadway, existing on the concrete of this city, hungry and disheveled, struggling to crawl their way onto this island with all of their machinated rages, and hellishness, and self-orchestrated purgatories, I mean, what does that person think about the grid plan? Probably much more on my plane of thinking, my gradation of being, which is let's just blow up the grid plan and re-write the streets to be much more a self-portraiture about our personal struggles rather than some real-estate broker's wet dream from 1807. We're forced to walk in these right angles. I mean, doesn't she find it infuriating? By being so completely allegiant to the grid plan, I think most noteworthy is this idiom, "I can't even imagine changing the grid plan." She's really aligning herself with this civilization. It's like saying, "Oh, I can't imagine altering this civilization. I can't imagine altering this meek and lying morality that rules our lives. I can't imagine standing up on a chair in the middle of the room and changing perspective. I can't imagine changing my mind on anything. And in the end, I can't imagine having my own identity that contradicts other identities."

When she said to me, after my statements, "Everyone likes the grid plan," isn't she automatically excluding myself from "everyone"? "How could you not like the grid plan? It's so functional. Take a right turn, and a right turn, and a right turn. And then there's a red light, and a green light, and a yellow light. It's so symmetrical!"

By saying that "everyone likes the grid plan," you're saying, "I'm going to re-live all the mistakes my parents made. I'm going to identify and re-live all the sorrows my mother ever lived through. I will propagate and create dysfunctional children in the same dysfunctional way that I was raised. I will spread neurosis throughout the landscape and do my best to re-create myself and the damages of my life for the next generation."

[acadiasound]

Kickstarter!!!!!!!!!!!!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1894401337/in-the-moment-of-the-meantime Dig it! : )

[acadiasound]

Mixing

I am deep into mixing. Making sure the kicks and snares are all pounding and the drums are big and vibey... blending the kick and bass so they share the low end, creating a blanket of mid-sounds with guitars, rhodes, organ, sax and clavinet. When I mix, I sum out 32 channels passive into DW Fearn Tube. It sounds incredible. I like to work in the box until the mix sounds good, then switch over to analogue summing. It adds a three dimensional feel to the mix that just cannot be achieved in the box. Starting a few days ago, every night I am in the studio I am printing three mixes. Three mixes a night for the next two weeks - whilst recording some new tracks here and there and blending them into the mix. This way I am not obsessing over mixes night and after... I can just fire up a session, work on it for a while, print a mix that sounds good and take it home to listen on headphones. When I can't hear anything that annoys me and I feel engulfed in the vibe of the song - and do not feel like something is missing - then I know the song is just about finished. As I said, I plan on doing this for the next two weeks... at the end of these two weeks, I am going to take a few days off from listening. You know, enjoy life. I might even take a day off of work and just chill - go for a hike or something. During this few-day break, I am going to send the finished mixes of the full album to a handful of talented (and lucky) individual to give me some mix notes. Upon receiving said notes, I will return from my hiatus and give the mixes a final listen a final listen, taking into consideration all of my notes - and then go through each one with a fine tooth comb, correcting all the little things that I need to be perfect prior to mastering. That might seem like a lot in two weeks... and, well... it is. But I need to be finished with this album, because I have other projects coming down the pipeline. This is it. The end is finally near and I am super stoked to be finished with this, as it is the coolest thing I have yet to do with my life. Even if you don't like the music, you should be able to appreciate the sonic quality of this album. Everything sounds so good. All these dudes who played on it, they really stepped up their game. It's pretty bad ass and I am super stoked.

[acadiasound]

Deep Bass

Last nights session with Dom Fisher playing bass was beyond incredible. That dude is seriously a monster bassist. I could not fathom these tracks sounding any better. Just as we were finishing up, Steve Daniels - who has played sax on a handful of tracks - stopped into the studio. Steve and Dom are old friends/bandmates (they played in the Travis Rocco Band, if you are from the Northeast and remember them!). Immediately after he showed up, Dom played one more take on the first song we recorded (four tracks, total) - and he totally killed it. Top to bottom. It was jaw dropping. If Steve was not there and I did not record it - no one would have ever believed that it happened. But it did... and I did record it... and it is likely the bass track that will be on the final mix. It is so dope. Working with professional musicians in a high end studio - while not being concerned about time and money - is such a blessing. It's why I got into this in the first place - to be able to produce my own music with the fidelity of a high end studio. Sure, I want to work with others as well, but being a studio musician allows me to only record the highest quality tracks and get the perfect take to create the perfect vibe.

If I were trying to assemble this studio project as a live band from the get go - it would never have been possible. That is the magic of a recording studio. Bands can literally be created out of thin air.... and a room full of high end equipment : ) Aside from sax on a few tracks, tightening up some edits and recording a handful of electric and acoustic guitar tracks and a few more organ/rhodes tracks - this beast of an album is pretty much on its way to entering the final mix stage... SO FUCKING STOKED!!!! ....and then I can send this off to be mastered and get to work on my forthcoming series of ambient records!

[acadiasound]

Status update for posterity - since it obviously takes longer and more effort to actually build up a blog then just a few months (I am, however, going to rename this blog when I am finished with this album and continue it as part of my greater studio life). The album is rapidly being finished... and it sounds pretty sick! Today I am in the studio tightening things up... going through all eleven "finished" tracks and tight editing/fixing things that need it... sweeping through the tracks with some EQ to clean some stuff up. Changing anything that sounds off. Basically, how I tend to work is to track in mix mode and then start mixing while I am still tracking. With the ease of Pro Tools HD11, HDX and analogue summing, it's really easy to set such a workflow up... and I am used to it and comfortable in the process. I am now eleven tracks in! All of which are basically finished aside from some more recording and then final-stage mixing. The cool thing about mixing whilst recording is that... when the recording part is finished, it already sounds totally sick and mixed... which is easier (and also more challenging to a certain extent) to get the tracks to a point that can be considered "finished." Tomorrow I have a bass session with Dom Fisher. He is probably the best bassist I have ever seen play a bass guitar, aside from the big time pros like wooten and what not. The thing is, though... he can literally play all that shit. But when he is not in crazy-fast mode, he is just a straight up excellent, tasteful bassist... not to mention a super chill dude. Thus, tomorrow night we will record bass on four songs: expansion, brunette, connection and eleven years... and those songs will all be sounding quite "finished." (I keep putting finished in quotes, because nothing is finished until I send it to be mastered). After this bass session, I need to plan another rhodes/organ session with Zac [Doob], the keyboardist in my band Ions. Then another saxophone session with Steve Daniels... and then an hour recording Jamie Yaman's native american-esque flute and a didgeridoo session with Paul Speight. The last two sessions will be creating the final song for the album, that which I still do not know what it is or what it will sound like. But I know that it is going to have a really cool and unique melodic/ambient vibe that will help close out this super chill, spaced out album.

[acadiasound]

This album

Is not taking as long as I expected it would... so I guess this blog will be relatively short lived : ) I am ten tracks in - with another track in progress and one not started... all the tracks are in different states of recorded/mixed... but they are all in 100% motion. I will have this recorded and mostly mixed by the end of June. At the end of this month I am going to launch a kickstarter pre-sale to cover mastering and pressing of CDs. I am really stoked about this music. Beyond stoked, actually. I can't wait for everyone to hear it - whoever "everyone" might be. Much like life - the internet is full of paradoxes. Along with the infinite wealth of information and knowledge is the endless barrage of useless, utterly mindless bullshit. To be honest... I have pretty much had enough. I have had enough of the ego trip... of the memes.... of the like campaigns... of the inspirational quotes... of the selfies... of the videos of people doing mediocre things for attention. I WANT REAL THINGS!!!!

I want people to be themselves! I want to be myself! I am sick of having to split my life into this zombie - who shows up at the same time to a job that is mindlessly numbing to pay for gas to get here and food during the 30 minutes of unpaid time off I am given - and my creative, determined, motivated self. I am not doing this any longer. I am fucking sick of it. I am going to work for as much longer as I need to work until my studio is up and running and then I am going to get a part time job to cover the cash that I need that my studio cannot meet. I spend so much on lunch... I spend so much on dinner because I get home from this mindless job so late that I need to eat quick before I go to the studio.... I spend so much on beer and pot to numb myself. I am sick of it. All of it. This is not how I am supposed to live. It is so vital that our species figures out what free will, individuality and freedom are - and pursue them to the fullest extent. This rat race of mindlessness and celebrating mediocrity is, for lack of a better phrase, fucking pathetic. It means and accomplishes nothing. I am working toward my own freedom - my liberation from this apathetic lifestyle of doing the bare minimum to get a paycheck. Fuck this and fuck anyone who thinks this is the way it needs to be. This is not the way it needs to be - and I refuse to accept that this is the way it is and will always be. I am not a zombie. I am not a digit. I am a human, god damnit!!! I am an animal just like any of the other [roughly] 8.7 million species on this planet. I have thoughts, feelings, needs and desires like anyone... and I am not going to waste 50 hours of my week for the rest of my life working for a company or organization that sees me as a digit... that wants to box me in, control me and tell me what to do.

[acadiasound]

Ten Tracks!

Oh, yeah! I have ten tracks well on their way to being finished and ready for "mixing" (I use quotes, because I am always in mix-mode whilst tracking and producing). One track I have literally just started, another I just have the title for... Here is the track list.

on my own expansion brunette 84 in 89 the addict eleven years connection in the meantime nostalgia lapse soul shadow far side

[acadiasound]

Fucking Electric Guitar, Motherfuckers!

This weekend I went through all the tracks and reamped all the guitar that needed to be reamped - and played all the guitar that needed to be recorded. My amp is currently set up in the room outside my studio and it is cranked so loud that it is difficult to fathom a single speaker can pump out this many decibels. Go budda/tone tubby! The album has now arrived at a point that it resembles the album. Which... is huge. There are a few more drum tracks to record, some bass, some more sax... samples... hammond/rhodes. Still a lot of work, but this weekend I managed to take a really big chunk out of the progress that I have felt like I needed to bang out to move forward. Still lots of work to be done, but everything is sounding incredible. Everyone's performances are so spot on. I am seriously more motivated and focused on this album than I have ever been for anything else in my life. Nothing I ever did in college was this meticulous and - to me - impressive.

I could not be more stoked.

[acadiasound]

the puzzle pieces

Taken from an email to a musician - this is pretty much the gist of my message to all of the musicians playing on this album: Aside from some basic ideas - I don't want you to intentionally come up with anything. That's not what I am doing on this album (my parts included). It is all very in the moment (haha - in the moment of the meantime being I guess a meaningful name). Everything that everyone are playing... it's capturing the pure vibe from someone improvising in a controlled environment... and me manipulating it/chopping it/reversing it to make it what it is. So, really, all I would like you to do is listen to the songs - you can have some ideas of what you'd like to do, but I would actually prefer that you not write parts. Everyone playing on this album are great players. It's just capturing the moment like a photograph or video.

[acadiasound]

15 Seconds

http://instagram.com/alex_caminiti# Throughout the past month and the next six weeks, you will be able to listen to 15 second clips of most songs on my album. Although some of the tracks are more finished than others (a few do not even exist, yet), most of the videos are in-progress clips. Some of the songs might not sound any different - some might sound completely different. That is the cool thing about music. If you want it to, it can change all the time. Simply changing one thing - one tiny, seemingly inconsequential thing - can not only change the mix, but inspire a new part that could radically change the song from what it was mere minutes prior. I am often reminded about something I heard Neal Evans (organist/bassist/founder of my favourite band Soulive) say... he referenced [a few times throughout his talk] our "infinite creative potential." Our infinite creative potential. That is why I make music... why I write, play, create, produce, record and mix. Because the creative potential is infinite... and it is fun. Isn't that the whole point of music? To have fun and connect? I think so.

[acadiasound]

Real

Do not get me wrong - digital recording is excellent. It has come a very VERY long way in the past decade. But aside from the debate over analogue and digital recording (which, at this point, is somewhat over, thankfully) - the one thing that I think will always differentiate good recordings from amazing recordings is real instruments and summing mixes in the analog domain. Wood. Metal strings. Transformers. Tubes. These are things that 1s and 0s will never be able to emulate. There is not enough code in the world that can effectively mimic something real, aged and tangible as analog instruments and mixing. Digital instruments/emulations and summing mixers will never equate to the sound of analog. Everything on this album starts with analog sources. Whether I am playing guitar into an amp, hammond organ into a leslie, clavinet direct into neve 1073 or miking speakers playing samples. Everything that I record is an analog source. This is not a matter of principle. It is a matter of sound. Analog sources sound real because they are. Digital sounds lacking because it is. One could argue and debate forever about this - but the fact of the matter is that there IS a difference between a bass guitar into a D.W Fearn Tube preamp and a sampled bass virtual instrument. There is a difference between mixing in the box versus mixing out of the box through a D.W. Fearn Tube preamp loaded with custom Jensen transformers and tubes that are hand picked/tested by Doug Fearn to be the very best, lowest noise tubes. It is noticeable. It is tangible. You can feel the difference in the depth of the sound and hear the nuance that a high quality piece of tube gear imparts on a signal. It kills me when I am told that this is subjective. Just because you cannot hear it does not mean it is subjective - it just means that you cannot hear it. Difference. There is a reason that real instruments still exist and real analog recordings techniques and gear are utilized alongside digital. Because they feel and sound real... and real is important, because real connects with people. A lot of people might wonder why "albums no longer exist" - why people don't connect with music and buy albums like they used to. Is it really just because of iTunes? I do not buy that for a minute. I think it is because the sound of recordings are not connecting with people, and thus the song is not being served. The song is the boss and we are its humble servant. If the song is made up of a bunch of 1s and 0s... as high fidelity and clean as they may sound. WE are NOT made up of a bunch of 1s and 0s. We are made of matter. So is sound. We are real and so is sound. People connect with real. I want people to connect with my music. I do not want my music to be "good enough" - I want my music to fucking kill. To move. To take what someone thought sound could sound like and blast them into outer space. I want to produce music that sounds real so it connects with people in reality. I do not care if you think that your virtual instruments sound really great. I do not care if you think mixing in the box sounds great. Good for you... and if you find success whilst doing that. Good for you. I use real instruments through high end solid state and tube preamps... and I sum in the analog domain through a high end tube preamp. There is not a debate. I do not need to convince myself that "nothing is missing" or that it is "good enough." The music/sound speaks for itself.

[acadiasound]

The Best Engineers

No one knows how to produce, engineer and mix music like musicians. The best engineers are accomplished musicians and songwriters prior to becoming engineers. Listening to/loving music is the rolling around and playing music is the crawling before the walking of engineering and the marathon running of producing/mixing full length albums.

[acadiasound]

Rhythm and Melody

Guitarists don't have to stop to breathe.

Wind and brass have to stop, breathe, pause and think for a second. They are physically forced to phrase solos and lines because they have to, not because they know it will make their music better. Guitarists like myself enjoy playing fast. We think it is cool to show off our skill that we have developed throughout our lives - but the fact of the matter is that most listeners do not care to hear an onslaught of heavily distorted flurries of sixty-fourth note triplets - that is not what they connect with. Hell, it is not what WE [guitarists] connect with! ...yet we still do it. Listeners connect with rhythm and melody - and rhythm nor melody are achieved without pauses between phrases. It would not even BE a phrase without a pause - it would just be a continuous line. Typically, I create unorthodox spacey, rockish, progressive-ish (for lack of a better word) music with long solo sections and loose structure. But that all got tossed out the window on this album - and more than likely for the foreseeable future. In the moment of the meantime is a massive sea change for me - because I am finally limiting myself to 3-4 minute songs that do not change vibes more than once. My focal intention is to create listenable music that is versatile in the sense that it could be listened to as both foreground or background music. Thus - and interestingly - through limiting myself to playing less notes for less time, the resulting music is infinitely more powerful and inspiring.