We've Been Busy!

Patrons!

We posted this image on the social medias recently, with only the cryptic caption "We've been busy. New music coming soon."

However, for you, our Beloved Patrons, we will give you a little bit more info about what we've been up to.

The band has not been physically in the same room for quite some time. A year on February 27th, to be exact. A lot has happened to us since then. Some of us got married. Some of us bought houses. Some of us had children. Some of us adopted cats. Some of us became martial artists.

But the band is alive and well, and we have kept VERY busy. We have written enough material for TWO albums. Or a double album. (I am the only one in the band who thinks that releasing a double album is a good idea. What do YOU think?)

We are at the tail end of putting the finishing touches on all of our home demos. At the moment, there are nearly 30 demos. The picture above features the song titles of the demos that we have recorded during 2020 and 2021. (There's even a few more missing from that list.)

Once the demos are given their best chance of survival, we will send them to Jeff Aderman, who produced, recorded, and engineered If/When.

He will give us his thoughts about the songs; which ones are good, which ones suck, which ones need work. We will discuss this further as a band, and select the songs that we will move forward with.

We will then set up a time to go up to Jeff's glorious studio, Big Blue North, and begin recording a new album.

What kind of album will this be? I have no idea yet. There are a lot of songs.

Some of them are creepy and electronic. Some are acoustic, featuring dulcimers and mandolins. Some are synth pop songs. Some have sweeping orchestral arrangements. Some are just a piano and a voice. Some are discordant guitar heavy monstrosities with no discernible melody.

The lyrics are paranoid, joyous, rage-filled, biblical, grieving, dreamy, tragic, inspirational, sarcastic, sentimental, horrific, and peaceful. 

I can't wait for you all to hear it.

Here's some of the artists I've been listening to and getting inspired by, just to give you an idea of what's been going into my brain:

• "Time"-era ELO
• "Soft Bulletin"-era Flaming Lips b-sides
• Danny Elfman
• Massive Attack
• 60's science fiction TV show soundtracks
• Celtic Christmas instrumentals
• The Buckinghams
• The Coasters
• late period John Lennon
• Eminem
• ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead
• "Kid A"-era Radiohead
• Doves
• Smokey Robinson
• Robert Fripp & The League of Crafty Guitarists
• Susanne Sundfør

As terrifying as it may seem, we will posting some demos here on Patreon for you to hear in the near future.

As always, we thank you SO very much for the support that you give us. It means the world to us. The fact that there are people out there listening to what we're doing brings a deep meaning to what we do, and we are so grateful for you.

Thank you!

Dan McGowan