Hopefully, my project isn’t in ashes just yet, but I’m still rising up and getting back at it after my Metroid Metal diversion.  For those of you interested in that (ie, everyone here most likely), that album is done.  I’ve been listening to what’s being called the “final master” and it sounds great.  When it finally drops, it’s going to drop hard.  The first week of September maybe?  I’m not sure.  It’s either right before or right after PAX.  We plan to have copies available there.

I’m in the home stretch now with tracking on my album.  I’ve got just a couple of outstanding tracks I’m waiting for, and as those come in, I’m mixing more.  I gave one of my songs, Tessellating, to James to see if he could add vocals.  That song is a departure for me in that it’s kind of open and loose, and he had a hard time deciding on a vocal melody.  It just so happens that I had an idea for that, so I played it for him on bass and sent it to him.  He came back with, “why don’t you just do that?”  So, that’s what I did.  That song now features a bass solo for almost the entire thing.  A few of the rough mixes I’ve done have featured it a little too prominently, and I’ve got to tone it back.  The sound I went for is pretty Cliff Burton-y, so maybe I should really do it right and completely bury it in the mix.  It’ll be interesting to see how that goes over.

I got in a bass melody mood and that coupled with a sudden nostalgia rush with Michael Jackson’s death caused me to do this (very rough) all-bass cover of “Ben”:  https://www.chunkstyle.net/ben.mp3.

Ok, I’ll go ahead and just apologize for that.

Updates have been slow in coming around here, and that’s because there haven’t been any to speak of.  My musical attention has been turned to another more high-profile project that has a more severe deadline.  We’re recording an album of Metroid Metal songs done by the full live band.  Basically, it’s an album of covers of covers.  I’ve been recording the drums and the bass, and I just recently finished all that.  The other guys are tossing their parts to Grant, and the whole thing is coming together pretty quickly.  The rough mixes I’ve heard so far sound great.

Now that I’m finished with my work for that (barring any touch-ups or red0s), I’m back to working on my album.  I’m in the home stretch now, and I’m going to have to amend my laissez-faire approach to my collaborators.  “What you can, when you can” isn’t as good of an option anymore.

Metroid Metal is going to be playing PAX over Labor Day weekend, and I’d really like to have the album done by then so I can have it available there.  I haven’t really mentioned that to anyone, so it wasn’t as high priority as the MM album which we advertised WILL be available at PAX (and at this rate, it’ll be done well before then).

We’re also talking about putting together a “sampler” album with a few tracks from each of our other projects.  Grant may have a song or two from his new instrumental EP ready, Dan (the other one) may have some tracks from the new Armcannon album, Kirby may have some TSS tracks on there, and I’ve got a couple from this project I can put on there.  Of course, Kevin is on all but one of the tracks of my album, so he’ll be well represented on the sampler too.  This is all in the “hey what if” stage at this point, so it may not happen, so don’t hold me to that.