The Architect; The Engineer - Track Listing Cuts

I just finished up mixing for my upcoming album, The Architect; The Engineer. It's been years in the making, as I originally started recording for this back in 2010, so I am incredibly excited about completing this project.

And, better yet, it sounds pretty freaking amazing. This is something I'm incredibly proud of. It's a work that, I feel, stands on its own. When I listen to it, I don't hear my influences; I don't hear Trace Bundy or Trevor Gordon Hall. Instead, I hear my own, unique voice. And it's good. No, it's great. That's what I've spent 5 years on. This is the fruit of years of dedication, thousands of hours of practice, and a significant financial investment.

But behind all of the work that has yielded success, are a number of hard decisions. Some of that is in the musical discernment itself - how to play a certain note or whether to rerecord a section of a song - but some of the decisions are after the fact.

A particular decision I've wrestled with is what to include on the album. As I stated, I started this in 2010. Well, back in 2010, I can guarantee you I was not playing how I play today. That was before taking lessons with Trevor Gordon Hall and having my entire approach to guitar playing rocked. That was before my most current pedalboard configuration, which has evolved into this vehicle for tonal excellence. That was before a lot of things. So I have recordings from then and now - most recently last summer. And somehow they have to all have this cohesive element to them. Otherwise, what's the point, right? I might as well have just released singles. And I'm not really about that at all.

For the most part, the cohesion is natural. There are enough similarities between 2010 me and 2014 me that they can stand side-by-side. The piece from 2014 is, in my opinion, superior in writing and playing ability, but that doesn't make the 2010 piece "bad" per se.

But then there are a few that are on the fence. Those are the trouble. Because this whole thing is such an investment. For pieces that don't quite measure up, I can still remember writing them; I can still remember when, at one point in time, I thought they were something of great worth. And, naturally, I'd love for others to have that same experience.

But there isn't room for sub-par art. Not with the over-saturation that we currently have. And definitely not in my album. Anything that doesn't add value is taking away value. So there has been one track cut so far, Clairvoyant Observation. It's unfortunate that I had to spend time and money on mixing and recording, but it just doesn't measure up. A second, Revival, will be decided on in the near future. But there are some really cool things I've done with the piece that I don't want to lose. And I know this isn't a huge loss - it's one song (or two), afterall. But it's admitting that the piece isn't good enough. And, maybe, admitting that it was never good to start with.

Perhaps they'll resurface in the future as B-Sides or maybe I'll give them away at some point; I don't know. It's weird that something can be so near completion and then pulled back. But it's a humbling experience and I think this is going to help to shape how I approach album number 4.

So Much New Music!

Does it ever seem to you like music comes in droves? Where you’ll have these long stretches where you don’t really get any new music, you don’t see any shows, and you don’t play any. Then, out of nowhere, you’ve got a busy calendar and a stack of new CDs (yes, I haven’t quite moved away from physical media). And in an instant, you go from musical monotony to too much to process.

It happens. At least to me. And it seems like it’s a pretty normal trend. The number of half-written album reviews and half-written show reviews that I have littering various folders on my computer are starting to get out of hand. And it’s from times when I’ll get a new album and suddenly have 6, or I’ll go to a show and suddenly I’m going to 3 or 4 shows.

So here’s where I stand:

On April first, I picked up Abby Madden’s debut album. She had it as a free download and I’d much rather get a digital copy for free and then either buy a physical copy later or tip her the next time I see her play. I’ve wanted to listen to the album to see what she’s been up to and now I’ll be playing a set a show she’s playing on Saturday so it made it even more important to get a listen. That hasn’t happened yet.

Then yesterday, April second, I got to a show. A few good friends, Caleb Hawley and Trey Overholt, were playing at Milkboy in Philly. So far, the count is two: one album, one show. However, Caleb and Trey both just released new albums that I hadn’t picked up or listened to yet. I still need to get Trey’s because, for excuses that weren’t good enough, no one took cards (that was the main reason I got a smart phone!), but I plan to pick his up soon.

That makes three albums and one show. Except between Trey and Caleb was Max Swan. I had never heard of him before, but now I’m going to insist that everyone hear of him. That good.

Suddenly, I’ve got four new albums to listen to and one show. And on top of that, Matt Stevens just put out a new album, Lucid, which should be arriving in the mail any day now. Five albums, one show. And just like that, I’m overwhelmed. If I tried to cover it all, I would just litter my desktop with more unfinished reviews.

But I can’t not do it all. Or at least try. I’m just so excited and pumped on music that it all needs to happen. So here’s to seeing what the next few days of writing (or a complete lack thereof) hold!

New Music Review - the autumn

I live in a small town. Adamstown, PA is the antique capitol of the country, apparently. Within a few miles, there are dozens of little antique shops and a few monolithic warehouses that hold relics from the past. Aside from those, there are a few gas stations, a Dunkin Donuts, and a bunch of fields.

The closest “cities” are Reading and Lancaster. Reading, as in Reading Railroad (pronounced red-ing) from Monopoly, is mostly an artistic vacuum; it has little to offer. I’ve met some good people there , but the music isn’t innovative - it's mostly one-dimensional. Lancaster, on the other hand, has a growing arts scene. It’s seen some national acts form within its bounds and they’ve definitely helped the area to grow. Beyond those, we’re not terribly far from Philly; which, like most major cities, boasts its fair share of competent musicians

But in between cities, in rural Pennsylvania, art is somewhat of an anomaly. Art is something you read about from afar. You hear music on the radio there, but it isn’t art …right? As much as I loathe cities, they do art pretty well. Rural Pennsylvania, though much more livable, can be a dreary vacuum of musical irrelevancy at times ...most of the time.

So I try to be musically relevant; I try to make people think and feel in ways that are far more complex than rural PA demands. And sometimes it seems like I’m the only one. The cultural monotony in some areas holds artistic progress in bondage. And it’s dark. The prospects of playing with another Mark Hunsberger seem increasingly unfavorable. Those people don’t exist here to talk to, let alone collab with.

But I recently found a light. Maybe not for collaboration or even to see live. But someone is out there making great music. In Ephrata; a short hop, skip, and jump down the road from Adamstown.

It happened last week. I got my weekly Reverbnation email and saw that my local ranking in the instrumental category had dropped to 7. Not long ago, there weren’t even 7 instrumental acts claiming to be from Denver, PA, so I was intrigued. Having come from Reading, I was expecting a bunch of “beat producers” or something hip-hoppy like that. Occasionally, they'll pop up on the charts, but only fall back to irrevalancy. Yes, there were a few of them on there; however, one of the artists caught my eye, the autumn.

Clearly with a name like the autumn, the act couldn’t be a tasteless wannabe rap producer, could they? The singer-songwriter styled photo further distanced the autumn from what I was expecting. After clicking on their profile, I then saw bands cited in their “sounds like” section the likes of Explosions in the Sky and This Will Destroy You; two of my favorite post-rock bands of all time!

Hitting play on the first track, Migration Patterns, I expected to be disappointed. I expected a poor recording with stagnant writing. Yes, I’m cynical; I’ve held my hopes too high, too often. At best, I was hoping for a cheap knock off of This Will Destroy You. At best.

And then it happened. The first note resounded, masterfully catching every nuance in its droning reverberation, echoing through the space so perfectly laid out for it. And then another, powerfully building sustain. Nearly 30 seconds of single note sonic perfection passed, leading into a textural sea of spacey overdriven guitars, drums, and bass.

These are stories. They’re emotive of their respective titles, aptly named, but in no need of explanation. Each piece flows from note to note with such fluidity as to read as words read within a single breath. There is nothing lost to poor attack or poorly intonated instrument. And tonally, it’s all there.

Later, after further investigation, I discover that it’s just this one guy, Chris; he’s a local worship leader and wanted to do something different, expressing his testimony in music, but not burning out on vocals. Post-rock is the perfect canvas for such expression. And this guy, Chris, nails it. I'm intrigued to hear more about each piece and how it fits into his testimony and why each piece came into existence. There is more meaning interjected into an individual song than in other artists' entire albums.

And I really want to know what kind of mind did all of this. ONE person did this?! Not many people are gifted enough to be able to piece together such intricate, cohesive work.

And, again, this is a single guy. In small-town Lancaster county, nonetheless. There is hope.

 

 

Again, check this out: http://www.reverbnation.com/theautumnmusic

Muscle Memory (new song)

It's not something that we think about very often. It just happens. I can go out and dribble a soccer ball around a field like it's second nature, but I haven't played in years. Or I can get on a bike and just take off, yet I haven't ridden a bike in years either.

I recently started climbing again. Sophomore year I climbed 3-5 days a week, but since then I haven't been out more than once a month. I was never amazing at it, but I had a lot of experience and was learning a lot of technique. When I joined Reading Rocks climbing gym last week, the only thing that was holding me back was being out of shape. My fingers knew how to move and how to interact with the holds as if it were second nature. Over the past week, as I've started to build my strength back, my ability is improving every single day. The hard part has already been done.

It's a lot like music. You write something and you play it over and over again. The more you play it, the more you remember it.

But it's more than oh I played a this chord and then this other chord. It's about your fingers remembering how to interact with the strings (this applies across the board, not just with guitar), how to maneuver themselves around to produce the desired sound. It's muscle memory.

That's how, years later, you can go back to a piece and quickly relearn it.

The band, Dream Theater, has been together for over 20 years, but the way they plan their sets allows them to have any material from their entire 20 years on only a few days notice. They have to relearn material that they may have not played in years!

Personally, I've never had the patience for learning music. And it totally sucks, because that screws me when I want to relearn an old piece that I wrote.

Like today. I just got copies of recordings I did with Jeremy Bentley at MR.STUDIO a while back. I had totally forgotten about them. They sound great, but there's one song that completely eludes me. I remember playing it once upon a time, but the muscle memory isn't fast enough to keep up with my fleeting attention span. It's a shame, because it's really good... Hopefully I'll convince myself to sit down for the half hour, or however long it takes, and relearn it.

Because I really like it.

Ironically, when it was recorded, it had no name. I don't think it ever got one, so it's going to be ironically named, Muscle Memory (tuning is D-G-D-G-A-D if anyone else wants to try it out).

It's on my website, here.
And also on this nifty little reverbnation player (but you should check out my website too)