Album update from Sean:
over 3 years ago
– Fri, Sep 08, 2017 at 12:36:00 AM
Hi guys. Let me first apologize for lack of updates. This should be a no-brainer but then it slips my mind for months. I'm hyper-focused on the actual music and I'm bad at being in 1,500 new relationships.
Where to start? Feeling very optimistic at the moment. The albums are going very well. This is a great relief because as recently as like March we had almost zero lyrics actually matched up to any songs. We had so much music recorded that I was sure the lyrics would just fall into place but it took a long time to build up ideas and themes into something coherent. We still care about the album format (because we're old I guess) so things like themes and sequencing are important to us. It couldn't be forced. No art can really be forced, is the problem. We've been doing this for too long to compromise and not release the record we feel is the right one for us right now. But, as I say, things took a major turn in April and May and by the end of May we had rough vocals on 16-17 tracks. Now we're working through a second equally dense group of songs prior to doing final vocals/mixing. This summer has been kind of like doing pickups on a film where you look at a rough version and decide what needs to be added/subtracted/changed/re-done/et cetera. It's a very normal part of our process, but of course I wish it went more quickly. WE CARE A LOT.
The main album itself is a bit sprawling at the moment, but we're chipping away at it. It's pretty, exciting, a bit dark but also uplifting, a little funny here and there, and also occasionally a little somber. A bit cinematic I suppose. With the last record and with this one, we sat down and listened to our album catalog and tried to make some instinctual choices about where to go next, about which boundaries to push. We would hate to repeat ourselves too much. I feel like we're succeeding at going to new, exciting places, but you always feel like that when you're getting towards the end of making something and the adrenaline is going. A lot of the ideas that we had 2+ years ago (when we started) have been thrown out, as we ended up progressing in certain ways throughout the process which felt more natural. When you're going to have to play new songs for however-many-years, you don't want things to feel too narrow or contrived. Will you like it? I certainly hope so. I think so. I hope it feels as fresh to you as it does to us. Are we making Freezepop Forever 2? No. Are we making Imaginary Friends 2? No, although that was tempting at a certain point. I suppose there are some similarities just based on personnel.
I cannot thank you enough, sincerely, for your patience and love throughout this process. Just know that a lot of love (and sweat, this summer at least) have gone into this project. We really want this to be the best that it can be. At the end of the day it's a pop album(s) and maybe I/we occasionally overthink these things, but I feel like we're really hitting an interesting stride. It certainly doesn't sound like anyone else.
So yeah. Apologies again for being out of touch. I'll try to be better. If you guys have any thoughts or wanna ask questions please leave comments and I will get to them in the next couple of days!
Cheers, y'all.
Sean
