Whew!
So the album is over halfway finished. Like most of the world, the band is in isolation mode right now but we were able to record four tracks already and are working on demos for the other four. Given that we all have our own studios, we were able to track keeper drums (over ghost bed tracks we had earlier tracked) and then each of us re-do or augment our parts at home. I am especially happy that Alex and Andrew are so heavily involved in the writing, arranging and production of the album; it not only makes my job easier, it also makes the whole project unified and sustainable.
Right now everyone is writing more material to record. The concept of simple machines is still very much an underlying theme but we aren't being dogmatic about it. For my part, each of the simple machine motives is being woven into a larger machine (all complex machines use simple machines as component parts so that suits), but even just the concept of a simple machine is fair game (Alex wrote a piece called Hammer and it deals partially with assassination and guns!) so we are being very broad in our interpretation. It is really more about getting a cohesive album together than some slavish devotion to a concept.
Here are some pictures of the band recording.
Andrew
Alex
Mics
Mic'd up kit
Andrew checking mix
Tracking guitar
