Popular culture would have it that the definition of a crazy person is someone who keeps doing the same thing over and over and somehow expecting a different result. By that standard, I guess we are all crazy to some degree, but there are times when I wonder if I haven't truly lost it. For the last 18 months I have been dealing with terrible shit and I realize after repeated crashes, that I am never going to break this cycle if I keep expecting to get a different result each revolution. I let this stupid cycle ruin a lot of 2019 for me and I know it will do the same in 2020 if am not careful. We are the architects of our own demise (another popular culture belief which, just the earlier one, is wholly accurate!) so I am saying farewell to the denizens of C.S.R. and their sordid little vipers den.

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