Here’s a rough mix of the last song from the first batch of tunes for the upcoming Spellbound record. This brings us up to twelve minutes of recorded music in six months, a blazing pace for me. That’s less than a third of the total running time, but more than half in terms of the number of songs. Two of the remaining three songs are about another twelve minutes combines, and the last one is most of an album side, maybe eighteen minutes or so. This one did not appear on the original recording, but I added a couple of songs to bring up to the length of a full-length LP record. I wrote it around the same time the Spellbound songs, and fits in thematically.
Flock of Fools was a song idea I had for my prog rock band Infinigon, which was active from 1986 to 1988. We mostly played covers of bands like Yes, King Crimson, Rush, ELP, Pink Floyd, Genesis and others. We also had aspirations to write our own material, but little experience at it, so it was slow going and took up lots of rehearsal time. Flock of Fools was long and complicated song with a lyric and all, but we never worked it up to be able to play it out. I continued to work on it after the band split up, and at one point in the early 90’s must have made a midi demo, which is the basis of this track. This is only part 1, a heavy drum and organ instrumental to serve as an extended intro to the main song. I’ve subsequently taken pieces from some of the other sections and reworked them into other tunes including Angel or Alien, and King’s Hex. I don’t think I’ve ever done the main section of the song, but may someday.
This is the shortest tune on the record, under two minutes. I’m thinking of using it as an intro into another song now, possibly to the eighteen-minute epic that comprises most of side two. It’s about the misfortunes of a sailor who goes off the sea the world and look for adventure, and is itself a continuation of the two-part suite that opens the record. If I do this, I may rename the track Tempest Fugitive.
Like the other songs so far, this track uses patches from my venerable Roland Alpha-Juno, most notably the Rock Organ 42, layered in with sounds from my onboard SampleTank software synth. There’s also a swoopy bloopy synth intro/outro that utilizes layered patches from the Roland as well as my rarely-usedMoog Phatty. This was knob jam that cannot be created in midi.
I added a lead guitar part that was not in original track in the spirit of “what would Martin do?” Inspired by his solo on Sandcastles, it turned to be fairly Frippy, with lots of compression and sustain for a heavy overdrive sound, mainly on long high notes. It was good to be able to explore this kind of thing without having to cop a specific part.
I was hoping to one more mixdown after listening back, but unfortunately, my MBox, the heart and soul of my recording studio, bit the dust sometime last week. (Maybe coincidentally, my garage door opener started glitching right around the same time.) The lights light up and it communicates with the computer, but it doesn’t output any sound from my DAW. Oh tragedy! The thing is about fifteen years old, and connected to an equally old computer, running an equally old version of ProTools. I’m hoping I can find a replacement MBox and be able to plug it in and it all just works, but if not the whole system may be kaput. Too bad, I had it set up in a way that really works for me, with effects plugins and synthesizer sounds that I’ve gotten to know very well, and I think of as part of my sound, to say nothing of being able to pull up twenty years worth of recorded songs if I want to remix them or anything like that. Ah well, all things must pass.
Indeed, I’ve been planning a replacement and major upgrade to my studio for some time now. I have modern-era computer that has Logic Pro and Reaper installed on it, and I have a new 8-channel audio interface I bought in the wintertime, along with a set of mics and stands to mic up my drum kit. Only problem is I haven’t had the time to get it all wired up and configured.
Last summer I was planning on producing an album of Martin’s songs, and I was going to use Reaper, since that’s his DAW software package of choice. And he was gonna help me get to know his favorite effects and sounds and all that as part of the process. Obviously that did not come to pass. When I finally regrouped and decided the next record would be the Spellbound project, I decided to use my old rig one last time, at least to start with, just to get making music as fast as possible. The plan to record live drums requires using the new rig, so that will get me a pathway there. I’d figured I could compare the two ways of working and find comparable sounds in the new system.
The other thing holding me back was after last July’s origami convention, my studio, which a combination origami and music studio with a finite amount of space, was just plain full up. There was no place to put away new paper or any more folded models. There were no clear work surfaces. It was upstairs all over the dining room too. Around Thanksgiving I had to clear the dining room table, and the situation became clearly unsustainable. Around Xmastime I started reorganizing my studio, throwing things out to make more space, and all that. It was a much bigger job than I anticipated, and I’m still not done yet. Mostly there though. And we have a long weekend coming up. Soon, soon.
Anyway, after all that rambling, here is the track Flock of Fools, Part I. Enjoy!
https://zingman.com/music/mp3/spellbound25/FlockOFools16a.mp3