I spent alot of time over winter break working on the Spellbound songs, as befits the vibe. I’ve been practicing the lead guitar parts for Frozen Ocean, and laying down a take every day even if I know it’s not a keeper. There’s alot going on in Martin’s solos and I’m really trying to nail it all – shredding riffs, bendy notes, phrasing, tone, everything. I’m starting to understand how much depth there can be to guitar playing. But it’s all getting there. I should have a take soon, and then it’s turning the corner to mixing the song.
I also started in on the seventeen-minute prog epic that fills up most of side two. I don’t recall what we originally called it but now I’ve named it The Sailor’s Saga. It’s sort of an answer to the opening track in which the narrator is inspired to go out and experience the world. In this song his fortunes turn tragic and his ship first becalmed in the heat and then beset by storms. Eventually he perishes in a shipwreck, and there the voyage of his (perhaps ghostly) soul begins. So far I’ve listened to it and figured out all the lyrics and chords and structure and parts, and created a sort of sort of midi framework consisting of a click track and piano part that outlines the chords, melody and groove.
My recollection of this is Martin came up with the story line and most of the lyrics, and had the first section pretty much ready to go, but thought it was too short for a full song, so we kept adding to it. We worked out the arrangement by jamming on it, and put in several extended solos and building moments. Each section has a distinct mood, but they all relate together musically.
Our songwriting was ambitious but not super sophisticated, and we wrote and recorded this one pretty fast. Each of the four main sections consists mostly of two to four chords repeated in a loop, with a few transitional passages connecting them up. The first three are in the key of E minor. The first part is upbeat and jaunty like a sea shanty. The second part is very atmospheric and has some pretty cool chords with open jazzoid voicings. I wonder if I came up with that part. The third part is the longest, with a slow plodding tempo, a long labyrinthine chord progression, and six stanzas of lyrics which are repeated with harmonies after a long jam section. The last part is an instrumental, three chords in a loop slowly building from nothing to the entire universe, with overlapping organ and guitar solos on top of it all.
Listening to it now, I’m thinking of ways I might enhance the arrangement, particularly to make some of the jam sections a bit more structured with textural and motivic ideas. There’s certainly lots of possibilities to explore.