Since it's a New Year, it was time to reset my goals. I spent about a good hour or so just writing down what I'd like to accomplish this year. Now, I say this pretty much every year and I'm lucky to accomplish even 40% of it...but at least I usually go into it optimistically.
2023 was a bit of a disastrous year for me with most of it completely out of my control. The first thing I've had to do in the past few days, though, was figure out where I left off. I'm happy to say that the "Effects of Connection" EP mixes really are pretty much done. I did just listen to the 2 songs and they're fine, although I did write down just a couple of very minor notes. I of course didn't physically release it in 2023 but it looks like I more or less wrapped it up in time for the closing of the year. Hopefully, I can send this off for mastering in the next 2 weeks and put this one behind me.
For whatever reason, my attention has been on the "It's Raining Elvis Fish!" album redux mixes, and so far that's been going incredibly well. I would say about half the album, maybe slightly more, are pretty much in the home stretch with just very minor nitpicky items to work on. The album sounds really quite good in comparison to, say, the "Lost Weekend" album, which I'll need to get back to at some point for remixing (I admittedly got frustrated with the remixes and needed to take a break from them). Again, some of the newer things I've played around with in mixing over the past few months have really paid off. So, right now, I'm trying to get "...Fish!" wrapped up as close as possible by the end of the week. This is another monkey that I'd love off of my back, not to mention that I'd love to be able to actually listen to this one leisurely.
I have 2 songs that I'm debating about what to do with. One is "Cynthia Mask", of which the original version was never too wonderful and could have been the worst track on the whole album (way to open the album with that, huh?!). I'm fiddling with completely reworking that song but I could go in about 1 of 5 different directions so it'll be interesting to see what comes of it, if anything. I could also just leave the song off the redux album as well.
I also toyed with "Creeped Out" which is a newer track of RH's (well, of the past 20 years) that wasn't on my original release. I wanted to try a drum on my demo version of the song and low and behold the very first pattern I clicked on fit quite well. This is pretty much unheard of...seriously. I'm taking it as a sign so I'll probably move forward with this one and see what I get.
On my agenda hopefully for 2024, starting around summer, is to finally work on the Speak Softly, Her Majesty fake band name album. This along with Wrecking Ball are the 2 albums I started about a decade ago, almost in unison, that I've been the most excited about. I looked at one of my rough demos yesterday and quickly fell down the rabbit hole, basically spending 3 hours on the track, trying out drums, piano parts, etc. I think I ended up with my missing 6th track, at least in demo form. This album excites me quite a bit because the sound of the album is so different than anything I've ever worked on or released before. After working on the track, I forced myself to put it aside since I need to keep focus on the work I already have in front of me.
I finally played around with my new Boss Harmonist pedal. Honestly, this pedal never interested me in the least...and yet something told me about a month ago to pick one up. It seemed a bit strange but I try to follow my intuition whenever possible. In trying it out yesterday, I think the timing is perfect since I'm learning more about music all the time and this thing makes some outrageously unusual sounds that should fit perfectly for the music on my agenda this year.
That's the news over here. For day 1 of the New Year, all systems go; hopefully it remains that way. I know that I need to rework how I spend my time and days, and that'll certainly be a challenge but it's something that I simply need to do for myself. Hell, it's the only way forward.
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