shamania

for a little while we've been working on the mix of our third album shamania. the current track listing (albeit still subject to change though we doubt it'll differ much) is as follows:-

1. anodyne
2. deepblue2519
3. [/]
4. [-/+]
5. fire in the mind
6. [-]
7. anhedoniac
8. [+]
9. hypoboy
10. hypogirl
11. shamania
12. bipolar binary
13. tesseract [deepblue2519 reprise]

regular readers of our blog may remember that a little while back we posted provisional track listings for two albums-in-progress, shamania and everything we ever were. everything we ever were is on indefinite hold, though a few of the tracks are scheduled for shamania.

we'll let you know when it's all finished (we're hoping it'll be this side of christmas though we're not promising anything) and will also shortly be putting out some tracks from this album for you to listen to. you can already hear provisional versions of a couple on our myspace page.

here is the love that lists where it will

herewith, the current track listings for our shamania and everything we ever were albums, and the current cover art*. we are working on both concurrently. whichever gets finished first will be released first.

why do we post this? post details of works still in progress, still mutable? partly to give you an insight into the process, partly to record for ourselves. snapshot of a procedure. you won't recognise the names of some of these tracks because we've not finished them.

* both cover images - which we think fantastic - are by our friend debb rooken-smith.

[ # ]

another shamania track. at this rate, shamania may end up being finished before everything we ever were. we jump between the two projects, as and where we are taken. our intuitions lead; we follow.

this re-works the main elements of our track lie to me into a new and rather different beast. as such now consider lie to me extinct. it works much better in its new context, we feel. but then we would say that. the more we shape shamania, the better it slots in. the more we shape everything we ever were, the less of a home it has there.

edit, 25th october 2012: this was cut from the final track listing of shamania as we didn't feel that it fitted with the flow of the album. it remains unreleased.

fire in the mind

we mentioned in an earlier post (on 28th september) that we'd renamed the track fire in the mind (to the looming tower) because we wanted to use that name for another track we had planned.

that track - the new fire in the mind - is now done, finished late into last night, and is set for our fourth album shamania.

creating new tracks with more than one project in mind, switching between them as we go, isn't new for us. ascending a line in the sky for sothis was all created at the same time as we were working on gehenna now, as were a number of other tracks which we don't have a home for yet. it's just the way we do things. the shamania and everything we ever were tracks are very different in style and what we work on depends which way our mood takes us on a particular evening.

edit, 25th october 2012: this was cut from the final track listing of shamania as we didn't feel that it fitted with the flow of the album. it remains unreleased.

friends

another newbie track, friends is destined - in its jejune way - for everything we ever were.

created tonight, 17th november 2010, seeds sown in sound-sketches from the past few days. it needs a further tinker, which we'll do the next time there is sleep that won't come and walls that need to be bounced off of.

our latest tracks, we should say, follow one of two paths. there are those bound for album three, everything we ever were - which are pert and pertinent - and those intended for the album which will come after. which we're not even sure constitute 'music' in any sense of the word. the themes of that (planned, still mutant, still doodling) album are bipolarity, creativity, medication, hypomania, anhedonia, on top of the world looking down on creation. that album will be called shamania.

in the meantime, we're also working on the ascending a line in the sky to sothis mix. we still intend to have that completed by the end of the year; watch this space.

not me / he knows the use of ashes

two new tracks, not me and he knows the use of ashes.

both feature voice, both clock in at less than three minutes, and one (not me) even features some percussion! fear not, a return to our conventional ten minute plus moody meanderings will be here ere long.

not me was created today, 14th november 2010. he knows the use of ashes is a little older. we did the first draft of that on the laptop in the red lion pub in avebury, wiltshire, on 15th october 2010 (at that point it was called the side effects of october; we've reassigned that title to another - as yet incomplete - track), revisited it on 30th october 2010 (looking back, we did a lot of music that weekend; desert star 1, tesseract, lie to me, another track called be with me that we've still not finished, and this one, along with finalising gehenna now), and finished it off yesterday, 13th november. all the tracks named in this post are destined for our third album, which will be called everything we ever were and will be out early next year.

lie to me

another new track (we've said that phrase so often, we need to think up some more creative ways of expressing it...), created on 3rd november 2010 from elements of another (unfinished and discarded) track we were tinkering with on 29th october, and finalised this evening.

edit, 26th november 2010: we have since re-shaped and re-titled this track to [ # ] for our shamania album. when we first created lie to me we were also starting to sketch tracks for shamania, have now realised that we slotted this particular piece into the wrong album by mistake and that stylistically it fits much better there than it does on everything we ever were. the more we shape everything we ever were, the less it suits. the more we shape shamania, the better a home it has there.

edit, 25th october 2012: this was cut from the final track listing of shamania as we didn't feel that it fitted with the flow of the album. it remains unreleased.