What happens - if you care enough to really follow your Muse wherever she will lead you - is once you get into creative work, you must obey and submit fully. This is what happened with the Steve Shalit recording project begun over three years ago. I had entered into it with the intention of jotting down a handful of original songs in the sparest possible fashion and what ensued was a sort of "creative accountability creep" that forced the project to expand into a scale I hadn't imagined.
However, imagination is the landscape of art.
I arrived at my producer's studio - Joshua Pearl's Let It Out Productions - with two dozen songs to audition simply as voice and acoustic guitar. I played them, we narrowed the list to a dozen that would populate the album, and then we set out to make great recordings. But an interesting dynamic "crept" in for all the songs: They *required* full instrumentation. That is, once we began to understand the material we were dealing with - and I had no idea beforehand despite the fact that I wrote the songs - it became clear that the songs had wide dimensions of sound built implicitly into the compositions. We had to pursue the recordings to their organic aural completion.
So between the last post on this blog to the present one, Joshua and I have been recording many, many instruments and parts for these dozen tunes so that the listening experience will be as rich and accessible as possible. We envisioned that, while stark solo acoustic versions would withstand scrutiny and hold up for hard-core listeners, richly rendered versions would be more interesting on a purely sonic level. The recording studio, a resource I hadn't spent a huge amount of time with over the years, provided a wide-ranging palette from which to layer the sounds that would manifest the visions for the songs.
Of course, Joshua and I have - for better and for worse - a staggeringly large supply of recordings lodged in our minds as a result of a lifetime of listening. That meant that we couldn't sell any of the song orchestrations short for lack of production ideas. We had between us what seemed to be a limitless pool of resources from which to draw. However, this doesn't mean there are gratuitous sounds gumming up the works. Quite the contrary: Since so many great ideas presented themselves for inclusion on the tracks, they had to compete vigorously with each other while we listened to them fight it out. To put it in perspective, here we are with an artist who has made an entire musical career out of playing LOTS of featured guitar in live settings discovering that the songs really only permitted the guitar very select opportunities to grab the limelight.
Only the very best parts and sounds will remain in the final mixes. The results, I think, will be very satisfying for the listener.
So here we are - three-plus years into the project - and I can finally say that the album is IN THE CAN. All the recording has been completed. Now onto the mixing and mastering process. Still a couple months to go..
[Archive]
Imagination is the landscape of art: Recording is in the can
Light lives at the end of a tunnel
The grandest of endeavors must be achieved by chipping away at them. Piece by piece. So while it's debatable whether the making of a musical record album is a grand endeavor at all it sure is a hell of a lot of work nonetheless. At the least, though, there's a satisfaction in the commitment to process because it keeps one in the moment.
This philosophical preface is simply to put into context the reason why it's taking so long to complete a project that has now stretched into years. I can say that there is now indeed a light at the end of the tunnel. My last post stated that the first six songs were done, now this one states that four of the next six are mostly done. While I'm holding their presentation in reserve until the entire project is done, I will divulge the song titles: Age Of Eighteen, Boardwalk Love, Silver Spoon, Whiskey Jar, and Hoedown. These cuts are full of salt, fury, love, ambition, and irony.
I'm sure that the steady progress is producing worthy results because I'm listening to the cuts and I'm digging them. I'm the work's toughest critic.
I've found that you have to become the artist who's capable of creating the art you want to create. In other words, you have to grow into the machinery that can equal your artistic ambition and that takes all the effort in the world. Live with your senses open and push your sinews to stretch the bow as far as it will go.
My continued thanks to my friend and producer Joshua Pearl for his inspired artistic contributions and project management. Special thanks to Michelle Kaufman for providing me a mysterious, uncanny, metaphorical foil from her world of painting.
This philosophical preface is simply to put into context the reason why it's taking so long to complete a project that has now stretched into years. I can say that there is now indeed a light at the end of the tunnel. My last post stated that the first six songs were done, now this one states that four of the next six are mostly done. While I'm holding their presentation in reserve until the entire project is done, I will divulge the song titles: Age Of Eighteen, Boardwalk Love, Silver Spoon, Whiskey Jar, and Hoedown. These cuts are full of salt, fury, love, ambition, and irony.
I'm sure that the steady progress is producing worthy results because I'm listening to the cuts and I'm digging them. I'm the work's toughest critic.
I've found that you have to become the artist who's capable of creating the art you want to create. In other words, you have to grow into the machinery that can equal your artistic ambition and that takes all the effort in the world. Live with your senses open and push your sinews to stretch the bow as far as it will go.
My continued thanks to my friend and producer Joshua Pearl for his inspired artistic contributions and project management. Special thanks to Michelle Kaufman for providing me a mysterious, uncanny, metaphorical foil from her world of painting.
How are you coming along, maestro?
It seems like a blink since last I wrote about progress on this record. True that so much happens in a short amount of time, or that not much happens in a long period. Either way I can say that at this point six tunes truly are in the can. They are: Ben Backstay, Islands In The Deep Blue Sea, Room Of Thieves, Sad Tunes And Rhymes, Helena Blues, and There You Go. The title of the album is The Ballad of Ben Backstay, 'cause it's all about him. Turns out he's a lot like anyone else who finds himself in a situation where others are dependent on him yet he answers to someone else. 'Cept he's out at sea, and a frothy, dangerous sea it is.
So while Joshua Pearl and I are hammering out the next six tunes, which are enthusiastically underway, I will offer a clue as to how I'm approaching the delivery of these tunes. New in the Music section of this site are my latest renditions of the Dylan tunes Visions Of Johanna and Just Like A Woman. While these sparely arranged versions really have little to do with the orchestrations that my songs are getting, they have have allowed me to better understand where the bar is.
Steve
So while Joshua Pearl and I are hammering out the next six tunes, which are enthusiastically underway, I will offer a clue as to how I'm approaching the delivery of these tunes. New in the Music section of this site are my latest renditions of the Dylan tunes Visions Of Johanna and Just Like A Woman. While these sparely arranged versions really have little to do with the orchestrations that my songs are getting, they have have allowed me to better understand where the bar is.
Steve
It takes a long time to make an album
It's true, and I wonder whether the length of time it takes to make an album is somehow related to that adage that a task will expand to take exactly the amount of time allotted for it. Well, I'm hoping that's not true because this album project has only one end date: Stevie's final sign off.
Anyway, this project is the most serious I've ever undertaken musically and I'm pleased to say that the work that's in the can is amazing. But despite pithy earlier declamations, this album won't be done anytime soon. My producer, Joshua Pearl, and I determined that with the 15 or so songs I showed up with that in order to keep them moving at a rate of development that was consistent with one another we would best attack them in bunches. Therefore, we've been working on the the first six. This batch of Steve Shalit originals is almost done.
The songs are acoustic-based, but include layers of electric guitars, piano, drums, bass, and other instruments. The subject matter deals with love and heartbreak, jealousy and murder, thievery and truth, mostly happening in wild scenes out on the high seas. Putting down tracks is like a painter covering the canvas and then reworking the surface until the expression that shows through is just so. de Kooning would do layers of wild images on canvas only to mostly cover it with white and a few lyrical gestures. You wouldn't know what went into creating the works without looking up close to see all the paint textures showing through from beneath. I want these songs to succeed not only as songs, but as recordings. And I can tell you that they will.
So as soon as the first six are locked in via another session or three, we'll get into the second batch which will probably take another 6 months at least what with the full plate of responsibilities that yours truly balances. But it is precisely this writer's participation in the full range of life experience that is what's making the songs and recordings matter.
Stay tuned and I'll update these notes occasionally. Maybe I'll give some specific information about the tunes, but I'm going to do my best not to drop anything out there until the whole package is complete. Interested ears will dig this album when it hits.
Steve
Anyway, this project is the most serious I've ever undertaken musically and I'm pleased to say that the work that's in the can is amazing. But despite pithy earlier declamations, this album won't be done anytime soon. My producer, Joshua Pearl, and I determined that with the 15 or so songs I showed up with that in order to keep them moving at a rate of development that was consistent with one another we would best attack them in bunches. Therefore, we've been working on the the first six. This batch of Steve Shalit originals is almost done.
The songs are acoustic-based, but include layers of electric guitars, piano, drums, bass, and other instruments. The subject matter deals with love and heartbreak, jealousy and murder, thievery and truth, mostly happening in wild scenes out on the high seas. Putting down tracks is like a painter covering the canvas and then reworking the surface until the expression that shows through is just so. de Kooning would do layers of wild images on canvas only to mostly cover it with white and a few lyrical gestures. You wouldn't know what went into creating the works without looking up close to see all the paint textures showing through from beneath. I want these songs to succeed not only as songs, but as recordings. And I can tell you that they will.
So as soon as the first six are locked in via another session or three, we'll get into the second batch which will probably take another 6 months at least what with the full plate of responsibilities that yours truly balances. But it is precisely this writer's participation in the full range of life experience that is what's making the songs and recordings matter.
Stay tuned and I'll update these notes occasionally. Maybe I'll give some specific information about the tunes, but I'm going to do my best not to drop anything out there until the whole package is complete. Interested ears will dig this album when it hits.
Steve
New album update: Night Before Stars Bloomed
All time is at once. In the smallest spaces, traces of the beginning remain. Night exists only when light isn't seen. Newton is dead: A falling tree in the forest, observed by no one, will make no sound.
There are 6 Steve Shalit new original recordings nearing completion. You will have heard them before, yet once you hear them they will become completely unknown to you.
In your quantum living room now or this Fall, as you like. Until then, listen to new/old tracks at steveshalit.com.
There are 6 Steve Shalit new original recordings nearing completion. You will have heard them before, yet once you hear them they will become completely unknown to you.
In your quantum living room now or this Fall, as you like. Until then, listen to new/old tracks at steveshalit.com.