Last weekend, my band Ancestral Tongue came together for a session of analog recording for a handful of our songs. songs.
This has been a long time coming. I have not officially released very much original music over the years despite easily having up to four full-length albums’ worth of finished songs under my belt.
Most notably, this will be the first collection of songs performed by my band, with Andrew Weitze on guitar(s), Joe Allen on drums and percussion, and my partner MaxZine on the mandolin and bass. For these recordings, our audio engineer, Billy Kemp, was enlisted to play bass for some of the songs (all pictured above).
What is also different about this session is the technology. We recorded on analog tape. This practice was prevalent long before the crisp, digital age of music. With an 8-track recorder, we played the songs together as a live recording just like bands did way back in the day before everything could be done remotely, spliced, and rearranged any kind of way as they do now.
Of course, all the audio recordings will be digitized and mixed in a digital audio workspace like anything else. We want to utilize the warmth and character that analog recordings bring and hope that this will serve our songs well.
For this session, we basically converted a garage into a recording studio. Billy brought a mixer, an analog recorder, a PA system, several mics and mic stands, countless cables and adapters to connect everything together, and several other gadgets and gizmos. The place looked like a vintage, somewhat chaotic space ship.
Joe’s wife, Xyla, volunteered to provide food and meals during our sessions, and she delivered flavorful and nourishing food and drinks the entire time. This blessing helped us get through all the intense work we were doing.
Setting everything up took a few hours, and there was a good bit of back-and-forth fine-tuning the arrangements. We all learned a lot during this process, and if the stars align for us to do this again, we will be even more prepared.
I cannot say for sure when these songs will make it out into the world. The best-case scenario would be late this summer, but I do not want to rush this project unnecessarily.
All of you, dear WPR readers, will be the first to know. Until then, I will document different parts of this journey to share with all of you along the way.
Last weekend’s recording was a bright spot in my life over the last few days. To be real with you all, I find it hard to get up out of bed these days. The country I live in (along with Israel) has started a war with Iran for reasons no one can agree on. Gaza and Lebanon are continually being terrorized by Israel. Masked, lawless ICE agents are racially profiling and kidnapping brown and black people on the streets of America. And, to top things off, I seem to have hurt my back a bit, which has not been fun.
The world feels like a dark place right now, but I will hold on to the little points of light I can conjure every now and then.
I hope you can do the same.
For more information about my band Ancestral Tongue, visit https://www.ancestraltongue.com