what made me happy then still does

Over the past couple of days I've been recording a lot. What else is new. Well, it's nothing new that I've been working on music, it's the way I'm doing it that has changed. Or better put, I've revisited a recording technique that I used to live and die by and it's seriously working like a champ once again.

I used to sit with my four track and write Mathlete songs without any prior ideas going into the session. The first "cool" thing that I came up with once I sat down worked as the basis for a new song. Once a quickly built foundation was set the rest of the writing would happen at the same pace. Songs were usually short. Immediate, but hopefully not always obvious, melodies and musical bits were recorded without a drawn out thought process. These songs were usually written in the time it took to drink a few beers. These songs were written with the purpose of being as much pure emotion (pure Mike) as they were disposable pop songs. It made sense to stack 15 to 20 songs on a release, never giving the listener enough time to get sick of or even latch onto a particular song.

How much time do you spend on a website or on a TV channel. About two, two and a half minutes? Perfect. Then we're on the same page.

This is how I've worked over the last couple of days, sans the beer, sans the four track. This is the way, I have finally realized, that I work best. Last week I was really close to getting serious about an instrumental project and new alias. I had rough outlines of some songs that were spanning into the 6, 7 minute mark. These songs are not bad. In fact I'm quite proud of myself that I even attempted such a thing, but with some rational thought I realized I was driving down the wrong street. I parked the car in a familiar lot and threw the keys down the sewer drain.

My plan is to release a batch of these songs by the end of the summer. If I still have no label support by then I'll release the songs as downloadable tracks and as limited cdrs with handmade/smart packaging for those of you who dig physical copies.

I haven't been this excited about making music in quite a while. Short bursts of guitar started to sound good again. Synth tones eroded by downsampling are making a lot of sense. The beats I'm constructing are simple and right. In a way it took me this many years and this many songs to realize how I should proceed. In another way I've made a decision to forget everything I've learned in order to make honest music again.