We have completed our 2nd album, entitled ‘Raise Up Your Head‘, which was recorded at the end of this past March. Once again, we recorded with producer Dale Morningstar at The Gas Station, who is the subject and star of Zunior.tv’s first short-film/documentary, ‘Dale Morningstar: Sleeping Under The Stars’, which was recently released. We also have the artwork for the album in the works, which has been done by an amazing fine artist. It’s beautiful and we can’t wait to show it to everyone.
The album is 11 songs in total (about 5o-odd minutes long), some of which were written as recently as this past winter, and some were written nearly a decade ago. The title comes from the chorus of the song ‘Tristan’. We all feel like this album is a huge evolution for us, as we experimented with sounds and textures (mandolin, harmonica, and bowed electric guitars, LOTS of acoustic guitars, feedback, radio static and ’white’ noise). There’s one song (probably the ’single’), ‘Cadence’, which features an otherworldly autoharp, and also two completely acoustic songs, entitled ‘Dark Blues’ and ‘Arrow’. There are a lot more vocal harmonies on this album (two and three-part on nearly every song), and Dale worked very hard to find new and unique microphone setups and combinations for recording the vocals, resulting in singing with more texture and character reflective of each individual song. The tunes themselves cover a wide swath of our influences: acoustic folk, classic rock, gnashing punk and hard rock, trippy noise, romantic pop, and swirling psychedelia.
Dale mixed each song beautifully, during a full moon, and gave each one with its own unique flavour, resulting in a dynamic and varied recording. We will not reveal the magician’s secrets, but we can tell you that there was liberal use of vintage echo on everything from guitars to vocals to drums. Once again, the process was largely analog, as we recorded the bulk of the tracks directly to 1-inch tape. Digital recording is a crutch, and besides that we love having to stop to change tape reels!
These recordings sound warm, full and juicy in a way that makes us extremely proud. As this was the fifth time we have entered a studio as a band, and our second recording with Dale, we feel a new level of comfort as a band, and that comfort brought a relaxed, confident feel to these performances.
We had an amazing time making this album and we are all eager to get it into people’s ears. No release date yet, but we are going to be releasing the single first, to whet your appetite. Stay tuned! The best is yet to come, we promise.
Love,
THE STORMALONGS, April 2010