I know we've been gone for a bit, so I wanted to give an update from the studio.
Our special guest on my solo record just flew out yesterday after finishing his parts on the album, so I can finally announce the line-up of my backing band, Oceans:
Me - vocals, drums, some guitar, bass, synth, etc.
Mark (my bandmate from Enoch) - bass, backing vocals, some synth
The Lamb (my bandmate from the Theosophical Society and a member of Sudan) - synth, backing vocals, some guitar
and the guest of honor...
Regan (of Casting Thin Shadows fame, as well as his many other fantastic projects) - guitar, backing vocals, some synth and percussion
We've wanted to work together again since his last solo album that we performed on, and I wanted to flesh out my solo stuff with a full band, so it worked perfectly. We spent maybe two months trading demos, woodshedding his guitar parts, then flew him in to our studio to record with the band for about two weeks. We still have a couple overdubs and he will likely need to send in a couple more guitar bits as we need them, but the bulk of the album is done. The Lamb is playing since he wanted to do a solo ambient project and there were spaces in the song cycle that my solo stuff had where I needed ambient bits, so we cowrote some things and he wrote a couple bits. This is very much my album; I had final say on whatever got used, had very large amounts of control over the direction, and all but one song originated from my demos while another had a bit from one of my home demos grafted onto it later after a little rejggering. But there was a lot of chemistry; we all sort of agreed that, should Mark or the Lamb want to pursue a solo thing, this backing band would work well for that as well. And we all would love to sit down and write a full record together, but as it stands, our schedules are quite mad. But talks are in order and we have a couple cool ideas that, hopefully, we'll get to employ. I tend to have terrible luck when it comes to organizing these big surprises and having fate conspire against us, but we will do what we can. I'm still not sure what the album will be presented as, but it's all coming together.
In other news, we wrapped the new Theosophical Society album maybe three days ago. Daniel is currently mixing it with input from all the other guys. I got the mixing done for my drums first a couple weeks ago since I didn't have to do any overdubs, which let me focus on Oceans. I have no idea how long that will take as I am waist-deep in getting my solo record done and out the door, but it's moving along.
Also, the release of the Sudan and Pharaohs albums are being evaluated by Daniel and Jon, respectively, and likely won't get finalized until after the new Theosophical album is ready. So, expect these albums in the next couple weeks or so (OOC: within the next week, real time).
We have been busy! After this album comes out, we are hopefully going to play a couple festivals of the Theosophical banner, with Enoch, Sudan, Pharaohs, and the Theosophical Society playing and, if we're able to snag Regan for a couple weeks of rehearsal and performance, Oceans as well as his solo material. Maybe have Derek play some Tremors stuff, which would be cool since he's just been releasing that stuff guerilla style for the past year or so. Perhaps Psychopathologist or Sisyphean if those guys are able (we have emailed them, but everyone's schedules look rather blocked up; nature of the business sometimes), but definitely the main body of the Theosophical Society. The current title for the festival will be Homecoming. More details on that one as we confirm possible venues, artists, etc. Feel free to give us some ideas for the festival. It's nothing without fan input.
Anyway, back to work!
- Langdon
