This is the first in a series of text, audio, and video entries relating to the making of the new Halou record by members of the band and outside contributors:
**
Ryan:
Looking back on the making of the record, I sort of divide it up in my mind into two halves - the songs written just after "Wiser", and the more recent songs done after moving house.
Many of the older songs were done in the dark back room studio I had set up in our old place that just felt temporary and uncomfortable. Once we moved into the new house and I built out the new studio, work was much more relaxed and productive. Might have something to do with that floor-to-ceiling window...
For most of this record, we worked as we did on "Wiser": I put the demos together at our place in Marin and we finished things up at Count's in San Francisco. This time, Count took a couple of trips out to Dallas to record drums and guitars which really gave a couple songs the attention they deserved. Also, our new studio in Marin meant the countless trips over the Golden Gate Bridge, the long waits sitting still on Van Ness, and the late night drives home listening to rough mixes slowly became a thing of the past and made way for heightened wine consumption and puddles of DigiDelivered audio files.
**
So, for this part of the story, I thought I would focus on the songs that were near the end of 2001, right as "Wiser" was being released. Though "Wiser" came out in October 2001, it was finished about nine months earlier, so the songs we had written in that time could not be included on the album. Looking back, it was one of our more prolific periods during which quite a few songs came about:
The Ratio Of Freckles To Stars
Ingénue
Night Divides The Girls
One Sunny Day (the outro of which became the track "Separation")
...and four or five others that have not yet been released
It was during this period that we were playing a lot with Greg, our upright bassist, and Elizabeth, the cellist who played with us during the "Wiser" shows. The arrangements of these new songs reflected that lineup and so the demos were little more than bass, cello, piano, a beat, and Rebecca's vocals - occasionally a bit of xylophone or glockenspiel. The reason for keeping things simple like this was (hypothetically) so that we could take each song in a different way once we began 'production' on the final versions.
As it turned out, "Freckles" was the stand-out track of the bunch and ended up being the only one to make it onto the record. Though the others are each interesting and enjoyable in their own way, we chose to omit them for one reason or another - usually to do with the production style. It was important to us to have an eclectic record as opposed to our previous two, which were fairly consistent in tone.
Ryan.
(to be continued...)
Rebecca and I are putting the finishing touches on a recording of an old Cure song called 'Untitled'. 
So, I've now got NI's Massive installed on the G5 and have had a bit of time to cruise around it and listen to what it can do. Thankfully, the learning curve isn't too steep on this synth as it's rooted in the traditional structures I'm used to, unlike KORE and Guitar Rig, which challenge me a bit.
We now have a limited supply of 'hard copies' of the 'Albatross EP' for those dedicated followers of Ned Ludd out there. Unfortunately, we can't sell 'em for as cheap as the iTunes version, but if you contact us, we'll get you set up with one of them. 
Tonight, I've been trying to use Atmosphere for the first time and it really does not want to play nice with any other plug-ins. If I have any NI plugins open, it crashes the whole session and forces a restart. 
These get the brain settled...
Over the years I've spent some time thinking of ways to avoid bringing amps onstage for guitars. My original idea - which I still use - is the reliable Pod Pro that puts out a convincing guitar sound while eliminating all the negative aspects of amps (and stompboxes). 
The new EP is more or less done with an iTunes exclusive release just around the corner.
