I'm hyped. Your last album was good (if short) and your mixes with Ki5i have been fantastic. Be sure to blog all the details as they occur.

this is super good news.

I feel like one song on the free EP is a bit "olamm"-esque although no where near as good.

Can't wait, for both the album and the free EP!
Viva creation-centre!

Wow, that's so not the way I work! I slam a track out in a day, usually. I couldn't bear to spend months on a bass part, I'd just stop hearing the song after a while. The details would eclipse the whole, the trees would wipe out the wood.

I decided that I wanted this new project to avoid any "fake" (virtual, sampled) instruments and actually use live recordings, so I went into a studio to track drums... Instead of breaking song structure conventions so brazenly like last time, the experimentations are more internalized and natural... less cluttered production, way more harpsichord, real piano, more melodic repetition, a overarching lyrical theme, better Japanese lyrics, more punch, way more guitar.

I always find people's explanations of how their sound evolves fascinating. This account suggests you're getting more "mature" or more "conservative" in your production style. It's vaguely rockist, because it appeals to "nature" (both in the "real" instruments used and the "natural" structural juxtapositions), although in music what people tend to mean when they say "nature" is convention -- what sounds natural is what we're used to.

My feeling is that artists always think they're getting better with time, but that the public usually likes what the artist did early on better, even if that was more lo-fi. In other words, charm and originality are more important than care with details and getting a bit more "natural" (in other words samey). It may be that people prefer the rushed EP to the laborious LP. It's good that you're doing both, anyway.

Can we expect keytar solos?

Very. long. keytar solos?

Looking forward to that !

Digiki album coming out in March 2007 WATCH OUT !

as the mix engineer in qns. i wrote alot of crap, and now deleted it. and i'm going to write this.

"mate, sometimes, you know, it is made so hard" (i'm looking righ at you momus)

Wow, that's so not the way I work! I slam a track out in a day, usually.

I get the song done in two days, get busy with something else, and then spend eight agonizing months trying to fight the inertia to clean up all the little mistakes. I really dislike this way of working and I think I will approach the next thing much differently.

It's vaguely rockist, because it appeals to "nature"

I still do so much cut-ups and editing and artificial noises that I wouldn't call it rockist or naturalist, but I just want the sounds to sound bold and real. A lot of people may not claim to care about whether sounds are fake or not but they can subconsciously tell.

My feeling is that artists always think they're getting better with time, but that the public usually likes what the artist did early on better

That's the great fear as a young artist - will maturity make me more interesting and better focused or boring?

marxy sed A lot of people may not claim to care about whether sounds are fake or not but they can subconsciously tell.

Depends on alot of things but you have a much kinder estimate of "alot of people" than I. Its been my experience that most people only "hear" if they like something or not and quite often its the mastering mix not the main mixdown that determines much of that. Of course I'm asuming at least a semi competant mixdown engineer. BTW if you are keeping it real this time around, can we assume that there is indeed a harpsichord at chez marxy?

momus: by "track a day" do you mean writing, recording or both?

m&M both use lyrics in their music, a process which I simply cant do myself. I take between a day and a month to "finish" a track and sometimes tracks wll sit there for two months till I find the last set of whatever is needed to finish em. Sometimes I get really lucky and do final mixes of several tracks in one day.

Odd thing is that as a consumer listener, I tend to assume that when an album comes out the music is new, even though I know from the experience of recording, mixing, mastering, pressing, packaging, and then finally distribution, that by the time music gets into the consumers hands it may indeed be years old.

Anyways marxy good luck on the upcoming release.

by "track a day" do you mean writing, recording or both?

Sometimes both. But it's always hard to quantify how long a song "takes to make", since songs are like sushi: okay, it may just take one chop to make one, but in that chop is a lifetime of experience, training, and, well, chops.

I think speed is a product of experience and skill, no?

Or a youthful naivete.

m&M you are both right, sorta... By the other view, songs are like a bowel movement, even a baby can do it but sometimes it takes an adult quite a while.

I think I prefer the sushi metaphor to the shit metaphor myself.

Look forward to it, and hope it's a bit easier to get hold of than KN - I had completely forgotten I'd ordered it by the time it arrived 10 months later!

I am sorry that happened.

Y'all are so cute when you get along!

m&M was a great rendering, Chris_B.

Looking forward to the tunes, David.

What's this I hear about a new group called m&M? Are you two really doing a collaboration for the next music project? That's so great. Many people will be happy to hear that.

the currently-untitled Neomarxisme II

now that'd be one marxist title. the arts must serve the perpetual revolution. (the album must serve the (post)blog)

question for m&M: What instruments do you guys play yourselves?

I grew up playing guitar and baritone ukelele. I can play piano although not well, but it means I can play anything keyboard based. I have gotten better at bass lately, but still don't have it. I am not really a drummer, but I "get" it.

I suppose acoustic guitar is what I'm best at, in a sort of arpeggiated Leonard Cohen style. There's quite a bit of that on my new album, mixed in with the electronics. I can busk stuff on the keyboards, enough to play chord sequences into a sequencer. But I'd say my main instrument now is laptop, just all the things you can do to manipulate sound, sampling stuff and messing around with it. There's some ukelele on my record too, but it's all sampled from George Formby records!

you can make records much faster when you sample stuff. since that stuff has already been recorded.. compressed. mix. mastered.. most of the "work" is already done..

trevor, for me thats when the work actually starts!