Sunday, February 28, 2010

RPM 2010: Victory! [Updated]

I am pleased to tell you I have successfully completed the 2010 RPM Challenge.

Despite losing nearly 10 days to a hard drive failure (and nearly losing incredibly valuable data), despite having several weekend days lost to home renovation, and despite my usual creative and musical challenges, I have completed a 9-track, 35-minute album.

It's called "Reflection".

This weekend I created 3 tracks from scratch and finished all the mixes, mastering, and CD assembly. Two of the tracks are instrumental/interludes. I've considered these "cop-outs" in the past, but desperate times...

Due to the grueling schedule and other conflicts, the album has no cover art and no book. Yet. I am hoping to produce something over the next month. Neither of those things are required for successful RPM completion, so they can be done later.

This is a strange record. Stark and minimal. All of the sounds are acoustic or physical in origin - there are no synthesizers or electric guitars, drum machines, or drum kits. The closest thing to that is electric piano.

There wasn't really a concept this time, just an idea for a sound - "Bryan Ferry in Blade Runner". There are more ideas woven in as well, including the desire to make this record more mysterious than previous releases. It's not all moans and dirge - there's at least one track that's practically danceable.

My friends previewed some of the tracks and said "this is not what I expected you to do". That may be a polite way of saying "this is terrible", but I would rather have a surprised reaction than no reaction at all.

I hope you enjoy it. I can't say making it has been as pleasant as my last few albums, but it feels great to say "I finished".

Some sample tracks:
Another New Me
Write Protect Failure

Update: Full ZIP file of complete album now available.

1 comment:

Shakki said...

"Finishing" is the way to go.

My fellow Fin.

I will listen to this later this week and tell you my thoughts.

:)