‘STOP TRYING’ is done.  It’s out next Tuesday (Sept 15th) on iTunes, this site, and then it trickles in to other places like Amazon, etc..

It feels good to get it done.  Even though it’s only a mini-album, it seemed to be quite hard to do.  I languished over mixes, harmonic balances and mastering.  The side pocket of the driver’s door is a Rough Mix CD Wasteland.

I wonder what it’s like to be one of those artists that just records and then leaves the actual hard work to someone else.  I remember writing with a well-known singer and they stuck around for the laying down tracks, then just spat out some instructions on structure and mix and took off for the rest of the day.  Leaving me and the other writer to futz with the mix. Maybe I do too much.  I don’t think I’m patient enough to wait around for someone else to do that stuff though.

The first record, ‘Waiting’, took a year and a half to complete.
The second, ‘Secrets’, took 8 months.
The third, ‘Arcane Anthems’, was done in just over 3 months.
‘Stop Trying’ was in the works for about 8 months.

I like the luxury of spending lots of time on writing and recording, but you just don’t have that luxury all the time, do you?  Its also my lack of patience at play.  I get excited about each new song and I just want it to be complete.

I was thrilled this time around to have Claire Worrall and Gordon Deppe involved.  Claire is possibly the sweetest person on the planet and she just happens to be an amazing singer.  I couldn’t believe my ears when I first listened to her vocal tracks.  Her voice was like someone playing an instrument.  Perfect pitch, timing, and vibratto on six simultaneous tracks.  Astonishing.

Gordon is supercool.  He refers to himself as ‘Gord’ and I’ve tried to do the same, but really he’s always going to be Gordon.  The Spoons were a favourite band when I was growing up.  They once played in our tiny town at the height of their fame.  It was unfathomable for a band that famous to play our town.  I remember going early and standing in the front few rows.  Mesmerized by just how cool they looked and how amazing they sounded.   They had just released Talkback, produced by Nile Rodgers.  They were the coolest thing about Canada at the time.  I still have Sandi Horne’s bass guitar pick from that show.  That sounds creepy when I type it out.

The idea behind ‘STOP TRYING’ was to veer in the other direction from what I think a lot of Canadian recording artists do on 3rd and 4th releases.  They always seem to go more rocky.  I was concerned that Brittlestar was started to sound like Nickleback redux. Not that there’s anything wrong with sounding like Nickleback.  Its just that they  do it so well.  So, I decided to return to pop…whether it would have me or not.   I like how it’s all turned out and I hope that you do too.

x stewart

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 7:35 AM by stewart and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.