In The Noise (what does it mean?)
Saturday, October 6
When I’m interviewed about the new album, I now say that it’s about “growing up, learning to create a calm center in the midst of disconcerting events and politicking people”. But I didn’t really know on a grand scale what this latest album was about until we started to put the songs in order for mastering. I would compare the process to a kind of chapter sorting.
If you wrote a novel you would typically write the story from start to finish. In my case, we were looking at a collection of short stories, written about completely different things over a long time period, that needed to flow and tell a story. The songs we choose to record did have a common thread from a bird’s eye view. As is turned out, the title song “In The Noise” embodied the theme.
It’s funny, but even if you feel you have a certain clarity on what your next project will be like, it takes on it’s own identity and life once you actually start to put the pieces together. I love that process and I like being pleasantly surprised.
I had a revelation when we were working on the post-production elements of “In The Noise”. Before we even began recording, I had many foolproof ideas about the album title and theme, none of which had to do with the final outcome. When we started looking at song order and title, it came to my attention that I would be disrespecting the album by forcing it to “be” about something it wasn’t. Luckily I have some collaborative friends who encourage me to look at things from many points of view.
Each time an artist thinks of creating an album he/she will of course, think about the album title, the goal, the perspective, the theme of the compilation of songs. This kind of thinking brought me to edit out, include and modify the songs I thought would best fit the context of where I was in my life. There are a handful of leftover gems in my back pocket I’d like to polish up for the next album though. I haven’t yet decided on any themes or could-be titles…In the future, I’ll be looking forward to the surprise.
(Snapshot taken at Sundae Sound Studios during the vocal tracking sessions on “In The Noise”)
Posted by anita under Images, Updates and Chat.
