The past week and a half, I’ve been on a writing streak like I haven’t been since I was working on There is Something and not nothing (probably late ’08 or early ’09). It’s been Mars Lights stuff, writing vocals and lyrics to songs we’ve already demo’d instrumentally, sometimes years ago.
Six songs down, and I have two more demos I can work with; then I’ll have to start writing more riffs :-)
It would seem premature to talk about content before you can hear the songs, but I’m pleased with the variety. There’s a happy song (of sorts… ) for the first time, some noir, and some science. Plus, the usual lack of first- and second-person pronouns, and general mayhem.
This will be the first bigger set of songs we’ll have the chance to rehearse and play live before recording. For the Sides, everything was recorded first, before we ever played a show. In many of those songs vocals were just rough sketches when we did them, and in some, they hadn’t been started at all. For the LP we’re working on, I think three of my four were done and had been played at our duo shows, but several of Drew’s had no vocals when we put down the instrumentals. A few of my new ones include semi-improvised sections, so I’m especially excited to work those out in the practice room before we put them down.
We have about five albums we want to make, so there are loud, weird jams for the forseeable future.