These are 4 of the 20 or so preamps i've been putting together in anticipation of recording our next album. The process of building mechanical equipment is not unlike the process of building an album; it takes a lot of concentration and precision, and the more time you put into the process the better your outcome will be. It can be tedious work, and if you do it correctly you're left with something you can be proud of. But ultimately, for me, the way in which a mechanical piece of gear lives in the world feels very disparate from the way a song lives in the world.
My experiences with these new songs are very performance driven. I practice them daily in my apartment, and when I get the opportunity to create them in the same room as Jon and Matt they take on the existence they were meant to. It's the three of us creating this living thing that exists only in that moment, comprised of each individual's own ideas and expressions about what it should be.
In that regard the songs are the same every time, something static (once a final revision is worked out). But the life of the song really seems to be in the finer details, the parts of it that change from one performance to another, the excitement that arises from pulling back on the beat in a way that's never been tried before, or pushing the tempo a little further than it's ever been pushed before. In this way these songs are something different, something alive and wholly new, each time we create them.
In the process of recording them they will be frozen in time, to forever function the same, like the pieces of equipment they were recorded on. They'll take on new meanings for new people each time they're experienced, but the physical properties will never change.
The process of building the songs for this album has been nearly 4 years in the making, the process of building the equipment for these songs has been about half of that. I don't know how long the process of building the recording itself will take, but to put so much time, comprised of so many infinite moments, into a finished product that will ultimately be finite, feels antithetical.
As a band the songs will still live inside the moments we create them, and the recordings will function more as a shrine to those moments, as statues of remembrance. As a listener the album serves as canon, it's the mint from which all other copies are pressed and pale in comparison to.
It's all familiarity, nothing more than building comfort.
