Radical face – The family tree presents: The branches

Release: 22.10.13 in America; 1.11.13 in Europe.

1. Gray skies
2. Holy branches
3. The mute
4. Reminders
5. Summer skeletons
6. The crooked kind
7. Chains
8. Letters home
9. From the mouth of an injured head
10. Southern snow
11. The gilded hand
12. We all go the same

I’m done!

I finished The Branches. It’s tracked, mixed, and awaiting master. So far, every other Radical Face record has been released unmastered. In that, I had them mastered, but liked the raw mixes better and released those instead. But I think it will help this current one because of how I recorded it. Worst case scenario, I’ll do what I always do … which is waste money. Hahaha. I am sorry for my hiatus these past couple months. I have not been online, or checked my e-mails. Sometimes the only way I can finish recordings is by cutting off from as much as possible and just locking myself away. This was one of those scenarios. I was really just working on it to the point of burning out (and not sleeping, but that always happens), and then driving to one of the springs around Florida for a day of swimming, then getting back to it (I’ve really fallen in love with springs here thanks to a friend of mine … it’s one of my favorite places to be now). So if you sent me a message and didn’t get a response, I just want you to know that I was not ignoring you in particular. I was ignoring everyone. And now that I am finished, I will be playing catch up. If there was something urgent I missed, feel free to send it again.

So now that all the recording is done, I’m starting the artwork for the vinyl and CD. I already have the covers for the whole Family Tree set, so it’s really just the booklets and posters and inserts. The record will be coming out in October, so I really gotta be quick about getting all my manufacturing in. Last album I was about 4 months late on the vinyl because I had no idea what I was doing. I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure it’s here on the release date this time. Wish me luck. Speaking of October…

As I mentioned in my last update, I booked a US tour. I don’t tour often, and especially not stateside. It’s interesting having something like this booked when you don’t play often, because no one really knows if people are really gonna show up. Myself included. So we guessed, and we’ll see how it goes. I’m sure it’ll be fun either way. I’ll be adding those dates to the „Shows“ tab later tonight, and they’ve already been posted on my Facebook page. So that makes two weeks stateside, a break, and two weeks in Europe. It doesn’t cover a ton of ground, but it’s what I’ve got. And I’m sure I’ll tour again and hit more places. It just might be a year or two. Hahaha. Oh, and I forgot to mention before, on the European tour my good friend and collaborator on Clone, Rickolus, will be opening. It’ll be fun to tour together again. I think the last time we did so with our respective solo projects was in 2003. Ten years. Holy crap. Other than that, I will be putting together a live set for everything over the next couple months. It’s always an interesting process, coming up with a show. Whenever I record, I do so without any thought beyond the record. I never consider how I would play the songs live and I can go a little apeshit on my track counts (my recording process isn’t super streamlined). So it’s a bit of a challenge figuring out how to get the music across with just a handful of people. In truth, it’s very rare that I can play the songs the way I recorded them. I typically rewrite them completely. I take the chords, the melodies and words, then figure out how to get the general idea across with a small group. Sometimes they wind up a lot louder, or a lot more distorted. Other times, they become a lot simpler and streamlined. The live versions are definitely different, and occasionally, drastically so. I actually enjoy doing this, so it’s not a problem personally, but I also realize that some people expect to hear something very similar to the CD when they go to shows. If that’s the way you lean and you plan on coming and seeing any of these, I apologize in advance. Hahaha. Also, I lied about something in my last post. There’s going to be another delay on Clone. I’m sorry. I’ve laid out everything I need to do for both that release and for The Branches, and there simply is not enough time. I’d end up shortchanging both releases if I tried to get them both out before the year’s end. So Clone will happen at the very beginning of next year. Once I’m back from tour, I can focus on just releasing that. Oh, and Alex and I will be starting another Electric President record soon. I need to take a break from the Family Tree set for a little bit and we’ve been talking about making some kind of dance record for a while now. So we’re gonna start once I have some free time to record again. But I will post more on that as it comes. I also have a couple music videos I wanna shoot for The Branches, but I will start on those once all the manufacturing is in. It’ll be a couple weeks at least. Well, I better get back to work. I should be a little better about updating things now that I am not losing my mind and recording non-stop. Sleeping again will be good too. I hope everyone is well.

Zu gleicher Zeit wird auch noch eine neue EP erscheinen („The barstards volume two“). Ich freue mich riesig und räume schonmal den Platz für das Album des Jahres frei.