Recording with

Fiona Dickinson

fiona dickinson band entered the studio this past weekend.
i tracked all of my drum parts on saturday and sunday (6.15-16). it was honestly fucking hard. i realized that i had done a pretty good job of writing parts for these songs that are just a tiny bit outside of my comfort zone. fiona spoke about that yesterday while we were in the studio, about how the most fertile place to be with regards to personal growth is just one step outside of your comfort zone. i think she’s absolutely right. for better or worse, it made recording some of these songs really challenging physically and mentally. i think some of the challenge came from this really bizarre stress/anxiety that i have around the production of this record.

i noticed that while in the studio, or even while discussing any aspect of recording this record, i feel this really lovely, positive excitement that’s all tied up with this weird tension and anxiety.

i realized pretty early on when we started talking about recording that we all had pretty specific, yet different ideas about how we want this record to sound, and differing opinions about the processes by which we’ll go about acheiving our ideal results. after having more experience with production, i feel this kind of gross desire to control the mixing/editing process of this album. i think it makes sense considering i have a pretty clear idea in my head of how i want things to sound and feel like i have enough experience to know how to end up at that sound, but it still sucks to feel that way when i know full well that everyone else involved has ideas about how things should sound that are different from my own. not to mention the fact that they are all more than capable of realizing their vision from a technical/production standpoint.

dan and i talked about this a little bit today over text.

after our chat, i felt a little more comfortable with the idea of letting go and just trusting everyone involved and the process. i know that all four of us are really, really excited about this album and we all want it to be the best that it can be. i think maybe we just have different ideas when it comes to defining what that ideal end product looks like, and i need to work more on letting go and trusting that the end product will be a great labor of love by all of us. everyone involved is so incredibly talented and just the most lovely people. i have to trust that the culmination of our collective spirits will result in something far more beautiful than anything that any one of us could create on our own.

last night, dan ripped through 6 songs in about 5 hours. it was impressive to watch him work. he maintained a sense of humor throughout and was willing to compromise with matt and fiona with regard to his tone and the complexity of his parts. i think dan’s parts are brilliant and they’re like the special sauce of these songs. fiona’s songs are beautiful and strong enough to stand on their own two feet without us three bozos, but dan’s guitar parts just add this really pleasant shine to them. ✨

after four days of recording, we have drums and bass finished, fiona’s main guitar parts for all the songs (i’m p sure,) and dan’s guitar parts for six of nine tunes. so, the tracking of the “meat” of the record is almost done, then we get to move on to the fun, weird shit. fiona and i are going to meet up between now and the first week of july when we re-enter the studio to create some of our own string samples and weird loops and stuff. i know this record is going to be really special and i am so excited to be able to just jam it in my car with the windows down.