At about 3 PM she called me asking questions about how our promotion efforts were going and to get a sense for our progress on new music. I told her about the remix of “Cut the Spell” that John Keenan just sent to us, she was excited to hear about it and decided to come up and listen. We listened to the remix, which she was very happy about, excited about the potential of this particular song and the others slated for remxing.
It was then that we talked about the material for the next album. First we decided that we are going to rehash some old songs that we produced before we began ROC. These titles have potential, but we never completed them, and as we coalesced into Blinded By View our tastes changed as well, so we moved on to other material. Now, looking back, these songs seem a bit silly, but they still have qualities and we’d like to go back to them and refresh them. Mostly its Jetsunma’s lyrics that stand out, she really is a poet. She can craft a song that is potent with meaning, such that you can draw much from it and listen over and over again. These old songs should be re-worked simply because of their lyrical content.
We then moved onto reviewing our newest material. After a few listens Jetsunma was inspired to record on a song that Tara originally composed. On this particular piece, working title “Marimba” Tara was inspired to record her marimba that Jetsunma had given her for Christmas in ’06. I recorded Tara improvising on the marimba, then we cut up the parts and made a small loop that we then added a beat to and later layers of sounds including the ubiquitous mellotron, a favorite of Tara’s.
Jetsunma picked the “Fourfold Prayer for Motherly Sentient Beings” from the Nam Cho Guru Yoga as the basis of the song. She and Tara listened to the song a few times and worked out a melody. I then set up Jetsunma to record letting her get a feel for the beat and timing and allowing her the space to work the melody a bit further. After a few takes we had both a lower part that serves as a foundation and a higher part with some flourishes.
Jetsunma then wrote a short set of lyrics in English, that she asked Tara to work out as the Chorus. Immediately Tara went at it working through the chorus section, smoothing out ideas and working the words to fit the allotted time of the chorus. Tara, with her usual grace and skill created a beautiful melody.
Both the parts, the verse and the chorus are only the beginning of the song, we have many layers of vocals to go and more lyrics to write. But now we have a basis to work with and it is a good start.
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