Not looking for a release ETA just curious:

- How many tunes are pegged for recording?

- How many tunes have been recorded?

- Going to do vinyl again?

- Will linear notes be included?  *ducks*

Eric

What we know is that a lot of the recording is supposedly done.  How much is not public.

My bets for the new album are:
- Stay Together
- Spirit of Life
- Soundwhores
- Call Me
- Rain
- Maybe
- Troublemaker (corrupt version)
- Telephone
- Help Me Find the Way

And Spike is lobbying for a re-re-recording of Descender.

A new recording of Descender would be wild, but Matt seems to be the last guy in the world who would succumb to casting his eyes backward.  We need to inculcate a jazz sensibility in him—gradual, accretive creation that always has history at its core.  Some buy in and before you know it, the TS songbook would be considered standards and every record would be full of new interpretations of them.

psh - 19 September 2011 07:09 AM

A new recording of Descender would be wild, but Matt seems to be the last guy in the world who would succumb to casting his eyes backward.  We need to inculcate a jazz sensibility in him—gradual, accretive creation that always has history at its core.  Some buy in and before you know it, the TS songbook would be considered standards and every record would be full of new interpretations of them.

Ahem.

Exhibit A: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lfMjQoHmAA

Heck yeah.  Now we need more of that.  But Matt needs to keep moving forward, too.  I ask too much, don’t I?

By the way, did you note that Heisenberg85 posted that video?  And that one of his favorites is a Mingus video?  I need to meet this guy.  I can’t take these mysteries.

I personally don’t want them to remake old songs for new albums.

If they want to do one and release it on the web, great.  If that slows down album progress, bad.

I like the past for what it is, but I want new stuff more.

I wonder if the album, when released, will contain some song that they never played in public.  Do many bands do that anymore?

On one extreme, you’ve got AC/DC…they go into the studio in 2008 with some ideas and pop out an album, Black Ice, of 15 songs that nobody had ever heard before.  Some of the songs were awesome, some of the songs sucked.  Would road-testing the songs have yielded an even better album?

Then you’ve got the TS/MW/TTH method of developing songs on the stage and displaying the progress for everyone to see…and when the album is released it’s in what I’d call the “wouldn’t change a note” category, but is also full of familiar tunes.

Which is best?

Of course, then you’ve got Back in Black…but that’s the rare case of an album full of unheard material that kicks ass from start to finish.

> I personally don’t want them to remake old songs for new albums.

I’m usually of that opinion as well, and I’d be happy if Descender wasn’t recorded again.

Unless… unless Matt pulled a ‘Call Me’ on it.  I have a solo live Matt recording of Call Me from ‘93 (same year Trip broke up); it’s an old tune.  But I have never heard *any* artist come up with two so completely different arrangements/moods for one of their own tunes as what Matt did w/Call Me.  And on top of that both versions succeed so well and stand solidly on their own.  Follidaze is another examples that I recall getting the same treatment and the two arrangements were almost as successful (although I believe both renditions were conceptualized relatively around the same time).

When I first heard the new rendition of Call Me w/John singing, the moment I recognized it was a redone Call Me (of which I love the original) I was disappointed.  That disappointment did not last through the listening as I soon realized this wasn’t a simple do-over or an update to make it sound more ‘current’.

Call Me now is almost completely indistinguishable from the original.  Both are amazing.  Only the haunting lyrics remain to tie them together.

That is quite a feat in my opinion.

Eric

All apologizes to John.  I neglected to mention that *you* are a key element to the success on the new Call Me.  Haunting lyrics need soaring vocals, and you bring it!

Eric

Eric - 19 September 2011 08:39 PM

But I have never heard *any* artist come up with two so completely different arrangements/moods for one of their own tunes as what Matt did w/Call Me.

Troublemaker