hype machine

Ryan:
As part of an ongoing rant, I must sit back and reflect upon the years we've been working on this "music" of ours. It's been a wild ride, and it never truly is how it appears. The mass media, with all it's hype and dumpings of "new" has lost it's grip. Independent bands are compelled to release as fast as possible, with quantity always taking precedence over quality. "Being Relevant", "Genre Defining", and "Top Tier Sellers" seem to be the most important attributes to releases these days, and albums don't matter. These "releases" are purely singles.

And what is lost? The hardcore fan. The music lover who listens end to end. The person who collects all the hidden treasures they can find on their favorite band. Because who is their favorite band? Can they even answer that? There are far too many new ones to pay attention to next. Week after week. Day after day.

Well, as we prep our final recordings for the third full length album all of this starts compelling me even more. It becomes more important to me to really spend the time to make this album an album worth loving. I'm a fan of great LP's, by great bands. And while we are still little guys in the eyes of the media, we do have fans we love. Fans we want to give our best efforts to. Forget all the hype. Forget all the prestige. We just love music, and we hope our fans feel like the wait was worth it. That our fine tuning was better suited than just releasing at record pace.

Music is good! The album is just around the bend... and we hope you stay tuned!

"hypermode" preview at Filter

Mucho thanks to Filter for posting a preview of what's to come. A new track from the album coming out February 10, 2009, featuring Ulrich Schnauss:

http://filter-mag.com

Mixing "Manhattan Beach" tonight

Ryan:
After some fine tuning of "Hypermode" it's now time to move on to "Manhattan Beach" for some adjustments. It's a process I generally go through every time I produce a record. I spend a few days mixing, listen to everything in context, get feedback from everyone, and go back for a second run through. After that I'll usually let all the songs sit and do the same process again a month or so later. This allows for a good detachment time period. Detachment is key after recording. If you spend too much time working on something it will be good in your eyes no matter what. This approach let's me come back into it and determine if the songs are working. Sometimes we'll realize a particular track has much more potential and needs more work, where other times we'll realize that we hit the mix dead on and can release it to the wolves.

So far I'm very optimistic about this record. The tracks are right where I was hoping they'd be sonically and emotionally. They have a really nice flow, and once dialed this could be our best effort yet.

lyrics for "hypermode"

song: hypermode
album: recollections of memory
release: february 10, 2009
lyrics: Ryan Policky

-

oh, let's go
embrace the last snow
and only love knows
how we'll burn

cold hands
break apart

noone will take your life
noone will take me
cause light goes
on and on
our lives know love

oh, let's go
embrace the last snow
and only love knows
how we'll burn

cold hands
break apart

Westword Music Showcase 2008 and the future. . .

Ryan:
So the show went great and I can now zip my lips for a bit. Even though we opened the entire event, people were waiting in line to check us out, and we had some great response, which is a rarity in Colorado territory if you aren't playing dance oriented fashion rock.

Today I've decided to dedicate to hypermode, which is turning out really well! I plan to layer in some more vocal layers, fine tune the guitars (which I'm currently doing) and hopefully get to a point where all it'll need is some fine tuning in the mix department of my mind.

I think I'll post a sample for you soon. . .

hypermode

Ryan:
Today was quite a roller coaster ride, so I figured why not finish it off with some recording of a new track titled "hypermode" that we've been working on for the past two weeks. It's for sure been a good release out of my mind to sit down and concentrate on the music again, and by far the best way to separate myself from all the biz bullshit. Seriously sometimes wish it could go back to the simple days of just writing, playing and having a good time. Tomorrow we play at the Westword Music Showcase, and I have my fingers tightly crossed that more people come out than what I'm used to seeing here in Denver. It's demoralizing to put on the performance of a lifetime to a crowd of 10 standing there looking at you like they're really watching a tv on the wall right behind you. The West coast is where I would call home as at least people go crazy for music without having to push them to get into it with free booze, chicks and cover songs. I'll put on my happy hat, and think positively, and maybe that will work in getting out some people who watch music for reasons other than to be "seen". I'm tired of the music fashion rut of the scene. Do people even like music for music anymore?