| Album Cover: "The Quest for Authenticity" |
Rear Cover: "Isle of Dogs in Space" |
On June 28, 2023, an acoustic bassist, an electric guitarist, and a keyboardist playing a Eurorack-format modular synthesizer and acoustic piano—went into the studio with a vague plan to record some ambient music. The three had never played as a trio, nor had they discussed a framework for the recording, including important details such as key, tonality, and tempo. Indeed, while two of the musicians were still setting up, the third put Pro Tools into record, entered the studio, and began to play. After a little more than an hour, The Quest for Authenticity had been recorded.
The resulting gapless 68-minute album was recorded entirely live with no overdubs, and the performances were entirely improvised. Because a random sequencer was driving the modular synthesizer, each of the three musicians took their cues from the melodic and rhythmic ideas it generated over the course of the performance. The magic of the recording is the interplay between the various instruments and layers of sound with the Eurorack system with and each other, and how the musicians navigate taking turns in providing the melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, and textural layers.
With no overdubs, the tracking itself was completed in real time, taking just over 75 minutes; however, the mixing process took well over sixty hours and two dozen iterations before arriving at a final mix. The project required development of a mixing aesthetic and a set of production goals that would preserve the live and improvised nature of the recording, while providing structural clarity and ultimately resulting in an engaging musical experience that keeps a listener’s focus on the musical performance.
Inside Gatefold: "Making Good Time in Space"
Time Wheel:
