News

~~~new album in the works~~~

Monday, November 16, 2009 at 6:27pm

11/25/09
well, after coming out with two albums this year we found that people are actually starting to like the music. so, we are recording yet again. i’m absolutely thrilled for this one to come out, i cant wait for folks to hear it. best work i’ve ever done, its nice to see all the elements of all the albums come together to form something totally new. this will be a huge chapter in the pet ghost catalog.

anyways more details and updates to come. right now, i think i’m going to call the album “shelf life” and so far there is 11 songs.

the plan is to have it out around late february early march. we’ll see, you know how these things go but so far we are on track (no pun intended). please keep checking in on us, i shall do my best in keeping ya informed on our happenings. loves and tummy rubs from the pet ghost project!
-justin

12/10/09
well, crazy stuff has been happening to pretty much every band member. within a couple weeks we all lost our girlfriends to tragic kitchen accidents...tragic. so if stupid life stuff would stay out of our way we’d be just fine. things continue to plunk along, though not quite at the pace that we were hoping. so far we are about one week off course, but i have faith that we’ll pick up steam once we get into a groove. all the songs so far are fleshed out and we are beginning to layer now. onward and upward!
below is the track list for “shelf life”. i like to include the names because i think the titles of the songs really speaks loudly for what kind of a tune it is. hopefully nice images are drawn. here ya go kids:
‘Shelf Life”
1. your typical silence
2. glitch shake
3. god’s private parking
4. lack of vitamins
5. no pattern
6. paper song
7. the cost of living
8. into the doldrums
9. born a fiver
10. poor and hungry
11. january vampires

12/16/09
DRUMS! its drum madness up in here. getting the callouses back, almost in full force again. still working on my stamina and building up precision again...i guess i’m just a poser when it comes to calling myself a full fledged drummer. but anyways, been spending a whole lot o’ time working on both the drum parts and the drum sounds. thanks to on another note records (who got us some new ribbon mics. beautiful) the studio has been upgraded and boy does it sound like it. justin g. and jake have been over quite a lot and we’ve been totally dedicated to getting the perfect drum sound for this album. so far so good. we have 2 songs in the bag. cant wait for folks to hear it! if i must make a comparison to drum sounds so far i’d say it sounds a bit like pedro the lions “control” and the drums on sound garden’s “down on the upside”. warm, dark but lively. speaking of lively, we’ve also upgraded room situations...we have moved into the master bedroom of our apartment (we used to be in this tiny ass, shitty spare room. no room to breathe). so as a result the drums sound bigger, deeper and just more extreme then in the past. phew, ok enough for today. DRUMS!

12/26/09
!!!MORE DRUMMMS!!! well, this is going to be about the last and final log detailing the efforts of recording the kit. thats right, i’ve almost got all of the drums done for these tunes. so close, yet so far. i have about a 1/2 song to complete yet but if the gods are with me then i should have it done tomorrow. i’ve really taken my time with this album in the percussion department, not only in getting the sounds just right but also the drum parts. luckily we had been jamming for hours straight several days out of the week...so my chops are mostly up to par and my callouses are still present. i do hope we finish these blasted drums soon though, i’m killing the heads and going through sticks like crazy (which is kind of funny but really adds to the cost over a period of time). anyways all is well in pet ghost land!

1/3/10
rest and relaxation...for me (justin s.) anyways. justin g. and jake are back in brooklyn toiling away on tracking for the album. while i’m sitting back in a little cabin-like house surrounded in a beautiful winter wonderland. my only job this week is to write out last minute vocal parts, write out some lyrics and write, write, write. i must say, this down time is going to be very fruitful for the overall thought and concept for “shelf life”. taking a step away from the studio is really allowing me to tie everything together and i think it will make for an overall seemless album. confidence is growing, along with my anticipation. i cant wait for march, this is going to be a huge chapter for pet ghost project.

1/9/10
alrighty, so we just finished what i believe to be the last of the group vocals. thanks to justin’s superb piano skills we are able to really fake these really complicated harmonies and other vocal oddities. i’d say each song has at least one very present group vocal track on it. we also just recently moved into the master bedroom in my apartment which literally doubled the space in which we are working with...and that extra space is really evident on these vocal tracks. natural reverb, sounds big and full.
anyways, now on to the bass. i spent yesterday just messing with new bass setting and getting the old fender bassman to sound how i wanted. fooled around with new mic techniques mixed with our fancy new preamp. things are sounding good. got 3 songs done on bass, i have 7 more to go (and jake has 1 song left to record his basslines). soooooo things are looking as if we might actually finish this on time (mid-late march), yet again you never know. fingers crossed and let the god’s be with us in these coming weeks. we’ve done so much on the album but there is still so much more to tackle.
back to work.
1/30/10
vocals! i’ve been singing pretty much non stop for over a week now. i have a couple vocal booths set up, one for soft/accurate applications and other for...screaming. my goal is to have allllll the vocals done by wednesday (which is our first show of 2010) but we’ll see. i’m really not putting too many guidlines or restrictions on myself for this album. if i go a little over the time frame, so be it. not sacrificing quality on this album, everything will be exactly how we want it.
jake and justin have been really busy. they’ve been tagging up and going through the entire album just adding guitar, noises, synths, pianos, samples,screams, chirps, burps and whatever jibbidy jabbidy they can come up with. from what i’ve heard it sounds really cool and very promising. they are adding a nice edge and dimension to the album. further deepening the songs and it also really broadens our sound since it was recorded in a different studio. jake has been the guitar meister and justin has been the piano wizard on this one. go team.
been working on dates and have been doing a lot of plotting and scheming with good ol On Another Note Records. we are excited to say that this album shall be properly pushed and will have quite a bit of PR representation behind it. all in all, we are going for the gusto. setting up a record release party now, setting up record listening party as well (week before the official release). i’m not going to give the precise date of the release yet but it will be in late spring. i might reveal that in a week or two.
well, i have 3 more songs to record vocals for and i better start in on it. my last minute guitar parts shall follow, then i’m going to dive into the mixing process. so close to having this done, yet soooooo far.
2/8/10 MIXING HAS COMMENCED
thats right kids, its mixing time! this is always a love/hate relationship i have with this process. i love it because when things are going right and sounding like i had envisioned...life is really good. the song comes alive and it just feels awesome. but of course the other side of the coin is that things usually go wrong, problems arrise, conflicts in the mix...conflict.its the worst feeling in the world when you have good takes, a good song and the mix sucks. its a show stopper. finally after mixing about 5 or so albums all on my own has really started to pay off. all those mistakes and blunders was not wasted, i most certainly learned from ‘em. things are going much faster now and at a much higher quality. thanks to 2 new sets of monitors (yes, more equipment upgrades) which has really made things more precise and accurate. anyways, moving on to the 3rd song now. overall i’m very excited and happy with what i’ve been hearing and if i wasnt i would tell ya just the same. onward and upward!

3/1/10 point of no return
so i’d say i’m half way through with mixing at this point. a good place to be i think. things are sounding really good and i’m mostly happy with how it all sounds. tons of little things to iron out within this next month, i’m a tad nervous that i wont get to it all but we shall see. i’ve been putting in about 6-8 hours on the album everyday and i dont see any vacation time in the near future, so it goes.
also, the album has gone from 11 songs to 13. we just added a new last minute jam called “state of the art”, we just wrote it and had been playing it live...decided to record the mo fo. i also decided to end the album with a little acoustic ditty called “i’m never writing another song”, pretty simple but will cap off the story and finish the album properly (yes it is kind of a “concept album"). working with jude and on another note records now about the business side of things. release date is set, the PR seems to be more or less figured out. fingers crossed that the stars just align this time, i cant do another year of sleeping on the floor in brooklyn.