Shortwave Dahlia dot org

Wednesday we pretty well nailed the guitar parts on “A Novel Idea”, which makes this the first “completed” song for the album. I think it makes a suitable opening track, but all that’s going to depend on how things piece together when they’re all finished.

Anyway, I took some video which I will put up as soon as I can convert it from a .mov file to something less…bulky. Also, I’ve had syncing problems with the audio when trying to upload the file as is to YouTube. Anyone have any suggestions on how to make this work?

Love and gourami,
Jack

We’re going to be rolling out a new tune called “A Novel Idea” this Saturday at Neil’s. I don’t want to tell you a whole lot about it, but we’re all very excited about it and look forward to sharing it with you.

Remember, be sure and get there at 10:00 sharp–we plan on starting up promptly. Oh, and go see Clouded Son at Neil’s Friday night with Chess Club and Star & Micey! I’ll be there.

Love and gourami,
Jack

“Loose Arrow”
(Right click and Save Link As, please)Written and recorded live in the studio 1/24/07, the honorable Jack Alberson, Mark Simmonds and Ethan Grim officiating.

Allrighty folks!

You’ve heard Jack wax poetic about it!
(And rightly so, I might add!)
And now you can get your very own copy!

Here it is:

Song for Vara

(Please be kind and “Right Click & Save File As” so we don’t blow up the bandwidth!)

This is honestly one of the BEST songs from Shortwave Dahlia EVAH!
It has been on constant repeat on my i-Tunes for a couple days now.

After you download and listen to the track, please post your comments here. I’m sure the band would love to hear your responses!

Heidi

I’ve learned over the years that, if you don’t hear the music you want to hear, you must make it yourself. Inevitably, when you explain that you’re doing this because everything else you hear fails to satisfy, people will brand you an asshole. Especially when the things you hate are the things they gourmandize.There are a lot of artists who make music that I love. My life has been forever changed by the songs and words written by the likes of Martin Gore, Robert Smith, Ian Curtis…the list goes on for quite a long time, actually and includes some very common and popular names as well. Inevitably, though, Shortwave Dahlia exists in part because I decided a lot of popular music is unadventurous and trite. It exists because there are tons of people who merely accept what they hear on the radio as the only music that matters. I want to give these people another choice.

It exists to speak for and to the anxious and the awkward as well, because I am among them.

Shortwave Dahlia exists in the here and now as a trio because I got to a point where I did not want to go it alone. I’m a big believer in musical expression-as-brotherhood (or sisterhood, I’m flexible!), and I think this sort of expression means even more when it is in tandem with others. Mark Simmonds and Ethan Grim bring something into the equation that I cannot summon alone. The feeling of achievement one gets from making a song in a group, that wonder when you finish a spirited performance, it’s very fulfilling.

The record we are working on, we’ve decided, is to be called Keeping the One. It’s a Taoist concept involving the process of bringing balance to the self, and a lot of the music and thoughts we’ve been exploring lately have to do in one way or another with that very idea. Being in the middle of this adventure ourselves, there’s no way to know how things are going to turn out.

Regardless, I hope you enjoy it when it’s all said and done.

Best wishes,
Jack Alberson

Jack here with the latest on Shortwave Dahlia. This entry will probably be of most interest to someone curious about the process of recording a song.Last night Ethan Grim and I got together to record guitar tracks for “Red Square”. He went into the process with few firm expectations, and in a more backseat role I tried to only offer an opinion as to where I thought his parts were strongest in each take. Originally, I think we suspected we would make a ‘comp track’ of the best parts from each take—this is a pretty common practice in studio recording—but as it turned out we kept everything. The only real adjustments that were made were in volume in a couple of places and a fade at the very last seconds of one of the parts. There is a remnant of a guitar part I played just after the first verse that Mark and I had decided was a little too drastic, that Ethan ended up playing off of to great effect.

I did suggest we try a third part, a more freeform ‘ambient’ part washed out in reverb. This part sits in the background of the song and manages to highlight some of the harmonics in Ethan’s rhythm parts. It probably won’t be very audible as its own part in the final mix.

This morning, I played with the stereo field of these parts, panning the two rhythm parts slightly to the left and right. I kept the ambient take in the middle.
We will all be getting back together in January to continue recording.

Happy holidays!