Songs Nearly (80%) Finished!

I'm currently in the middle of editing the track for the final of seven songs for "Spirit Blade: A World Of Shadows". This is very exciting for me because I set the goal for myself to be "done" mixing all of the songs before taking Christmas vacation this year.


In the past I've been notoriously bad at predicting when certain phases of a project will be complete or when a project will release. So the fact that I am so close to target this time is very satisfying. I'm sure much of my ability to more accurately predict progress is owed to the new schedule that my wife and I have been trying out this fall, which we both continue to be very happy with.

Regarding the completion of the songs, though, I should note that I put the word "done" in quotes earlier because I'm not truly planning to be finished with work on all of the songs, but rather to be finished making significant changes to them for the most part. I usually need several months away from working on a song to be able to hear what it really needs to polish it up and give it the finishing touches. But the roughly 80% of work leading up to that is creatively the most difficult, and so reaching that 80% mark feels much like completion to me.

The songs are taking an interesting stylistic turn this time around. In Spirit Blade: Special Edition the songs are strongly electronic with a bit of a techno-industrial vibe to them. Dark Ritual brought a few eastern ethnic sensibilities and a bit of rock to the sound. In A World Of Shadows, I'm bringing to the forefront more of the epic and orchestral sounds I often tried to incorporate into the previous two projects. I'm also dipping into some obscure hymn sources again, and the contrast of ancient and future sounds clashes even more in this project than in previous ones.

As with the previous two projects, there is also at least one song in AWOS that "is not like the others" and stands out a bit. In Spirit Blade I think that song was "Deadly Game" and in Dark Ritual I think it was Veritas. My "experimental" song this time around is called "Running Out Of Time" and uses rhythmic elements composed almost entirely of clock sounds, both digital and mechanical. Despite the experimental nature of the song, however, I think it's more approachable than a song like "Veritas". Of course the listener will be the final judge.

-Paeter Frandsen