for bob loblaw:
the point of illoee was to get away from anything high concept. keep it simple. after working on too many records in a row where people wanted strings, horns, choirs, etc i just wanted to play my version of simple rock. i hadn't really played guitar in about 6 years and bob had never played bass. i wanted it to sound nasty and raw. i think we accomplished that, although now i find some of the sonics a little hard to deal with. we recorded illoee in 2 weekends after practicing together for 3 weekends.
for the new record, faya, we expanded the pallet quite a bit. this time around we actually wrote most of the songs together on some level and tired many ideas before recording them. 5 songs give or take from each member, and a lot more time spent on lyrics and arrangements. we also got ourselves a huge rehearsal/recording space that inspired me to try to get some more roomy and natural sounding drums. i got a real guitar amp and some decent mics. i became a real guitar player again. pianos, trumpets, trombones, organs, female choirs, mangled spanish, pseudo rapping, lots and lots of guitar solos (it's kinda embarrassing to play solos when ryen slegr is a friend. dude is nuts.). the record is 50 minutes and divided into two parts. the first 10 songs all stand alone... what we consider to be pop songs. i dont think we have any clue what that really means. the last 7 songs are all connected to make one big 17 minute concept track. the album is musically and lyrically meaty as fuck. way way better than illoee. i think musicians will like it and girls will hate most of it. we shall see.
