RPM Challenge: Introducing... Aethers

|current sounds| The Roman Candles- Bang! Bang! Bang!


As far-out and as avant-garde as my tastes get - what Christa calls my "whimsy" - my first love has been and always will be pop music (with metal a very close second). For the past 5 or 6 years, I've all but abandoned pop music for the avant-garde, self-releasing solo guitar albums and improvised collaborations, and putting out free-jazz, ambient and noise CDRs on my label. So when I decided to take part in the RPM Challenge (write and record an album in 29 days, the month of February), I took it as opportunity to make the pop album I've always had in my head... or at least the smattering of ideas that have never congealed.

Aethers is the name of the project, and you'll be able to follow its progress here and on that link. I'm not actually sure how it will all turn out, but more than likely, it will be a tribute to the pop records that shaped my love for the craft in the early 2000s: The World Won't End by The Pernice Brothers, Hate by The Delgados, Leave Here a Stranger by Starflyer 59 and Secret Name by Low. Actually, it's quite telling that I first heard all those albums in my first two years of college.

Starting this Friday, I begin writing and once the rest of the recording equipment comes from Erik, I lay down tracks. Friends in D.C. and abroad have agreed to contribute flute, voice, keys, drums and guitar solos.

Wish me luck. I hate writing lyrics.