bonobos and PG

One of my favorite things in life... bonobos jamming with Peter Gabriel.  I first heard about this a few years ago in a lecture given by BioMusic researcher Dr. Patricia Gray at UNC-Greensboro.

The video below shows the bonobos Panbanisha and Kanzi playing the keyboard when Peter visited the Great Ape Trust research center.  The bonobos use graphic symbols called lexigrams to communicate with their researchers.  The beginning of the video shows lead researcher Sue Savage-Rumbaugh talking with the bonobos about what they are going to do.  After Kanzi plays (at the very end of the video) he wants to go out in the room with Peter and Tony Levin -- well, I would too!

fans-only video from the recording studio

We still have lots more to do but I love this part of the process, meeting so many amazing musicians who help us to create the world of each song.  I just posted a little fans-only peek... if you're not already on the email list, you can sign up here (or like us on Facebook) and get the link to an exclusive video from inside the recording studio.

seriously good vibes

Happy Holidays to all!

inspiration

I haven't been able to get up to NYC as often now that things are so busy in the studio, and Tim has also had a lot of other projects lately, but we've still managed to stop by a few times this fall at the wonderful open mic at Bar 82.  Host Wayne Kral is so the man for keeping this night running.  Below we are playing one of my favorite songs, Leonard Cohen's "Anthem" -- one of the few covers we've done.  I've always loved this song (from the album The Future).  It took LC ten years to write.  I was thinking to say more about why it inspires me but I'll just let it speak for itself.

putting down bones

on the way to the studio

Things have been full steam ahead for the past week or so and the tracks are starting to take shape.  Finding the right part for each instrument can be challenging, then suddenly it's quite magical when we find it.  I'm really happy about how things are going so far.  I don't know how much to tell you about the new music... maybe I should keep things under wraps so as not to spoil the surprise!

Yesterday was an especially awesome day, so we decided to take pics holding instruments that none of us had played.

hey

Today, Ken Pendergast was in again to play some way cool bass on two more songs.  Since it was all rainy and misty, it seemed like a good day to find something for Osmosis Song and it was :)  Now we have the bones... drums and bass... for five songs...

magic bass man

drums day 1

We have been doing lots of preproduction for the rest of the songs and now we're finally back recording, yayyyyyy!

Today was all about the big big drums for three different songs that range from jungle-y to jazzy.  We decided to do these three songs first because even though they have different styles they are probably going to share some instruments in common.

First Jeff did that miking magic that he does, to get us a big awesome sound.

overhead mics talking to each other

pillow that Jeff had to deliver out of the bass drum before we started (not out of that string bass, fortunately)

you can see where it came out... its twin is still in there I think

We had to cover a lot of different stylistic ideas in just one session, but Charlie is such a versatile drummer that he gave us lots of cool stuff to choose from.  We only just got started with the third song so we'll come back to that one next time, as well as cutting drums for 2 more songs.  Then we'll be adding other instruments on top of what we got today.

drum gorgeousness

Indian Summer pics at Washington Crossing

Behind-the-scenes at our photoshoot yesterday in Washington Crossing State Park.  It was gorgeous weather, about 70 degrees.  Which was a good thing since at times I was wading in the Delaware (though not all the way across -- I leave that to George Washington) and wearing things that would have been less fun on a crisp autumn day.  But yesterday was more like Indian Summer, perfect weather for the shoot.  We did most of the "real" photos up in the woods but I didn't take many pics there; I left that up to Mark :)

the beautiful Delaware

Bambi?

short bridge across the river -- we have it a bit easier than G. Washington

Kim and her bag of tricks

happy leaf

managed to keep the lashes on

studio update, and more to come soon

This past summer I started recording a new album at Turtle Studios in Philadelphia.

Yeah that's the first song almost finished... nice colors huh?  It's kinda sweet and crunchy.

This fall we're forging ahead with the rest of the tracks, so things should be moving quite a bit faster from here on out.  I'll be posting again soon to show you a little more about what we're doing in there.  Still too early to say when it will all be done but we're aiming for a spring release... fingers crossed.