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News Nov. 8, 2008--Major Long Overdue Update:

    Okay, this is a long writeup! Bear with me here, but it's been so long since any sort of update of news for any fans or the interested, and some have asked me about the vinyl and other things, so i'll try to cover all the bases. So here we go....

    The vinyl for "Desert Opuses" is now available, for $14. It's currently available only online through the official website here, and MySpace. It's pressed on 140 gram weight vinyl, which is a bit heavier than normal weight vinyl, it's on
translucent gold vinyl, and it's limited to 400 copies. Seeing as that there's a desert/ Middle Eastern thing, I thought that it would be a nice touch to have the vinyl be the color of the sun and sand. John Golden (Melvins, High On Fire, Sonic Youth, etc) mastered it and did a
great job. The art design also turned out really well (thanks to Loren Stevenson!), and my worries were that the jackets colors would be different once they were printed. They turned out to be bang on, and that's great.

    This next part isn't something that I ever like to ask, but it's an inevitable part of the business end, and it has to do with continuing the quality for future releases, and possibly releasing more bands' material. This was incredibly expensive to make available and to do up right, and as a label that tries to keep costs low in spite of the cost of inflation (vinyl is made from petroleum/ oil, and it's forced labels to charge more or to eat those prices), it adds up pretty quickly. As a record label and fringe act that survives on the small, grassroots level of support, all support is very much appreciated. Every sale matters. As well, as a website without advertising, the costs of maintenance and updates and making this place more user friendly all add up, and web hosting adds up pretty quickly, too. So if you like what you see and hear and maybe enjoy what's written here under the gear or any other sections, even if you just purchase a song or two off of the Nimbit player under the discography/ music section, that would be much appreciated.

    Now about the album: the amps are on the front, because I thought they looked cool, and, honestly, i'd feel ridiculous putting a picture of myself on the front. Always have, always will, you still don't see any pictures of me on the records, and that's intentional. The amps are kind of intimidating, but there's a sort of "passive/ aggressive" dichotomy at work, in that there's nothing plugged into them, but almost as if they're transmitting the music on the album through them. They're dormant, just sort of waiting there, but casting an intimidating stare. An obvious thing to put on the front would be a pyramid or something, but I thought that would be too cliche. And the circuitboard motif on the back cover fits into the "machines versus humans" thing that HWE has going.

    It was alot of work, but well worth it. And also, there's no cheap or easy way to do it, you know that bands that do it are pretty serious about what they're doing. As it's the first vinyl album that i've pressed for High Watt or any of the other bands that i've been in, i've got a real appreciation for the process that I didn't have before I had to organize, approve and co-ordinate everything. It's much more difficult than pressing up cds, because the masters have to be treated differently. You can only get about 18-20 minutes of material on a side, because after that, it starts having diminished returns--skips, static, distortion, reduced sound, etc. There's only so much physically that you can fit on it, as opposed to a cd, where you can get up to 74 minutes, and unlike cds where they're consistently getting louder and louder in their masters, with vinyl, you still have to be careful of the master levels, because vinyl is very picky and temperamental. With "Desert Opuses", it's 20 minutes a side, and with the 140 gram weight, there's a more sturdy sonic plate for the needle to sit in. So, sonically, it's as good as you can get on vinyl. Also, test pressings are interesting, because you need to listen to them to see if there's any errors or things that need to be corrected in the master. There was alot of mailing things out and co-ordinating of masters and art designs to go to different places.

    I do almost all the stuff myself, but it was nice to have a few friends and people to help out on this album. My friend Chris plays harmonica on "The Ruins Of The Pyramids", which turned out amazing. It was second take, improvised--just absolutely going for it. It has the spontaneity of a second take, and I actually am a firm believer in that the more takes you do, the more it gets rehearsed and scripted and you lose sight of it. When you hear that part, you're hearing it as we did--there was no rehearsal, just jamming in the key of A. It has a freshness that I think that people will really like, as well. That's the way I do most of my leads, they're mostly improvised. My sister and mom sang on some songs too, and my friend Don did some Moog freakout stuff.

    As the sessions for what ended up being "Desert Opuses" started in early 2007, the overall sound was taking on a weird snakecharming vibe. That's the best that I can describe it as, in that a good portion of it uses harmonic scale notes and harmonic guitar melodies. Then the productions got more and more built up to have alot of the same layering that's found on "Night Songs"--weird background vocal chants, heavy riffing, strings, synths, droning atmospheric stuff. You know the drill. But it doesn't get more obvious in the album's intentions than song titles like "Ode To Snakecharming", "The Desert Winds", "The Ruins Of The Pyramids" and "Tut Will Have His Revenge".

    I love thematic concept albums, where everything is unified by a common thread, and this seemed like the best idea. Of course, there's always the space theme that could be used, but for some reason, I think that's pretty cliche, and I expect most heavy space rock bands to be doing that sort of thing. It's the same reason why I don't make albums about orcs and wizards--too many bands have done it, 'ya know? Outside of Sabbath and a few other bands like Zep, that dealt with the mystical and medieval, i'd feel pretty cheesy doing it. There's a slight space theme that runs in a few of the songs that i've done in the past--and there's certainly parallels and metaphors that allude to them--but I never want to make a full blown sci-fi space album. So yeah, that's a longer explanation of why the desert/ Middle Eastern thing came up, because it's less obvious than what people would expect, I think.
   
    The album is much more aggressive and faster at times than "Night Songs", it's more of a "rock" album. But though it's more direct, it was still a challenge to keep it veiled and mysterious and still indirect. The hard part was to rein it in so that it's not completely overt, so that it still has that weird mystique to it. There was one track, "Echoes In The Tombs", that was just about to make the album, but it was a little too direct, and didn't fit into the flow of the album. It would have made the initial fast part too heavy for too long, and it wouldn't have fit in anywhere else, because it would be the odd song out. But that one, it will probably be on a single or some sort of rarities thing--it's great, but just didn't fit into the album sequencing.

    It was mixed to be three dimensional and have different mixes at different volumes. This involved careful and select EQ-ing and level balances, where instruments disappear and reappear depending at what volume it's played at. The main reason for this is all the sub layers....there's so many things going on in the mix that things get kind of obscured, things buried in the background that are louder. It definetely is a busy album....there's often a few instruments vying for the lead role, but obscured in the mix. There's 30-40 tracks on some of the songs, so there's alot going on. Playing off of the nature of psychoacoustics, the ear perceives different things at different volumes, and all the sub-harmonics, when turned up, all interact with each other in a different way. There were alot of different reverbs used on this--different densities, different decay times, different room sounds....within the same song. Just like when you have live music in a reflective room, you start to get alot of sub-harmonies and sub-harmonics that interfere with each other. But on this, there was alot of weird room space--like a dry signal on one side, and the wet reverbed signal in the other channel, creating an unnatural cavernous ambience that really is much more apparent on the headphones. On this, there's alot of interference, but within a certain key--notes or instruments bleeding into each other wasn't a concern as much as harmonics all combining to form a bigger one.

    At times, it seemed like a really time consuming task to quadruple track some vocal parts and to have 4 part harmonies or have a couple of octaves or 5th or 7th note guitar harmonies on some tracks, but it pays off in repeated listens, and listens at various volume levels. It would amaze me at how something would be apparent at a lower volume, and then disappear as it got louder. I really had to mix for an in between scenario, because no one will always listen to it at low levels, nor will they always listen to it at loud levels. The main reason for this audio illusion, is the density of the mix--nothing is particularly loud, but when turned up, the lower sub-frequencies start to really become apparent, and the reverbs and delays really convey a sense of depth.

    There's much more synth on this, as I got a Korg MicroKorg before the sessions started, and it has a ton of cool sounds. I got more into filtered sounds.....they're there in the background as textures, even though one may not realize it. And on a few songs, I played a Heintzman grand piano, and it sounded awesome. I'm not much of a piano player, but I love the power and sparseness of what a piano brings to songs and arrangements, because the sustain is great. With guitar, you only have one hand to form chords, whereas piano, you have two. There was originally a very loud part to the first few minutes of "Headphone Opus", and being a wall of sound guy, it sorta drove me nuts to keep it stripped down. But that was because the piano was captured so well that I wanted the spaciousness and the resonance of the tone to come through. It's still in the loud part, but obviously, it gets so lost in the din of other sounds.

    With High Watt, it's always a battle of modern technology versus outdated technology; tubes versus transistors, digital versus analog, current equipment versus older equipment. My amps are all older tube/ valve amps, and i'd got an old Farfisa Bravo during the sessions--it's an old 70's Farfisa, and it's all warm sounding and crackly. The album, itself, sounds more mechanical and robotic than "Night Songs". Like "Night Songs", most of the album was based around a drum machine meant to sound half-way in between a drum machine and a human drummer, but basically, there are no fills, because that's where drum machines start to sound like "humans programming drum machines meant to sound like actual drummers". But they're not cheesy samba sounding drum machines, they're highly modified and tweaked sounds, often using preamp clipping to drive the sounds slightly harder and harsher. They have the tonal qualities of real drums, but meant to loop and repeat into oblivion. And as a musician that consistently plays behind the beat, there's a push/ pull thing going on with the human performances being slightly off and flawed, versus the drumming which is nearly almost always on the exact beat. Most drummers play slightly before or after the beat.

    Due to some of the drum machines being more and more aggressive on this album, it actually sounds more industrial ! That wasn't really conscious, but yeah, there ends up being an industrial vibe, and it sounds like some sort of soundtrack to the slaves building pyramids or something. There's real drums here and there on the album like on "Tut Will Have His Revenge"--quite possibly the most Stooges-esque thing that HWE has done, quite like "1969" (I was thinking about entitling it "2008", but it doesn't have the same ring). Other songs utilize spare percussion, like shakers and tambourines; quietly propelling themselves along instead of hitting one over the head with screaming drums.

    The reason for this sort of thing with the repetition and drum machines is that, after awhile, anything that repeats enough, tends to be tuned out in favour of other sounds. Given that the production on "Desert Opuses" is what you'd find from any big budget studio with massive layers of overdubs and sounds buried in the mix or snaking in and out of the stereo channels, that gives other instruments, when they're introduced, the opportunity to take the spotlight. It's hypnotism, where you forget things, even though repetition got you there in the first place, to lose consciousness or tune out certain things.

    At first, it just sounds like something repeating over and over again, but there's sub-layers of pianos, synths, strings, vocals, tremolos, phasers and other things that take more attention and demand to be heard, since, at some points like on "Headphone Opus", eventually everything erupts into a huge, chaotic evil din of everything being way too busy; too many instruments doing too many things. I like that sort of thing, because then each listen yields different things, you're hearing different things, but they're still fighting with each other for dominance.

    As a fan of Spiritualized, what I love about albums of theirs like "Pure Phase" and "Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space", is that at points, you have multiple sounds vying for dominance. But if you had that in the course of an entire album, there would be no crescendo, you have to have some ebb and flow on the chord progression or dynamic. That often is difficult with just your standard "guitar/ guitar/ bass/ drums" type of band (or at some point, it does have a certain sameness and restrictions), but when you start getting into production techniques and building songs up and down, it creates a challenge to carve something out of maximum minimalism.

    The whole point is that you have to establish the fact that repetition makes for complex elaboration on a vibe or overall atmosphere. While i've been in bands and love to hear bands that do the "verse chorus verse solo" thing, it gets to be constricting, because you often have to chisel down the best parts to be small fragments of the best parts of those songs, within those songs. While that may sound overly "zen", here's another way to look at it--the whole intention is basically "what if the WHOLE song is the chorus that you love?", and then just expand on it with additional instrumentation. It allows more free expression and soloing capability, as you're not as worried about specific things clashing with each other too much, since that clashing or fighting of sounds, tones and textures creates a whole new song, within itself. There's new colors within the painting, in other words.

    With that mindset, it allows more production opportunities, as well. If you think of it, the chorus is the part of music that most people like the most--and it's the most repetitive, it's where you have the integral message of the song. When I originally heard drone bands, I didn't quite get their whole thing.....maybe a lyric repeated over and over again, or a stanza of four or 8 lines repeated. Dare I say I may have considered it lazy. But even bands like the Ramones repeated verse lyrics in other verses in the same song, and what I learned was that people dig repetition. They just don't often know it. While sometimes it seems lazy to the uninitiated or average music fan, there takes an incredible willpower to underplay things and rely on less to make more. Of course, there is a limit of drone or atmospheric bands that use this approach that I want to hear--just like any genre or style-- but the ones that are effective at it do it very, very well.

    There's a track, "The Desert Winds", that is only on the vinyl, and not on the cd version. It's arguably the best track, in my opinion. It kind of has a Neil Young/ Crazy Horse abandoned, rural sound to it. It was a bit difficult to leave it off the cd, but one of my favorite bands, The Hellacopters, have always had that sort of thing where you have to buy the vinyl to get the additional track.

    Vocally, this is more layered and worked on than "Night Songs". Alot of those songs were done with the vocals as more as a late addition to have a human element to them (most of them didn't have vocals until the last minute, after the music was laid down), but on "Desert Opuses", there was much more of an emphasis on having vocals, but still with the emphasis on retaining the instrumental power over the course of the album. There's lots of 3 and 4 part vocal harmonies, and as dark as it is, the melodies are still very much there, in a very demented pop sort of way.

    And the vinyl ends off on "Tut Will Have His Revenge", amidst free drum and noise freakouts, with a spoken word thing about the decline of Amarna in ancient Egypt. The interesting thing is that it's about Tutankhamen and him possibly being murdered, as research and science has discovered. Condensing this down to be short (this would be a LONG writeup!), it's interesting to note that the Egyptian civilization tried to erase the heresy of Amarna from their record books--including Tut (his name exists on only one wall in the Temple of Luxor). And the more interesting thing is that most tombs were desecrated by looters looking for gold and riches, but not Tut's. There were a couple of attempts, but either the looters got spooked, or experts figure that the "curse of Tutenkhamen" got them. So Tut is sort of like the rock star of ancient Egypt--gone but not forgotten, and still remembered such an incredibly long time after he existed. But the song and ending was meant to sort of mirror the chaos that was happening then.

    Also, I think that there's more of an emphasis on additional percussion like tambourines and bells and shakers. There's finger cymbals on a few songs, and although that's a small touch, it sort of adds to that Middle Eastern vibe. And I tried not to rely as much on lead guitar solos than I did on "Night Songs". The solos are still there, but i'd tried to rely more on short, repetitive lead guitar harmonies, like on "Ode To Snake Charming" and "Obliteration". "Obliteration" was a re-recording of a song that I did a few years ago that didn't turn out, at the time, the way that I wanted to. I re-wrote and re-recorded it and it turned out well and ended up on this record, and the vinyl mix has a slightly different, more aggressive guitar mix than the cd.

    This was the first entire album that i've made on full 16 track. It was nice to have the luxury of doing so--it's still not the world's greatest or biggest studio, but the capabilities that it has are awesome. With that came better separation of sounds and better control. I still had to bounce alot of tracks together--even on a 32 track, i'd still end up bouncing things together, as some songs on "Desert Opuses" use 40-45 tracks, but I had better control over sub-groups. I got better monitors and some other improved recording equipment before and during the sessions, along with various pedals and some guitars and amps, so that worked out well.

    There's a certain "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" aspect at work on "Desert Opuses", in that there's definetely parts where i've nicked cues from past songs, where I could see some people wondering if there's some sort of rhythmic or basic rut, or whether it's lazy or just completely over the top. But I like a recurring theme in bands, much like how Chuck Berry had the running theme of Johnny B Goode in his songs, the Ramones had Judy, etc.

    There's a certain repetitive thing with HWE that puts people off, and a certain weird overall thing with HWE that puts people off. It's niche music, it's not meant for the masses. One of the intentions was to still push buttons, and to have a certain uneasiness that, on a surface level, causes discomfort. Music caters to emotions, and confusion and unease are valid emotions. I think that it's too easy to make good time party music--not that I don't like it....I love it, actually--but it's been done before. I think that there's a certain mentality that people want every band they hear to be exactly like the rest that they've heard. As a result, friends and family and the average music fan that I talk to usually have no clue of what to make of HWE. That's fine. I don't think that great art is easily understood, and unfortunately, it's a much harder sell, but I wouldn't have it any other way. One does, however, realize all the struggles that all the pioneering noise and drone bands went through on a basic personal level. "You play what type of music, and your influences are who?". Most of the bands that are a direct influence on HWE didn't sell many records at all.

    That being said, overall, this album is shorter (40 minutes) than "Night Songs" (68 minutes), and it was a conscious decision to sequence an album that was more concise and less meandering. What I love about "Night Songs" is how meandering and diverse it is, but this one is more focused, shorter, and perhaps less optimistic. "Night Songs" was also done over the period of about 7 years, and there were many different vibes and periods of recording where i'd get into different styles, and that was reflected in it being somewhat of a "greatest hits" over the course of those 7 years.

    There were mellower, angelic type songs on "Night Songs", but here, the mellower ones have a more haunting, harrowing, bleak vibe. That was conscious. Even songs like "Light At The Speed Of Sound" have a really psychotic vibe to them.

    There's alot of money and time put into this. And if you've been meaning to find out what the High Watt Electrocutions experience is about, it arguably won't get better than this. Although I do make single tracks available, my preference is in a recording, as a whole. I make complete albums, not singles, and unfortunately, no single track off of "Desert Opuses" will properly sum up the whole 40 minute experience. And there's alot of extras and goodies around the bend as incentives at any given time to pick this up (you'll have to wait and find out...). And I do believe that every artist and musician and band owes it to their audience to put their best possible foot forward at any given time. As a musician, band and a producer, this is my committment to audience expectations; not only that, but to exceed them.

Peace and rock,

R.E.

"Night Songs"

















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