The AC/DC -defense

Should you check out the history of a random long-term band, of any periods of experimentation invariably one is found in the early steps of their careers. (This goes for most bands except AC/DC, who were, of course, awesome at birth).

This is pretty logical when you think of it; when flailing about to find your own voice, typically you end up hopscotching genres and trying out all kinds of silly things to get somewhere you realize you want to be.

Good ol' Angus going for progressive.

In songwriting, this results in "artistic" ideas in songs placed front and center; quirky song structures, weird sounds and off-kilter instrumentations tend to mask the nagging feeling of "not being quite there yet". Once it becomes clear what you want to focus on, it often makes more sense to write songs simple and to the point.

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When heading to record last Fall, we'd been going through this process of simplification for some time as a band. Our chosen two songs for these sessions, "The Wait" and "Catch a Fire", definitely reflect this. The experimental part of Sestina still was, and is, alive and well, but I feel we've gotten better at getting to the point. Hence, simpler songs.

Furthermore, we were much more confident with the roles of our respective instruments in this band, so the arrangements were infinitely more simple this time around.

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The genesis for these particular songs, however, is probably the love of playing live.

In May 2011, Sestina had made its live debut in this new incarnation. It was a hit-and-miss session - as first shows usually are - but once the rush of playing your music to a receptive audience hits you, you kind of want to get there with all you've got.

So pretty soon after that show, these two songs were born.

The Wait was the one to come first. Once the basic chords had started rattling in my head, I insisted in making a relentless, pounding live anthem out of it. I think most of our early rehearsals of the song had me screaming repeatedly "louder!!! hit harder!!!" to everyone. At one point, the prospect of double kick drums was a genuine consideration.

When the song was ready, which happened quite fast, it soared just like I wished it would. I knew it was a good one, but I still had a lot of hesitation of it being too…well, normal. After all, the song structure was the most basic ABABC -drivel that's been done to death for half a century now, and there was very little signarure Sestina weirdness going on.

Oh well, sometimes you just have to play the AC/DC -defense and try to pass simplicity as a virtue. Even though Angus Young I'm not.

See you next week. Until then, Shearwater. Check it out.

~Markus

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The Death of a Dogma

These are the chronicles of Sestina's most recent adventures into the fearsome world of home recording, from the Fall of 2011 to the Spring of 2012. 

Join us as we bullheadedly try to realize the illusion of high budget studio magic in bathroom & duct-tape acoustics of lo-fi tracking!

Sestina recordings 2011-2012, Part I: The Death of a Dogma

Apologies for the above mouthful of a title. It is a reference to my high & mighty, hot-headed rantings about certain preferred recording practices from a while back.

You see, this time when recording we pretty much decided to take the easiest way and track everything individually. On a click track. Using triggered drums. (ugh)

This method is pretty much diametrically opposed to the aforementioned recording dogmas of the past. Live sound my ass, this time it would be post-processing all the way. Zeroes and ones and computer synthetics. Bring in the robots, bring in the plugins - damn the human element!

* * *

A visual representation of our recording philosophy.

Of course, there are good reasons for this kind of jackassery, none of which are artistic. Rather they are well presented in the age-old mantra "beggars can't be choosers".

Zero budget recordings. This state of affairs dictated our approach when we holed up in our band rehearsal space in October, 2011: No big studio and fancy equipment to play around with - just a laptop, a few mics and a room with the acoustic properties of a high school gym locker room. No matter how majestic the sounds might be coming out of our speakers & skins, in this particular space they promptly transform into a fart in a can.

A veritable cave of inspiration for the budding sound engineer. The job which, as usual, fell on Jaakko to do, for the simple reason that he's the only one of us who can do it well. With power comes great responsibility!

* * *

Make no mistake, we'd still love to record everything live in a million dollar a day studio, in a acoustically contoured hall the size of an airplane hangar, while sipping piña coladas and lazily dissecting the merits the David Bowie's vocal miking on "Heroes". With David Bowie, chatting us live from the control room talkback. However, in this case, we just had to scale down our ambitions just a bit from that standard to get the message across.

In the end, that's what's important, right? Not the package, not the delivery, but what's inside.

Let's delve into that a bit closer next week. Ie. the actual songs.

Until then, here's something for inspiration and general awesomeness:

~Markus




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Sestina…lives!

Well hello there, dear friends.

I know this blog has been quiet for a spell. This doesn't mean the band's been asleep…far from it, actually. There's a pretty huge backlog of stuff I want to catch up on this blog, which means some of the upcoming updates will be a bit like taking a walk down the memory lane.

However, since we're right now actually in the process of putting out the stuff we've been working on for the last months, looking back is entirely appropriate.

So, you can expect:

• Blogs on our most recent studio adventures
• Some background on our two new songs, "The Wait" and "Catch a Fire"
• Live show blogs
• Working on new songs
• Ruminations on the future activities of Sestina

Of course, there's also some missing blogs from last year, like the complete song blogs on "Faster" and "Wake Up One Night". Don't worry, those are on the way as well.

The bottom line: No time like the present time for Sestina. Wonderful things on the way - join us for the ride!

~Markus

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Live inspiration:

M83 @ Coachella, 2012

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