Studio Re-Cap.

I guess we got too excited with the blog and then too busy wrapping up everything at Counterpoint. Right after we were at the studio we took a "baby break", Brett and his wife were expecting a boy, so we went our separate ways for a few weeks.

Going back to the recording sessions at Counterpoint, the second day we went right back to business. We had 7 songs we wanted to accomplish, at the very least, the drum parts, since we wanted to take advantage of the room and the nice mixing board and outboard gear. The songs we worked on are: "Last Warning", "Icon" (Icon of Distress), "Life As We Knew", "Spies of the System", "Warning 09", "Empty Places" and "The Gathering Darkness".

"Last Warning", is one of our newest compositions. I would say very "House of Love" influenced and it was what made me feel that this album wouldn't be all about "industrial" sounds and electronic beats after all. It was nice to go back to a basic setting without worrying about all the ornamentation of pre/post production.

"Icon" (aka Icon of Distress), originally recorded for the "Unfamiliar E.P." is being slightly re-worked, mainly due to the fact that when Brett joined the dynamic of the song changed a little and it was injected with more energy which is what we want to accomplish with re-recording it. I think we were thinking of using this song for the album anyway since it fits the general thematic.

"Life As We Knew". We finally were able to wrap this songs that we've been working on for years (about 3). Even though it has a gentle start, I never thought it would end so heavy (thank you very much Mitchell) but I like how it progresses. I really like Daniel's bass parts on this one. The lyrics talk about how there comes a point in your life (and it can be applied to many stages) you realize you had it good up until then and your life will never be like it was before, either because of life itself happening or due to outside influences.

"Spies of the System" is to me one of the highlights of the album, mainly for it's message (I believe the title says a lot more than the lyrics themselves!) and it's sonic embarkation, which even though has many of DulceSky's elements it's very new and unique compared to our catalog.

"Warning 09", basically an instrumental, from what I recalled, Mitchell came up with a beat and a few notes. He showed it to me once quickly and I really didn't have much time to digest the brief exposure to it. Brett came into the picture and they developed it together to a point where Daniel and I could add our parts.

"Empty Places". Mitchell created the core of it on his Roland MC-505. It could be a song of its own just the way he showed it to us. The funny thing is that at the time I was thinking that we should write a song with a similar slower tempo with this Great Depression kind of a concept, so Mitchell's idea came right in time.

"The Gathering Darkness" it's an epic song. It's ambitious, so once the song is done, we'll be able to know if we accomplished our goal or not.

We have a few more ideas of what songs to include in the album, even though we've been toying with the idea of just making it an 8-track album, but if it feels right, it might even be 9 or 10.

- Oliver.