First of all, I would like to thank you for all your supportive and heartfelt messages regarding Robert’s ongoing fight against parvovirus. We are starting day 8 out of 10… Those days have been a combination of ok-good, bad, not so good, and not totally bad. Nights are particularly intense for him and highly stressful for me… I don’t remember the last time I had so little — if any at all — sleep. Well, I do… But as entertaining a story it would be for you to read, I guess it’s better for me to focus on the topic of this present publication… For so many different reasons!
So Robert is holding on. He’s such a good lil pup! Whenever he feels like having just enough energy to roam around the terrace, he’s on an endless discovery quest. He’s really funny. I can already discern his personality… As sweet and gentle as he is, he doesn’t really appreciate being bossed around, and since he has found his voice, he has become very vocal about what he doesn’t like! While he has already understood the 2 warning steps composed of: “aye”, then “AYE” (his reactions are hilarious when the “aye” are being dropped!), it seems pretty obvious that the last element of the limit trifecta, the word “NO” being said in my interventionist motion designed to physically retrieve him from the contentious action he clearly doesn’t want to disengage from represents close to 97% of his main dislikes within the course of a day!
So 2 more days, as parvovirus treatments usually cover a 10-day period, and Robert, against all odds — or at least compared to all the other dogs in Tangier — will be safe… We’re getting there!!!
The Record’s Journey: From Madness To… Insanity
As I’m hastily approaching the record’s final deadline, which is in exactly 5 days, I’m realizing just how much of an intimate voyage it’s been for me to manage to get that close to the completion state of the album. While I knew it would be a painful process, I don’t think I understood just how intense it would be… No wonder each and every person who’s been involved, directly or indirectly, told me it was the most personally challenging experience they ever went through creatively and psychologically, which, for me, is a major compliment… I mean, it is, right?! It is, of course! It is!
The whole record is a wide and extensive emotional journey. I like to see it as a cohesive assemblage of interconnected scenes or moments, ones that could perfectly stand on their own considering the profound layering measures of the album’s soul every song embodies… to such an extent that I initially wanted the entire collage of the record’s sequencing to be a connected montage made of one single “movement”, a unique track lasting more than an hour. I stood by that emotional idea for a while, probably until the midpoint in the production, to everyone’s growing madness…!
The thing is, I identify, or perceive, sounds in colors and shades... therefore, music for me is pretty much like a movie composed of imaged frames unfolding their singular nature in all sorts of different synchronized motion reels... That’s the reason why I initially envisioned the record to be captured in real time without edits, cuts, or post-production stitches, encapsulating the theatrical unity production, where “time, place, and action” are at the forefront of the project, not the structure, meaning there would be no technological safety net but just a raw and ongoing stream of emotional tensions and relief, exactly like my live shows. What a great idea!!! Well, for me it was… Not so much for any of the rational and sane individuals I have the blessing to be surrounded by. “Thank God,” some might say!
In all fairness, Ben, with whom I’ve been working on the album, was full-on in regard to my idea to not only push the creative boundaries but also to entirely eliminate them. The experience was somehow cathartic, for lack of better words, which led me to follow the songs’ trajectory rather than try and fit them into my crazy conceptual approach, to entirely let myself dwell in their particular spirits rather than work against their identity to serve my vision. That’s the ultimate moment when you have to be real with yourself; it’s a crossroads. Are you self-serving your artistic ambition, or are you at the service of the emotion you want to commune with others? My honest answer marked a major shift in the album production. If Ben and I elected to keep my initial mission statement in mind, we let them breathe and grow on their own rather than forcing ourselves into their otherwise organic bloom.
Calling Out!
I quickly realized that a song like “Calling Out!” would have been overlooked had I stubbornly maintained my initial vision, which would have resulted in a great omission on my part and would have been detrimental to the album’s narrative. The song’s unique tone, its very direct delivery, and its sole entity mark a pivotal shift in the record’s emotional transformative dynamic.
The song, by design the shortest one of the record, is about inner awakening. I wanted to reflect on a moment, or moments, where we have to decide to set ourselves free from the self-imposed status quo product we have become or to break the cycle of our self-preservation entirely.
Interestingly, it’s also the song that gave Ben and me the greatest challenge on the record. We did countless mixes: I wasn’t feeling it, or I wasn’t sure of arrangements. At some point I started to question the structure. We went back to the writing sessions. I had the rhythm section changed, again, again, and over again. It was hard for me to explain what I wanted to hear, as I wanted to feel it first. And in order to feel it, I had to listen to the song. So it was quite an adventure, to say the least. At the end of the process, Ben stopped naming the version with the words “final mix” like he had started doing to only refer to them as “version XYZ”.
We must have probably gone over the alphabet of “XYZ” 2 or 3 times before I said, “Yes, YES!!!! That’s exactly it!!!” Ben replied, “Hmm… It sounds like one of the first versions we did, no?” “No, not at all, listen to that and that!!! No, no, no, not at all!!!” The “that and that” in question were very minor elements in the song, so I guess, in a way, it was somehow familiarly close to one of the first versions we had done…! But it wasn’t the same. “The devil is in the details, Ben,” I told him. He answered, “Is that the reason I had to experience hell over and over again in the last few days?” “Well, brother, sometimes we do have to reach our limits to know we have to push them all up and on, and on, and on, to touch what can’t be seen.” “Happy you touched it, Alex.” “Me too, Ben, I‘m happy you were willing to follow me that deep.” It’s not really the conversation we had, but it would have been hilarious — and it’s not all that far from reality! I guess we both knew when the song was “it”… and so different from any of the initial versions!
Life creates life.
Your friend and brother,
Alex
PS: The fifth part of my “So What’s Going On, Alex?” series will be titled “World Cup Personal Meaning”. If you are a football fan, don’t get too excited, it won’t exactly be about the sport itself… and if you don’t like the sport, well, you will find my stories about my time living in Haiti very “surprising”.
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