www.organical.net

…and NEVER LEAVES!!!   That’s right.   We are are still there.   this week its doing reshoots or re-records, or overdubs.   Tonight we are going to do a couple of lead vocals that had to wait until I finished the lyrics.   We’ve been mixing away like bunnies.    We are shaping the sound and inching closer to something we are happy with but we are not happy yet.

So every year I do a top ten list of music/CD’s that were my favourite and each year I get more and more goddamn lazy about the whole process.   Here it end of January and I still haven’t got it together.   So rather then wait and calculate here is some stuff I liked as best I recall.

Remember from past years, I don’t pay attention to release dates, only when I heard first but I think all these came out in 2009.

Let’s do this countdown style-like

Worthy of mention are a couple of metal records that just fell off the list:

Benefit – Engram
and
Kylesa – Static Tensions

some other honourable mentions:

Amesoeurs – Amesoeurs
Slayer – World Painted Blood
Between the Buried and Me – The Great Misdirect
Them Crooked Vultures – Them Crooked Vultures
Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
Metric – Fantasies
Decemberists – The Hazards of Love
The Dead Weather – Horehound

Now the good stuff:

#10

Katatonia – Night is the New Day

They haven’t lived up the promise that Viva Empiness tempted us with, but they are still capable of putting out really good if somewhat predictable metal.   Take them at face value and turn it up.

 

#9

Doves – Kingdom of Rust

Another band that I think are a little south of their best work, but still excellent.   They frustrate me with over-production but I love Jez Williams singing, and there are some killer bits on here.

 

#8

Baroness – The Blue Album

I wasn’t expecting to like this despite grudgingly enjoying the red album, but this rocks.  It’s catchy and fun and grooves like a record.

 

#7

YOB – The Great Cessation

If I had some more time before I finalized this list this might have sneaked up a couple of spots.  I thought YOB had broken up, so this record caught me unawares and I’m just catching up.   As heavy as it gets and I love the slow burns as much as the violent eruptions.   I just need to see these guys live.

 

#6

Converge – Axe to Fall

I’ve always dug Converge, but this is the first record that made my neck hair stand up.  A great recording and some fantastic songs.

 

#5

Neko Case – Middle Cyclone

Another long time favourite, and another great record.   One of my favourite lyricists, I encourage you to take the time and read the lyric sheet on this one.

 

#4

Wilco – Wilco (The Album)

It sounds like the fun is back in this record that was maybe missing the past couple.   I was a little late to the Wilco party, just tuning into them around the buzz of Yankee Foxtrot Hotel and this is the first record since then which has close to the same level of consistency.

 

#3

The Mars Volta – Octahedron

Another record that I thought found the band getting back to what they are best at.   This is there best since the first, everything seems more streamlined and songs benefit from the renewed focus.

 

#2

Mastadon – Cracke the Skye

The first of two classic’s this year, Mastadon go from strength to strength each record to me.   I think this is the best metal album in the past few years.  They truly are creating their own stamp and in their own style.   A common theme on my choices this year is that patience is a virtue in unravelling and getting at the heart of the greatness in these recordings.   Cracke the Skye doesn’t give up it’s secrets easy but they are well worth finding.

#1

Flaming Lips – Embroyonic

Who knew they had this in them?   While I have enjoyed the band since Priest Driven Ambulance, they seemed to be heading further and further into light fluffy clouds of pleasent psychedelic prog rock, like King Crimson’s younger, more hip brother.   This is a slab of brilliant nightmare.    This is a work of no compromise(a double CD no less!) that bypasses your frontal lobe and latches right onto your subconscious.

Organical is finishing up our holiday break and will resume our existence this week by continuing to mix.   The songs are ever so slowly being pummelled into shape.   It’s too early to be talking about a date when you can hear some of it, but it won’t be long now.

I’ll be posting my favourite records of 2009 shortly as soon as I can actually remember what I listened to this past year.  I’ll admit that I spent a lot more then I planned listening to Comic Geek Speak Podcasts.

As we forge ahead with mixing, we’re setting aside some time to play together as a band on a regular basis. This may sound a little odd… after all, we’re a band, and that’s what bands do, isn’t it?

Well, yeah… but when we’re in recording and mixing mode, those activities take priority. (Part of the blessing and the curse of having access to our own studio and self-producing… we immerse ourselves fully in the process.)

I’ve been playing with Organical for nearly 8 years, and one thing that perpetually keeps things interesting is that the songs are always evolving, always changing, always fresh or different. I’m really thankful to be playing with musicians who don’t get too attached to [em]the way things are[/em], and are constantly pushing and exploring, in search of [em]the way things could be[/em]. I thought i’d post a bit on our creative process… how we work on songs as a band, and how they grow and change. (more…)

Finally after almost a year and a half(I can’t believe I just wrote that) Organical is officially mixing the new CD.   We did a trial run a few weeks back and decided to focus on track cleaning and I have spent a whole bunch of hours tweaking synths and samples and all the finicky stuff.   We’ve done 2 sessions and have got the first song that we have tackled, Atari, USA sounding about 80% done.   We’ll move onto the next song and keep circling back, it’s a very iterative process this mixing.   Next up is Bugs in the Mainframe which is similar sonically to Atari, USA so hopefully it will be a good progression.

Now that we’re mixing we have started up the Organical machinery and started to clean ourselves up for public scrutiny again.    If you go to our last.fm site, you will see we have added pretty much the entire Organical back catalogue, so if you are a user of that service, please add us to your playlists and radio stations and the like. 

Darren has also started to work on the visuals for the new record so we’ll start to freshen up our website(maybe, or maybe we’ll wait to the new one’s all complete) and new logos and whatnot may be appearing all over the place.