Continued album progress journal. This isn't terribly exciting really. Just a brief journal of what I'm doing each day.

Mon, July 5th

As usual, Monday is office day, only relevant action for the album was posting the previous entry of progress.

Tue, July 6th

Busy day, working on multiple tracks, a few hours for each. Have to start wrapping up and finalize any track that is to be tested at the gig this weekend, but my inspiration and heart is with other tracks. Tried to balance between want and must.

Wed, July 7th

Mostly worked on the new tracks that I'd like to try out live. This means working on tracks where the "falling in love" part is over and it's just good old WORK, hammering things into shape.

Thur, July 8th

Not much work on album material. Spent most of the day preparing the live show for the SommerØya festival. They've been kind of hard to get proper communication with so I have no idea what hardware and setup I will meet, which means I have to set up and bring a pretty all-encompassing setup. Not a big problem except it costs more prep time. A little annoying but this is kind of normal. Live touring sucks a lot of time.

Fri, July 9th

Playing at festival. There is a longer, separate expedition entry for this day.

Sat, July 10th

Staying over in Oslo for Sunday, having a short break from working on the album. Spent the day documenting yesterday, then some hours for myself relaxing with a book, before catching up with friends. Went hiking with my previous manager Roar, who still functions as sort of advisor and strategist. When we have the chance we head into forests, talking about music and future plans. This time we talked mostly about long term plans, not so much the imminent album. I'm right in the middle of the process, everything's a mess and just making sense inside my head, not quite comfortable discussing it without having something proper to show.

Sun, July 11th

Returned back home with an early flight. Again, as mentioned in Fridays festival post, trouble with my instrument flight case, but this time a very helpful attendant. He didn't know how to handle it, but again showing him SAS' own web page got things moving. Dear me that company, head doesn't know tail. But the attendant was very friendly and helpful. I don't mind the overweight hassle so much if the person behind the counter is there to actually help me make my flight. Got back home, spent some hours shifting my gear back ready for album process, then watched the world cup final. Kind of disappointing final game after a nice tournament, maybe because I didn't care much for the final teams.
 
Mon, July 12th

Somewhat office day, cleaning up, paperwork after the festival. The rest of the day I spent trying to get back into groove, looking over all my work so far and mostly just entering a state of mind about the album, have it all in focus. Only one distraction this week, on Wednesday, then I can give the album full focus for a few weeks.

Tue, July 13th

Continued work on some of the previous sketches. One of them suddenly changed direction completely, from a rather militant rock-electro thing towards more casual and loungy dub. I like it better the new way. I like how things can change so suddenly, and grow from there. But now I'm one short in the electro department.

Wed, July 14th

First half of the day was tour planning. I'm off for a Rikskonsertene tour this fall and we have to start preproduction and planning. Spent a few hours doing strategy and practical details, then I had a meeting with my sound guy Jens, talking problems, solutions, possibilities and production. Second half of the day, I sketched up a new track, and this one gave me a good feeling; I prefer to have at least two or three really strong tracks on each album, and this is a potential strong track I think. I might struggle a bit to integrate the sound of it into my story, but thankfully as I'm building the whole world at once, it shouldn't be a problem to adapt the world to what I need.

Thur, July 15th

Continued working on yesterday's track, spent almost all day on it. Things are just flowing right now, I heart days like these so much. They are so rare. I turned off all communication devices and stayed focused on the track, keeping everything about it in my mind; the sound and mix, the music and structure, the idea and concept and potential future directions. I worked for a whole day and then went for a bike ride to rest my ears and mind, but took audio and musical notes on the phone. Back in studio continued working on the track, and late at night I was out of juice, but was satisfied, the track could be good. Now I need some distance. Rewarded myself by installing the new Reaktor 5.5 public beta to have some fun and play with new software. It looks neat.

Fri, July 16th

Up early. Wanted to fix up a track for one of the characters, I've already written a track for him (or, it), but I'm not happy with that so I decided to write another. Spent first half of the day writing this track. I've mentioned earlier there's a backstory, and characters. I have no idea if this story will be there in the end product, but it helps me build the album as a world.

Sat, July 17th

Just a very regular long day of working. Took the evening off, had some beers in a quiet pub and read foreign newspapers (an easy way to travel).

Sun, July 18th

Kept working. Went exploring, almost killed by a steam train. Back and kept working.

Mon, July 19th

Tiny office day, there are some routines to do, but so few I'm skipping most of them. Mostly tried to assess the current album status. I can afford two more weeks immersed in the album, I will spend the first few days this week trying to get some kind of overview, big picture, and then the final ten days wrapping things up within this larger frame.

Tue, July 20th

A bit of a schizo day, was supposed to work on the overall picture, but ended up writing yet another new track. Kept going back and forth between working on both, which really wasn't optimal but got some things done anyway.

Wed, July 21st

Writing this now, yesterday's evening and this morning have to do some non-album related things. Some of the office routines, web stuff, and communication tasks I was supposed to do on Monday finally caught up with me, got to get these things done. Wrote the blog posts, killed a bunch of emails, blah blah world attention, thanks, bye.

Now back inside my head.