Recording Session: "Am I As You"

Yesterday we recorded the guitar and vocals for "Am I As You". We set up Gunnar's mobile studio in my living room with a three mic set up - one mic close to me and a stereo set up a few feet away. Recording with this type of set up really makes things sound wonderful.

Single mic set up.

Stereo set up.

It was really cool to see the mobile studio in action as well. Gunnar has it all on one cart that, when vertical, can travel easily and, when horizontal, is the set up he needs to work on. This is what it looks like:

It's really fucking cool.

Once everything was set up, we recorded the song in a handful of takes. One of just guitar, and a bunch of vocals - two for the main take and a couple for some layered vocals at the end of the song. 

The song itself is an intimate expression of suicidal ideation, written several years ago when I realized I needed to go back to therapy. I have struggled with chronic depression for a long time and started with my first therapist when I was 13.

Here are the lyrics. Make of them what you will:

We took the long way home

Past a crippling set of stitches

Where conversation is a stray cat

Under the heaviest of clover

And I wonder to myself

Am I as inconsiderate as you?

We're couped up in a van

Driving down the wrong side of the road

Where ink splotches dye

The insides of my arms

And I wonder to myself

Am I as self-absorbed as you?

I want the words to lunge out of my mouth

Like vicious spilt milk on the dining room floor

And the gloom sets in as we lay under the table

We're begging the legs to fucking snap off

That way it could all be an accident

How long can this last

Once the pale dawn sets in

Now that my memory

Has forsaken what's wrong

And I wonder to myself

Am I as stoic? Am I as stoic?

I want the words down the back of my throat

Like geese retreating from the winter's stiff cold

And bridges will shake under the shrinking weight

Of my hippocampus begging to defy self-control

I could take the short way home

And, naturally, Eric wasn't phased by any of this :)

He stayed right there.

Overall, it was a success. I even got a really cool picture of one of Gunnar's condenser mics:

Love,

KJ