Hello!  "What the Crows Know," the first song from Ascent's new CD in progress, can now be heard on ascentmusiconline.com  (if you click ENTER, it will start streaming right away).    If you like listening to the streaming audio, we hope that you'll consider downloading the mp3 when it becomes available in the next couple of weeks (from iTunes, eMusic, Napster, Amazon, Rhapsody, and others...) 

I started to write the words to this song a couple of years ago,  just a few months after we moved to California.   If case you haven't figured it out already , you should know that I'm fascinated by birds.  In fact, the band name Ascent was inspired by bird flight, as were some of our other songs, including "In Flight."  

One night, as the sun was setting, I saw hundreds and hundreds of crows flying over our house, all headed South.   I was amazed by the huge numbers, and the communication that seemed to be happening between all the individuals.    This was not something I'd ever seen in Arizona.  I made sure to head outside at sunset the next day, and sure enough, the crows were doing the same thing, flying in the same direction.    Each night I watched them, and tried to figure out exactly where they were going, and when and how they all came back.  Once I started to pay close attention to the crows, I started to notice all the strange social (and anti-social) behaviors they were engaging in.   During the day, the crows were all independent, doing their own thing, but at that one time of day they were all working together.  

One rainy afternoon at work, I saw another huge group of crows in what could only be described as a whirlwind across the street.  Hundreds of them were circling, and making an incredible sound.   There was no easy explanation for what they were doing, but it was clearly a major event in their world.  I looked around at my co-workers, and saw that not another soul was interested.  The crows were living in a universe all their own.  That day, I wrote the majority of the song lyrics on my PDA.    

The music for this song came out of a practice room improvisation.  When I practice, I'm usually creating loops of drums and guitars, and always searching for interesting guitar riffs or chord progressions that can be repeated endlessly and still work.  The majority of these improvisations don't get saved, but once in a while I hit upon something that I like enough to store in my RC-50 Loop Station.   Modal music lends itself well to endless looping and soloing without sounding too trite (to me, anyway).  So this improvisation was really just an excuse to play guitar solos in Phrygian mode.  The guitar riff and the basic drum rhythm of the final song are essentially the same as that first improvisation.   I had originally created a sort of ascending bassline that I discarded later.

A  week or two after saving this particular improvisation, I thought of the "What the Crows Know" lyrics I had written on my PDA, and thought I'd take a crack at putting the two together.    It worked!    I recorded a little demo, with a ton of echo all over my voice.    When I played the original demo for Christina, I don't remember her being too impressed.   I think it was probably pretty boring and repetitive, and the song had no chorus.   

At least a couple of months went by.   I was sitting around strumming acoustic guitar, and I started playing something like what is now the chorus of the song.   At some point, I figured out that it worked to tack this chord progression on to the existing "Crow Song," even though it is clearly not in the same mode.    I wrote additional lyrics to go with the chorus, and the song was done.  When I played the song with the chorus to Christina, she loved it, and we started to play it in our live set.   When we play it live, I play the basic drum pattern on the HandSonic and loop it, then play the guitar with the rhythmic delay on it.  The HandSonic kit is one that I set up specifically for the song, and it includes Doholla (a Middle Eastern drum)  and Dholak (an Indian drum) sounds. 

It was really difficult for me to get the recording started properly.  I probably recorded the drum parts a hundred times, but I was still unhappy with it.  It just didn't have the right feel.  I think part of this was that I was playing it much too slow, and I wasn't used to hearing the drum sounds all on their own (without the looped guitar).  For a while, I considered not using the HandSonic, and playing heavy rock drums, like "Kashmir," instead.    I walked away from it for a week in frustration, and then it turned out to be much easier when I tried again.  I ended up adding a couple of other drum sounds for effect, including the conga in the middle section. 

I initially used stereo mic's for the guitar, but it didn't sound right to me because I'd been playing the Ovation through my effects pedal (Boss GT-3) when we played it live.  In the end I decided to do the guitar like the live version.   The bassline was new but it was really easy.  My primary goal was just to leave a lot of space.  

There are multiple drones beneath the surface of the song, played on electric guitar using Ebow.   I didn't loop these parts, I just played them straight through.  In the middle section there are no fewer than three tracks of drones playing at once!    There's a little bit of "lead" Ebow in a few spots too.  

Christina recorded her vocals one day while I was at work.  She recorded it five times, and we worked together to assemble the best composite track from those five.    The effects on the vocal include plug -in that simulates a tube compressor, called "Vintage Channel VC-64."  I also used this effect on the drum parts, to balance them out.  There is also, of course,  some echo. 

I'd had the idea for a long time that there were going to be harmony vocals on chorus, but I didn't actually try to work them out until after the lead vocal was done.   I came up with three-part harmonies and recorded myself singing them, to see if it would work.  Because I'm such a poor singer, I had to autotune myself (I sound just like T-Pain! I'm on a boat!).  I put Christina through the pain of singing these parts over and over again, but in the end we decided to discard most of them. 

When Christina recorded the harmony vocals, she also improvised the vocal bits that happen during the solo section.  She suggested that they should have a "creepy" effect, so I applied the reverse echo.   We liked it so much that we added these vocal parts to the beginning  (backwards) and end of the song.

The guitar solo was pretty easy for me, compared to the rest of the recording.  After all, the song was originally just an excuse to play lead!   The recorded solo was originally about twice as long, but I edited out the middle of it.  It's strictly improvised, but after recording it a few times I had worked out the first few phrases. 

There's an intentional lack of keyboards or programming in this song, but there is a little synth in the middle and end, an echoing sound from a Cakewalk synth called Rapture. 

At the start of the solo section, there's a sample of a screechy sound - this is actually a sample I downloaded from a site called The Freesound Project.   Apparently, it's someone abusing a grand piano that's been "prepared" with dry ice!    It's licensed under a Creative Commons license, so  have to tell you that it was created by someone named Batchku.  The name of the sample is "Leaving Bird Rust Island" - seems apropos!    

So there you go, a new song and a whole ton of information!  We're excited to be releasing new Ascent music.  Please listen and let us know what you think.