Neil is progressing along on the new album-I have one on pre-order in my usual excited way-so its good to hear hear it is coming along well, here are the details from his website. He has done a large update to the site and has added comments to his site. It is really quite clever and you can use Facebook and the like to post without having to register to another account.

http://www.neilclark.com/index.html#unique-entry-id-43

Four pieces worked up to a finished state last week and a fifth half way done. At this rate all pieces will have final work completed on them with basic pre-mix and rough sequencing done by March break week - starts 13th March. I should then be able to come back afterwards and finish and master. The pieces (with provisional titles subject to change) are: I’ll Tell Her Myself, If I Don’t Come Back, KuDam Incident and Julie Montag.

I’ll Tell Her Myself is a three act, acoustic/electric tonal blues. Quite cinematic with a haunting quality. It explores the same territory as Four Lane Road and Pretty Horses from Sundogs but takes it a shade further.

If I Don’t Come Back is a groove based piece featuring lead guitar over a Jah Wobbleish repeated bass figure with a lot of drum and percussion programming. I state the themes then begin to work into the harmony with the different tones and patches I’m currently employing, including a really cool ring-modulator sound that is very angular but sits perfectly in the track. Big modal piece of almost five minutes duration.

KuDam Incident - a nostalgic three minutes built around a shifting Amin6/9 to Cmin6/9 harmony over which an A blues if melody is played. Backwards guitar solos the breaks.

Julie Montag is in a similar vein. An eight bar chord cycle of 11s and minor sevens is played on two interlocking arpeggios, repeated and developed with the melody played on a wide tremolo guitar. A short 2 minute + vignette of a piece.

Next progress report next weekend......