2:48PM: We’ve been asked to leave the control room so Benny can concentrate. Reasonable. When putting together the semi-final version of “Down South Dog,” one of the several hundred of Jason‘s vocal tracks went missing, so there’s some work to be done there. The thing is, these songs were recorded in at least three separate sessions, over the course of more than three years, so a major challenge for Mr. Grotto has been making it cohesive. You know, like an album. Fortunately he seems up to the task.

Miraculously, I fell back to sleep on the floor of the live room this morning. Breakfast was at around 10:30AM at a cafe up the street. Kind of a hippie place, local art on the walls and all that, but not too crowded and not too pretentious — and a killer breakfast burrito goes a long way. Some gorgeous collegiate-types directed us a couple blocks down to In Your Ear Records, where Tommy picked up his fair share of vinyl and then some. I grabbed some CDs that I’ll likely detail at another time.

If there’s anything I’ve noticed in listening to these tracks, it’s the growth. The last five years have not left Solace the same as they were. Even since their last EP, 2007’s The Black Black, the change is audible in the songs. There are rampant harmonies in the vocals and guitars — of course guitars are a central focus since I’m here with the two guitarists — but as much as we’ve been throwing around dick jokes and one-liners about anal beads, there’s no question the process is incredibly important to these dudes.

It’s worth noting these aren’t to be the final final mixes of the A.D. record. Although the tracks are complete in terms of the recording, there’s more to putting it all together. Jason, for example, still has to okay the vocal mixes, and there will probably be another round of tweaks for the instruments as well. But it’s working out and as odd as it is to think of the words “Solace” and “mature” in the same sentence, musically at least there’s a sense that the long time they’ve taken to make this record happen hasn’t been for nothing.

John Arzgarth was here and gone, but it was good to see him however briefly. A sample of his then-infant son is set to open “Down South Dog.” Plans are to head to a dive bar for drinks later, but that probably depends on how much is left to do with these songs. Time’s always a factor. It’s after 3PM now and we’re back in the control room, but there’s still a ways to go. It wouldn’t be doom if it didn’t take a long time.

Tags: Allston, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Small Stone, Solace

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 3:17 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.