After 9 months, the solo project album I promised myself I would write and record is ready. It was a long time coming. It feels great to finally release music after about 15 years of writing. Listen below or keep reading.
Shift. This album represents a shift in mindset and a push toward growth. I learned a lot about myself during this process. I learned a lot about recording and mixing audio. I learned I want to keep pushing to make more, better music.
It’s far from perfect
But done is better than perfect. I’m no master at mixing and I know it. There’s a lot to learn there. And every time I listen to the tracks after a day or two of tweaking I find something else wrong. These songs are nowhere near a professional mix. I’m completely okay with that.
And that’s the beauty of the DIY ethos. It’s not going to be perfect unless I spend months mixing it or pay someone else to do it. A ton of work went into the mixing of the album and I’m proud of myself for how good it does sound. Yes, some songs might be too treble-heavy. Yes, the guitars overpower the rest of the mix in some spots. Yes, the bass is a little too quiet in other places. But overall it doesn’t sound completely terrible, and I’m happy with how much I learned along the way.
I actually wanted to embrace the “not perfect” sound a little with the intro track. After everything was already recorded I decided to write a song specifically as an intro. It was intentionally written in about 15 minutes and recorded with one take on each instrument, blemishes and all. Note: there are multiple guitar and vocal tracks, but each track was one take.
The band conundrum
One thing in particular I struggled with was which songs to include on the album as a solo project. I really like all of them, and that’s a problem when I also have a band with other, real people. If I include it in my solo project, can we do it as a band too?
A few songs I saved specifically for this project. There are two songs on here that I’ve taken to the other guys in the band and we’ve been working on them. Kind of remixing them so it fits our style more. Getting input from them has been really great at improving the songs for us to perform them.
We have started recording and it’s been fun. Patrick, our bassist, is far more creative and talented with bass lines than I am. James, our drummer, is a talented drummer who can capture more soul to the heartbeat of the track than MIDI drums. Both of them add a fantastic layer of interest to the songs. Keep an eye out for music coming from Chiseled Lilies (new songs too, not just rehashed tunes).
Where to get it?
The easiest way to listen is streaming on Spotify. If you want to download it, head over to Bandcamp to download it for free. It’s also available on all major platforms.
Note that iTunes, Amazon, and the Google Play store are paid downloads. It was the lowest price I could select for these stores. Please feel free to download at Bandcamp or simply stream it.
Dan Hauk 
Well done – massive props on launching
LikeLiked by 1 person