Video File #6: Trashman and the Blood Baker "Shadow People"

"Shadow People" video is now online!

Today is the release of the second video from the new music project called Trashman and the Blood Baker. The song comes from their upcoming debut album, scheduled for release in late 2008.

The photos were taken several years ago at an old farm house near Metal XOR Studio.

Click here for the YouTube post.

Video File #5: Trashman and the Blood Baker "Carnaval des Morts"

"Carnaval des Morts" video is now online!

Today is the release of the first video from the new music project called Trashman and the Blood Baker. The song comes from their upcoming debut album, scheduled for release in late 2008.

The footage comes from photos taken during a local fair from the past few years and various images found on the Internet. Additional photo editing was done at Attic Works Studio.

Click here for the YouTube post.

Studio News: Recording Session #2

A recording session took place this afternoon at Attic Works Studio. It follows shortly on the heels of last week's outdoor recording session. It was the second session for the as-of-yet-unannounced project that began last month at Metal XOR Studio.

Today's session consisted of vocal work on two songs. The first is entitled "Infectant" and the other is a short piece temporarily titled "Ram Rap", which sounds like a rap song from India.

We managed to catch Jason between verses this afternoon and this is what he had to say about the project:

"It's coming along great. The ORC album we attempted earlier this year didn't even make it this far. I have many tracks started for this album, many are on the verge of being completed. Work is ramping up here at Attic Works also. This is a true collaborative effort between the two studios. And if we keep up this pace the album will be out before the end of the year."

Stay tuned for coverage of future recording sessions as this album continues its forward motion to completeness.

Studio News: Recording Session #1

A vocal recording session took place last night for Metal XOR's newest music project. And we were there to cover the entire event.

This secret project was started last month. It has employed accelerated processes for recording an entire album, hopefully to be released next month. It is a brand new project, so this album will be its debut.

Last night's session was recorded a couple of miles outside of town on an inactive country road. Under a bright half-moon, Jason and Jimmy set the recorder on the back of Jason's car, each grabbed a mic, and using an MP3 player with a headphone splitter to hear the music, they spent about an hour recording many takes of the vocals for the song titled "The Other".

This album will be part concept, as was demonstrated last night. There are ideas for other alternate recording methods. It is hoped that the final album will be unlike anything released by the Studio to date. And only time will tell how if these audio experiments will be successful or not.

Video File #4: Paige "Jesus Is"

Paige sang this song at church this morning. It was from this summer's Vacation Bible School program. It is called "Jesus Is". She had sung another song earlier this year before VBS began as a VBS 'sneak-peak'.



Today's videographer was her grandpa with his Canon digital camera. Daddy was operating the sound board. And Mommy was her on-stage support.

State of the Studio #14: October '08

October is here! Fall has officially begun! This is my favorite month of the year. And things are busy in the Studio.

First, there was an unexpected album release last month. ORC held an impromptu jam session over the Internet. Eleven sons were pulled from the recording and became the new ORC EP Thru the Vent. It had a very limited release and was almost considered a novelty album, but it has made it into the official Metal XOR Musik Catalog.

Second, a new project is underway. Nothing official has been mentioned of it yet, so stay tuned to the blog for more details.

And finally, Paige's second album and the debut Equinox Dulcet album are still expected to be released by the end of the year. But due to all the recent new recordings, they have already been pushed back from their expected release dates. If 2008 doesn't see their completion, 2009 will.

So until next month, enjoy the weather! It will be cold before we know it.

Album of the Week #46: Thru the Vent

Project name: ORC
Album name: Thru the Vent
Release date: September 23, 2008
Release format: CD
Studio name: Metal XOR Studio

Tracks:
1. Mariner's Lament
2. Pruritus
3. Chicken Quest
4. Giu
5. Brown River
6. Exquisite Blackness
7. I Wish You the Best
8. Land of Make Believe
9. HipHop HobGob
10. We Go Down
11. Here We Go

On Saturday, September 20, 2008, Jason and Jimmy connected on their computers with the Voice Over IP program called Ventrilo, as they often do. That particular night Jason had his recorder going, recording everything that was said or done by either of them.

Jason started the evening by working on music for a new project. Jimmy was also playing around with his own music. When Jason finished, he started playing an online game called Vanguard. But Jimmy kept working on music.

Behind Jason's game sounds, Jimmy was playing music and singing, making up the lyrics as he went along. After a few songs Jason joined in by singing as Jimmy played his synthesizer. After they logged off for the evening, Jason went back to the recording and pulled out eleven songs that they created that night. And those eleven songs are what became this EP.

It is a short album and hardly any thought went into it, but it is the first ORC release since their debut album in 1999, Purging the Great Abyss. Their attempt at recording a new full-length album in January of 2008 ended before the album was finished. But for this latest impromptu jam, the album was released just three days after being recorded.

The Asian theme of the packaging came from the picture used on the front of the album cover, which Jimmy had as his desktop wallpaper at work for a while. They agreed the picture should be used in some way with ORC, so when it was decided to release this as an album, they already had their album cover. The rest of the packaging followed that theme.

And the title of the EP came from the fact that the music was created over the Internet using the program Ventrilo, or Vent for short.

There are more EP's of such live jam sessions in the ORC catalog. Plans are to release more of them in 2009.