International

Concept

Album

Month

Tracks inspired by the color blue.
Or something.

The Rule of 40:

I didn't make it to 40 minutes again this year, but I got closer. This is 10 tracks that add up to around 30 minutes of music. I'm pleased with my progress, and maybe will get closer to the full 40 next year.

The Rule of 30: No more than 30% of the album can be written before March 1

Most of the rule-breaking involves my last track Blue Jean Blues, which is a cover, therefore written before March 1. It may even have been written before I was born. Some of the other stuff had some disparate ideas, riffs, chord progressions prior to March 1, but I'm not counting any of it as 'written'. 30% of 30 minutes is 9 minutes, and BJB is a 5 minute track, so I'm going to call this one a win.

​The Rule of 20: No more than 20% of the album can be recorded before March 1

I also used Blue Jean Blues as my test piece to make sure all my gear worked before March 1, so I could spend time making music and not fighting with my DAW. I get 6 minutes, and only used 5- still a win.

The Rule of 10: No more than 10% of the album can be a cover

Same tune, but I only get 3 minutes here, so I broke the rule of 10. I was hoping this was going to be a bonus track, but the rest of the month had other plans. There are also a bunch of 'borrowed' riffs in Blue Dog and Lucille Rocks! I'm not sure how to define those two tunes- cover'ish', I guess. If you're gonna go down, go down in flames.

The Rule of Zero:

Above is my fess-up. I'm glad for the rule of zero.

This will be a concept album inspired by, and making reference to, my second trip to Aotearoa New Zealand -- this most recent trip having been a 30 day excursion in the Fall of 2022.  I attempted to write some lyrics while there, but they are currently on the shelf.  I imagine there will be a fair amount of nature imagery in the songs supporting this project.

I believe I adhered to The Rules again this year.  There is a chord progression throughout "Queenstown Farewell" that mirrors the Van Morrison song "Ancient of Days," but it's not a complete rip of the melody and lyrically of course it is different.  I rewrote and repurposed "Lean In" which is a song I wrote after a trip to another island, but it has new lyrics appropriate to this new album, so it meets the Rule in place for composing the majority of the album in March.  All the recording was done in March, using my still primitive understanding of GarageBand.  I've been in something of a creative funk as regards songwriting for a number of months now, so this effort was more perspiration than inspiration -- although the 2022 extended trip to Aotearoa New Zealand was plenty inspirational.  As always, I'm grateful for the chance to participate in this yearly event.

We wrote and recorded an instrumental album called Neon Palms in 2021. We actually wrote and recorded most of it over just three months so we thought we would see if we can do a album that revisits the moody electronic cross post-rock vibe of Neon Palms. We aim to start and finish the album in the month and will probably record 60 minutes worth of music which we will cull to the desired length. A lot of the songs will be recorded as jams in the studio and then refined and edited but we like to capture an honest raw take full of emotion in the moment.

I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to share with you the album that my band and I created over the course of a month in March for InCoAlMo. This project has been a labor of love and an opportunity for us to explore new sounds and ideas, while also revisiting some of our favorite textures and themes from our previous works.

Before we delve into the album itself, allow me to introduce ourselves. We're an atmospheric synthwave duo hailing from Melbourne, Australia. Our music is a blend of different genres, including vocal synthpop, synthwave, retrowave, ambient, lofi, and experimental music. We have been writing and performing music together since 2014, and we've released over nine and a half hours of music on Spotify, spanning multiple genres.

As artists, we're constantly evolving and exploring new sounds and ideas. We've always been drawn to music that tells a story and creates a sonic world that listeners can get lost in. In 2021, we released an instrumental album titled "Neon Palms," which was inspired by the imagery that the name evoked for us. We loved the idea of creating a safe, tranquil place that listeners could escape to and embark on a journey throughout the album.

This idea served as the foundation for our latest album, "Return to Neon Palms." We wanted to revisit the textures and themes that we explored in "Neon Palms" but take them in new directions and push our creative boundaries. The basic concept behind this album was to create a sonic world that the listener could explore as if they were returning to a place they had visited many moons ago.

We wanted the album to be relaxing and enjoyable to listen to, but we also wanted it to have an emotional depth that drew from a variety of palettes. We wanted to create a sonic landscape that cast the listener as an explorer, venturing through a world that was both familiar and new.

To achieve this, we combined lofi triphop beats with lush organic synthesized textures and layers of moody electric guitar. We also utilized field recordings of nature and animals to create a sense of being outdoors and to give the tracks a living, breathing quality. We wanted the music to transport the listener to a specific time and place and to create a sonic world that was immersive and engaging.

We encouraged listeners to wear headphones and experience the album as a whole to fully immerse themselves in the journey we've created. While the album is largely electronic, we wanted it to feel organic and natural. To achieve this, we played the synth and drum parts by hand and left many notes unquantized for a natural swing. We also captured much of the performance live, allowing the guitar and keyboard to play off each other and create a call-and-response dialogue between the two voices.

We're incredibly proud of the experience we've created through this project, and we hope that listeners enjoy exploring the sonic world we've crafted. Our goal with this album was to create a safe, tranquil place that listeners could escape to and embark on a journey throughout the album. We believe that music has the power to transport us to new places and to evoke a range of emotions, and we hope that this album does just that. Thank you for taking the time to listen.

(Full album release is scheduled for later in the year, but until then, please use the link above to check out the single.)

Just bought a Tascam Portastudio 414 MKII 4-Track Cassette Recorder, very similar to a 4-track I owned growing up. I want to get back to that “limitation” of using just 4 tracks at a time. I have some more retro-style original songs I’ve had on the back burner but haven’t fleshed out. This seems like the perfect format to get these out there, as they don’t fit my usual genre of music.

I'd rather not say yet. It's ambitious. For me.

My concept was to write 12 songs, one inspired by each of the 12 steps in the Buddhist doctrine of dependent origination. It's going well. I only got 5 done, but I'm happy enough with how they turned out that I definitely plan on finishing the album.

No matter how fervently we seek the light, there are always remnants of our journey, forgotten and unchecked in the shadows.

Before they can be let go, they need illumination.

This year, i came very close to a strict win, but decided not to compromise the unfinished portion of the album just to make the deadline.  I felt that, in this case, i'd rather produce the album that i really wanted to make, even if it meant coming in late.

I did successfully complete recording and mixing for 10 songs that add up to over 39 minutes of music.  I'm generally happy with the writing and guitar parts, and mostly satisfied with the vocal performances — though, as always, there are things i wish i could've gotten better.

Despite this runtime being just about what i needed for the Rule Of 40, i leveraged more pre-written material on this record than i have on albums past (one full song as well as fragments of four others).  As i result, i technically needed ~7 more minutes of new material in order to meet the Rule Of 30.  I came up with specific ideas for how i wanted to fill those 7 minutes, but i couldn't realize them before time ran out.

Rather than just give up on those ideas and fill the time with a huge freestyle jam or something, i'm taking a "PARTIAL" this year so that i can stay true to the concept and vision i had for the album.  My hope is to complete the record in the months to come, and release a final mastered version.  As of now, i'm not planning to re-record or re-mix any of the 10 songs that are already completed, but focus only on composing and rendering the additional material to fill out the record.

On the whole, this year's challenge was fraught with some usual difficulties — including some health issues that complicated things — but i'm very glad i stuck with it and got as far as i did.  While part of me wishes i'd pushed harder earlier in the month and enabled the record to get fully completed, another part realizes that the songs i _did_ complete (some of which i really love) very likely needed that time to grow.  Much of the writing here definitely helped to affirm some of the emotions and catharses that inspired the album's concept, but (as one of the songs yet to be written will loudly declare) there is always more shadow work to be done.

[LINK TO FINAL ALBUM to be provided when available ...]

A Hitchhiker from the theorized Planet 9/Planet X. Showing local people around in "his" solar system

Well, we've both ended up with very busy months. But actually just got it done! Not as long as we'd hoped though

Due to real life, my participation this year will probably break many of the rules again... but I hope to create some content worth tuning-into... maybe some music, probably some video documentary...  maybe some photography.

The concept is wrapped around the attic renovation I am working on, which is relevant to INCOALMO because part of the attic will become "The Loft" studio (replacing what is now "The Guest Room Studio")!!!

I knew this would be a tough month splitting my time between an attic renovation (including a home studio space) and making music (and real life).  The attic has come a long way and I managed to record some stuff that I really like.

I would estimate that about 50% of the music was in my head before March 1.  Probably 25% was already recorded before March 1.  So those rules are broken but I had a lot on my plate and part of my goal this month was to finish some stuff that deserved to be finished.  One big win: 0% cover tunes this year... this is 100% me even though it is only about 25 minutes.

The past few years I've signed up for InCoAlMo and started off ok but lost steam before completing anything.  So this year I'm going to run with that as a concept to begin with.

I'm not trying to make a complete album, I'm going to make half an album.  Of half songs.  That are half-baked.  And half of them are halfway done in the litter from previous years, so I'm halfway there.

(If you're keeping track of the math, that means I'm already like 1/64th done!  Woo!)

I slammed most of the actual recording together in the last 3 days.  I've been messing with these tracks all month, and several others too, but they were even less developed.

Things that keep tripping me up:
* lyrics are hard.  Yeah, lyrics aren't even really required, but they form a frame for how the song works, even if there aren't any recorded.
* counting is hard.  When I was actually recording, there were many times when I just somehow ended up off by a measure.  Or two.  WTF man.
* Mixing is hard.  Doing the mixdown on these on my R8 I thought the master level was ok, but then listening to them on my computer they were like, mouse level sound.  Fortunately slapping the "amplify" effect on them worked well enough, but I'm sure that horrifies the sound engineers in the group.
* Mixing is hard, again.  Maybe I should just go with "less is more".  In particular, the track "Worse Songs" - I wanted there to be more there, but it's just mud.  I'm going to have to go back and listen to it more closely, maybe my guitar is out of tune from the keys just a teensy bit.
* I can't sing.  'Nuff said.

There are some glimmers of music in here, but really the only thing this album has going for it is that it exists.  Which is something.

March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. And so my child presents two songs: one harder and one softer, like a lion and a lamb.

This album centers around a core set of covers representing the diversity of our musical influences. Each cover is then balanced with an original inspired by some aspect of the covered song.

This year, I'd like to make an album centered around another journey — this time, journeying to an alien world. The goal is to aim for a more cinematic vibe, telling a story while sticking to my electronic roots. I also like albums which smoothly transition between tracks, so I'm going to try and have no pauses for the duration of the album. We'll see how it goes!

Phew, time really got the best of me this year! I had such grand ambitions for InCoAlMo this time around, and I feel like I could probably have achieved my goals, but life happened --- my college coursework was particularly challenging, so I had to dedicate myself to that more than I planned to, and some other random stuff happened that distracted me from the challenge... yikes, I missed the mark!

So, my biggest lesson learned --- making an entire album in one project file is great in theory, but pretty hard in practice! The nice thing about a single file is that all of your sounds and instruments and effects are at your fingertips, ready for later reuse, which is great if you want a sonically cohesive album. The problem with that, as I discovered, is that mixing is a nightmare --- as different instruments come in and out, the relative audio levels are constantly in flux, so a ton of parameter automation is required, which siphons time and energy away from the actual creative/musical process... I didn't even make it through two tracks and I was like "this is not gonna work", so I started over with the intent to make tracks individually and stitch them together to make a continuous album, and then... well, time got away from me.

Hopefully I'll be better prepped for next year!

Since early 2022, I have been trying to write and record a “loose” concept-album, with a vaguely progressive/art-rock style (with “pastoral-prog” leanings), featuring pieces inspired by my favourite anime and manga series. I have two tracks “in the can”, but the project has stalled for various reasons, and I need something to kick it back to life… let’s do this!

Archimedes

We have yet to figure that out! And since we're still moving into a new house in a new state, we're going to lower the expectations on ourselves. Rather than our normal 12 finished songs, we're going to aim for a shorter project this year.

As has befallen me in the past, I take this InCoALMo challenge as an opportunity to wire up and activate my home studio and writing gear.
Preludes to Perjury (and) Nice Girl were in fact my very intense and somewhat overly ambitious tasks from two years ago,  tho I still intend on presenting those projects in some form, some day.
FOR NOW, let's see if I can wrestle with the self discipline needed to modify my own working habits and the paradoxes of creativity which are ever at odds with my tendencies to get "hip"notized and somewhat 'Lost in the Loops'😅

..wish me luck!