A mostly slow week for me on the album front, but we did manage to lure Aaron Sands over to The Beehive Friday afternoon to play French horn on three songs. Though I’ve heard Aaron’s name mentioned here and there over the years, I’ve never actually met him. As it turns out, we’re neighbors.

Sidebar: I have been wanting to find a place for French horn on one of my albums ever since I first heard Vigilantes of Love’s eclectic, and great, 1992 album, Killing Floor, on which it is a featured part on the song, “Eleanor.” My hopes for such a moment were never realized until yesterday, thanks to Ben and Aaron, who allowed me the opportunity to see if what my ear has been hearing – or wanting to hear – for months might actually transpire on tape. I hope so.

Ben has been working on prep-mixing the songs, a somewhat tedious process in which he tunes vocals, both lead and background, the various instrumentation in need of it, cleans up all the “punches” (where two or more recorded takes run awkwardly together), and gets a general mix going. This step allows the person mixing the album – in our case, Ben himself – to have a clean, prepped slate to work with to start making all the pieces work together. Mixing will involve weeding out parts, decluttering sections in a song so as not to be overly busy or crowded, and creating the sonic atmosphere in which the essentials of the song itself will rest.

We are estimating a mastering date – the final process before going to the duplication plant – sometime in mid-late June. I’m going to try and figure out a real, live, actual release date in the coming days. Targeting late July or early August. Here’s to good vibes, smooth mixing and a soon-to-be Chrome release date!