Vitanotes

We've been in the studio steadily for many months putting together our first official EP. After years of performing out and recording acoustic demos in studios, it became time to shell out a proper release with proper production.

As most musical projects go, creating the EP was a challenge; we often felt like we could make several different recordings with the same set of songs...one folk, one indie rock, one pop, one electronica, etc. Ultimately, we aimed for a blend of various genres.

This project has been a collective effort - we were fortunate to have the aid of numerous talented folks around LA and Hollywood. Ella and Laura Drew, both highly successful and revered performers on their own, were gracious enough to lend their beautiful vocals for Move On and Free, respectively. Their vocals fit the emotive vibe of those tunes quite nicely. Laura also performed an angelic background vocal for Before You Go; the lyrics of her part reveal that the song's actually about life and death. (How many of you first guessed that it's a sappy love ballad? Yuk!)

Al composed all the songs on the EP, some of which have seen various incarnations in the past. He had a vision of how he wanted them to sound this go around, and so he decided to also play producer...all of this with the help of Grammy nominated recording engineer, Joe Ayoub. Nestled in Joe's cozy studio (The Sound Salon) on Sunset Blvd, we spent countless hours rethinking and mixing the music. And when we'd be away from the studio, we'd often spend spare moments in front of personal computers editing musical parts. We owe a lot to Joe for his patience, endurance, and pure skill & knowledge of recording music. He's a good man!

Couldn't believe that the EP was at last finished when it came to that point. Next it had to be mastered, and by way of Joe's recommendation, we sent our record to Precision Mastering in Hollywood, one of the most famous mastering houses in the world. Check out their website and you'll see that their clientele list is too impressive. We sought Don Tyler to master our EP because of his previous work with artists such as Beck, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Supreme Beings of Leisure, and so many others.

Our music is here to evoke a positive and meaningful thought or feeling in our listeners. It's the product of us loving music of all kinds & listening to various records a million times, and trying to make something just as enjoyable for our fans. Hopefully the current EP does the job, and we look forward to doing that with future releases as well.