Hypersoul Update

Whoa, it has been some time since I've updated the site. I didn't realize how long it had been. You might have thought I'd disappeared, but no, Hypersoul is still chugging along – slowly.

Since Youtopia was released last spring, I took some much needed down time to get away from music for a little while and let my brain recharge. The truth is that when you are singularly responsible for all aspects of the music, whether it's writing, the sound, the vocals, the lyrics, remixes, production, the web presence, you name it [I do it alone], you expend an immense amount of creative energy & focus. Music can wear you out, particularly when you're listening to the same songs over and over again. So, Youtopia took quite a long time to put together, as is likely to be the case for the next album, and when I had finished the album, I had to get away from it all. And during the time of working on the album, it had probably been a couple years since I had actually *written* anything new, so by the time last summer had rolled around I was ready to sit down and see what new songs would spill out of me. I always write the music first with a basic idea of how the vocals may go, and then later start working on the lyrics, while along the way collecting ideas and snippets of words that might fit into something. And that's basically where I stand now.

Since writing new music between last summer and last week, I've managed to produce about 20 new songs or so (instrumental demos basically). There are quite a few that will definitely be album worthy. Some that might need a little more help to get there, and then maybe a couple others that might find themselves tucked in some archives somewhere after all is said and done. Usually though, if a song doesn't have something in it, I won't pursue it very far. So, to get to 20 songs means I've got 20 that I actually enjoy listening to over and over, which is no small thing. Even after that I've still got another 3-4 barely completed tracks that I'm trying to figure out if they can be considered worthy or not. Still, the trick now is to start moving to the stage of writing lyrics and then start building up recordings of all of them. But as mentioned above, when you're doing it all yourself, and you're trying to pull 12-20 finished songs together, it ends up being quite a long process. Time can easily get away from you. At the same time though, I am very excited about the songs I've written. Overall there are likely to be more slower-tempo songs on the next album and possibly a more slim approach to the production, although that remains to be seen until I actually get into that phase of the work. But I have been writing, what I think are some very interesting chord progression against a more slimmed down sound. We'll see where that all goes though once I get recording.

All the best!

garrett