It’s been almost a year since I finished all of the compositional work on Made In Japan. Followed by several months mixing and Mastering with Mark Chadwick. Over that time I put so much focus on how the record sounds that the how I composed the record became quite cloudy in my memory, a memory I continued to loose after the albums release.

I felt burned out by the music I had spent nearly 3 years of my life on. The idea of going back and thinking analytically about how I made it was just not on the cards 6 months ago.

However with some time away from the work I thought it would be great to go back to it, remember how I made it and what I learned from the experience for future work.

As I’m putting the whole album on Youtube over the next two months I thought now would be the perfect time to go back and offer a retrospective on the album. What I remember about the technical processes of making it and the thoughts and influences I had whilst composing particular tracks.

I’m doing this for anyone who is interested but also as a collection of diary entries for my future self. As I get further away from its creation and my memories get foggier it’s starting to feel like it was made by someone else altogether! Hopefully by writing this I will leave myself a record of what I was thinking and how I made it for future analysis.

Hopefully you will enjoy my thoughts on each track and maybe even learn something about my process that you could apply to your own creative endeavors. If anyone does please let me know as I’d love to know this work has been useful for more than just myself.

So, from tomorrow, each Tuesday and Friday I will be releasing a track from the album in order and writing a post about it on the blog. I will write down what I remember about the process, including thought processes and influences I had whilst composing particular tracks. 

Tomorrow will start with the opening and title track “Made In Japan”.