p IC TURE ATLANTIC JSUT FOLLOWED M e SOMEONE HOLD EM
PA Fans - You Are the Best
Last week we received an email from Melissa M. titled, “Just a note of adoration (warm fuzzies follow).” It was such an encouraging letter that I asked for permission to post it on our blog. Being in a band is a constant roller coaster of ups and downs, perceived victories and perceived failures and sometimes it may seem like your efforts go unseen. This letter is incredibly encouraging and I think all bands, big or small, need to hear things like this:
Hello Picture Atlantic,
I just wanted to write a gushy letter to all of you to let you know how much I am enjoying your music. I know right now you are working on a new album and I am super stoked to hear it! If I were still listening to music on cassettes I would have worn out all of your albums by now ;) I wanted to encourage all of you to keep working at your art. Your music is Quality. You are all amazingly talented. I love how interesting your songs are ~ every instrument, the lyrics, the vocals. I like the mood created by your songs too - sad and a little hopeful (at least to me). Something about that just appeals to the moody gal in me.
I know that some of you have forgone college or university to pursue your ambitions in music. Excellent choice! So many people today are miserable at jobs that they are less than passionate about. There aren’t that many people that get to do what they love. I can’t quite figure out why you guys aren’t rich and famous yet, but I think its coming. I feel like you are going to go far with your music and I want to encourage you to keep at it.
I am planning a family vacation this summer to San Francisco. I am hoping that I’ll be able to catch you playing live. Any plans for performances in August so I can coordinate my vacation time accordingly?
Best of luck with the new album & Happy Holidays!
~Melissa
Thank you again to Melissa and to you reading this for the love and support you’ve shown our band. We couldn’t or wouldn’t do this without you.
-RB
Note Factory
It’s been a little while now since I’ve blogged about our own music, and I thought now might be a good time to update the whole album process to you all.
Over the past couple months we’ve done about 3-4 pre-production sessions with our producer Aaron (for those of you late in the game, Aaron produced our albums Kleos, When Everything is Numbers, and Digital Tension). This last month he went ‘solo’ and branched off to start his own official studio called Hellam Sound. Before he was operating under the moniker ‘Castle Ultimate’ with another great engineer/producer. I mention this in part to let the world know the great news, but to also explain that this has freed up a bit more time for sessions of demoing with him.
Thus far, I think we’ve done about close to 6 or 7 full band, electric demos with Aaron. Only 5-6 of them have some semblance of vocals, but only because time was short our last sessions where I laid down some vocals.
What can I tell you about the demos?
They are still very ‘Picture Atlantic’ but yet very different. The sound has seemed to me, to be heavier, darker, and groovier. These are all adjectives I’ve wanted to use for a while.
An added bonus is that some of the references to other bands people have been using, have been new as well. There were maybe about 5-6 bands that I constantly saw press, blogs, and commentators cycling through to describe us (I have a strong arm-chair theory that this was because some of these people basically were regurgitating what little they read of our EPK, and other reviews and interviews by other journalists, instead of listening and deciding on their own).
In fact, it’s been my strong belief for about the last 24 hours since listening to a lot of these demos all the way through, for the first time in a month, that we have quite a bit of quality on our hands, and due to the ‘short and sweet’ nature we are hoping to achieve with the new album, we may in fact have enough material for an LP and possibly an EP shortly before or after. That remains to be seen.
Due to the impending Christmas doom about to shake our country, we’ll be taking a break and re-focusing on this once the new year rolls around. Stay posted.
Regardless, we are very happy to have your attention in this limited, ADD, fast-paced, Web 2.0 , noise-fest that is 2013 (soon to be 14). And thank you to everyone for your kind letters, e-mails, messages, and tweets as of late. We’ve been getting immense love and encouragement from you all and that feels very humbling and amazing all at the same time.
Peace!
-Nik