Funny story about this song. It's the eighth track posted on Workbench from my serialized album Astral Law, but it's actually the first track in the album's running order. I had originally planned it to be the debut post on Workbench on September 8, but I swapped it with "At the Foothills" at the last minute.
In retrospect, "At the Foothills" was a good track to launch with. But I had never intended it to be the opening track on the album, despite some efforts to wrap my head around the idea after the fact. The problem with "Astral Law" -- the thing that made me freak out at the last minute and call in a sub -- was that I couldn't get it to sound right. The mix was pretty good but the mastering wasn't happening, and the mastering is the glue that pulls a recording together.
I knew it in September that if I was going to get "Astral Law" released I was going to need to send it out to be mastered by a proper mastering engineer, in a proper studio. Actually, I would have liked to have had my two CDs and all of the Workbench tracks handled by a pro, but running the whole enterprise on a shoestring budget, and feeling that I could do a serviceable job myself, I postponed it. I'll tell you, candidly, that it was a bad idea; don't do it. The only regrets, the only second-guesses that I've had over the past four years with my music and my releases have been about mastering. It's a crucial step, not something you want to learn on the job. Get it done right, if only for the peace of mind that comes with knowing you've touched all the bases.
I get to present "Astral Law" to you today because Scott Hull at Masterdisk is taking care of the mastering for this, and for all forthcoming Workbench Recordings releases. Masterdisk has been around since '73, and Scott's been at the helm since '08. The studio has an incredible legacy, and I'm thrilled that Workbench is the first netlabel to be associated with it. Scott is an expert engineer who masters all kinds of music, but I personally knew his work from the records he's mastered for John Zorn's Tzadik label (all of them!). His credentials in experimental music are unimpeachable. Scott's team at Masterdisk covers all genres and also handles specialties like audio restoration.
"Astral Law" is a complicated track, musically and sonically. It was built from a number of different recordings made at different times in different formats. Most of it was done in April and May of '09. There are some field recordings in it from '06 too, and to top it all off, I did a bunch of work on it this month. I could have probably kept working on it -- deadlines can be good for cases like this. Bottom line is that it was a monster to pull together, but here it is.
One last thing. To hear "Astral Law" at its best, get the FLAC file, and play it loud. Hope you like it. --James Beaudreau
