Earlier this week I went into the studio with my friend Matt from There Is No Mountain to track some drums for a bunch of new songs. A handful are for rappers for random records, and the rest are part of a collection I'm putting together for a new instrumental album I'm hoping to wrap up for the fall.

We spent about five hours on Monday blasting through tracks, trying all sorts of things on the tracks to try to give them more depth.

Most of the rest of my week has been spent chopping up the takes and mixing them, and so far most of the results have been pretty exciting. I'm hoping to have a few cymbals on hand at my home studio in future. It's inspiring how quickly a live tracked cymbal or drum hit can liven up a track.

While we were there we tried a few questionable things, like tracking the floor tom through a PVC pipe (which did not work), but it's always good to see what will happen, in case it does make awesome sounds (I'm thinking Tortoise production style).

More on some things I've been trying with the tracks in my studio, soon! Thanks to Matt, and also Prince at Portland Underground Recording!