No Stability/No Rules.

"Beef" and "Ubit Spazym..." were written very quickly after the completion of EP III. The title "Ubit Spazym (o)" (when spelled correctly) is a (cheat of an) anagram that Justin created (see if you can figure it out). With these two songs complete, we decided to attempt to write and record EP IV. We were once more facing down what could be the end...a very strict timeline before Andrew left Sacramento to return to school. When the word came that, once more, Andrew would be forced to attend school remotely, we decided that we should use the time to write another full length album.

"Buy the ticket, take the ride."

Although bands were playing shows again, the logistics of returning to the stage still seemed impossible to us. With this in mind, we decided that all bets were off, and any limitations of the live performance would be dismissed for this new material. The songs could be as unperformable in a live setting as possible. This mostly translated to as many guitar and vocal overdubs that we could want.

We also decided that we would leave no stone unturned...no idea left behind. In the history of Grave Lake, any song that was completed came alongside 4-5 jams or riffs that were later abandoned. In the case of "Lime Version", every idea was used, no matter how different it seemed to be. The title track for instance ends in a way that reminds me of The Beatles "I Want You" but with a bass line Andrew described as Pink Floyd-esque. You can hear in the original demo of the song a production trick that I had used (on a still unreleased Red Host demo from 2007) attempting to replicate the swelling noise. "Reggae Man" is our attempt at writing a song with dub elements (maybe closer to The Clash or Gang of Four than actual dub). The riff for "Loop Man" had it's origins in a jam that was much more indebted to The Jesus Lizard, but Justin's deep dive into samplers made it the song it is today. "Jock James" is our take at a Jock Jams-style song. "Buzz Bin" is imagined as a song that could have appeared on one of those old generic alt-rock hits compilations. Etc.

We wrote for most of the year, and finally booked a session with Pat Hills at the new Earth Tone Studios in August of 2021. Continuing our practice of recording all basic tracks live in studio, this session marks the first time we broke some of the longer songs ("Lime Version", "Reggae Man") into two parts to be edited together into the master take. These tracks, along with "Loop Man" (which is built on...sampled loops), are a testament to Pat's ability to work as fast as the band. He could seamlessly combine takes and edit songs just as quick as we could perform them. Pretty amazing. We recorded all nine songs in two days, which is an indication of not only the band's ability, but the person recording it.

Similar to EP III, none of these songs had the benefit of being played live prior to recording. The demos show not only vocal/lyrical progression, but addition of parts as well as the self editing of certain meanderings into actual arrangements. For the first time in our last few releases, Stephine's keyboards are noticeably absent simply because of scheduling difficulties (maybe she will have more of a presence in the future...).

We ended the month of September 2021 recording a batch of cover songs in our rehearsal space (see the "Ceremonies..." comp). Shortly thereafter Andrew finally left Sacramento to continue school, which left the future of the band in question. A year has now passed and maybe there will be something more...

Ian (September 2022)