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Artisan Talk

from Curtains by The Encaustics

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about

This was the first track that Tong and I made together. It was written and recorded within two hours right from his notebook. I made about 20 different mixes of it with various tempos and instruments before settling on this one.
I really like the electric guitar played by a friend, Brendan Steaklum. He plays the electric guitar licks with all the reverb on them, slightly in the back, the first guitar you hear. The cool hand drum sound is the tabla setting from a set of Vdrums. Cymbals and tom drums were recorded separately. The piano is a solid mahogany grand piano made by Conover from 1926. My grandfather gave to me, he got it new when he was 18. There are about 5 tracks of percussion total and at the start and the end you can clearly hear the crappy casio keyboard drum track that we used to keep time when we made the initial "scratch" demos. This track contains another overdub that Tong actually sang that same day.
I love this song because it is pretty damn simple to play but it sounds well planned out with definitely too many layers but that's actually okay because it's so simple underneath it all. My favorite part is the piano, I think it comes out of nowhere at the end but it fits in immediately and makes it things finish well. If you download the album then you will hear it fade in from the track "Home" just before it, the shakers do the tempo change and it feels like a continuation, initially we were going to have all the songs somehow link to each other like that.

lyrics

sound proof the dark
we light up the yard
stills of the street
weaken the walls of our home
they were calling
the criminals and cons

"Artisan Talk"
keeps me so calm
blankets the beast
brings me back home to the streets
they were calling
the criminals and cons

credits

from Curtains, released July 1, 2012
Tong: Acoustic Guitar, Lead Vocals
Brandon: Piano, Synthesizers, Organ, Drums & Percussion
Matt: Bass, Acoustic Guitar
Brendan S: Electric Guitar

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THE ENCAUSTICS Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

This guy named Tong came to my home studio maybe 4 or 5 times in 2005 to record songs for an album. Haven't seen him since. We started with 1st or 2nd take demos, just him on acoustic & vocals into one SM-58, occasional rhythm tracks courtesy of a $50 Casio (listen for it in the mic bleed on some of the vocal tracks) all other instrumentation was added years later, first a hobby later an obsession ... more

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