We went back to the studio almost immediately after we arrived at the HQ. With our record producer and engineer arriving soon, I wanted to make sure I had covered as much of our creative material as possible, to see if there wasn’t a fragment of a song that would strike me inside. Therefore, such a process could be lengthy and tiring for everyone involved. I’m not someone who likes to skip a track, no matter if it fits or not, if it’s “it” or not, or if it makes sense or not. I like to let those sounds float in my subconscious, as we never know what might emerge from any of those “nah, I don’t think so” kinds of songs. I’ve been “wrong” too many times in the past to trust myself about what I think I may be looking for. So until the album is done, it’s a fluid entity that has to remain free from any of my “good ideas”…

In the middle of the listening sessions, I could feel just how low my energy level had become, and when this happens, I know I have a hard time keeping my attention from drifting somewhere else. I have to stand up, sit down, stand up again, drink water, drink coffee, remind myself to cut back on the coffee, make a few steps in the studio… There’s a significant measure of love and respect for the person who not only exposed themselves writing a song but who has the courage to have it played for everyone else, without the context by which it was inspired and bloomed. It’s a very humbling process, so it’s important for me to act accordingly, especially knowing how mad I was when I would see Sef or Moose sleeping on the couch in the back while working on Your Favorite Enemies’ album “Between Illness and Migration” several years ago. It’s enough disrespect to start an argument – if not a fight – in the middle of the studio after seeing them wake up all confused as Jeff, Ben, Miss Isabel, and I are standing right in front of them, loudly hitting a snare drum beside their zoned-out heads. No one has wanted to be in that position ever after. I will spare you the dialogue following the wake-up bang… When you’re tired, take an instant to regroup. When you’re exhausted, go to bed. And I could feel I was slowly getting there… Until Ben started playing a playlist of songs he had written, on which he used world instruments we had bought at that moment to expand our creative minds. Everyone was suddenly wide awake!

The first song was Arabic-inspired. But like, very Arabic, with its traditional instrumentation and all. The second one was with flutes and had an Irish vibe to it… very Irish. The third one was very epic, in the likes of The Lord of the Rings soundtrack. We could almost hear horses running over a battlefield. The 4th one was built around Asian rhythmic drums, loops of Chinese pipa, yueqin guitar, and zither. Nobody was particularly reactive to those songs. It was pretty quiet. Suddenly, Ben loudly said: “Man, I was clearly on a creative world tour on those! It’s so bad, I can’t believe I did that!” Everyone laughed, and Ben, wanting to turn towards Moose and Jeff who were sitting behind us on the couches, dropped the entirety of his large coffee mug all over the studio desk. There was coffee everywhere; on the keyboard, on our notebooks, on the wires, all over my iPad, on my chair, on the floor, all over his jeans and shirt… It felt like a 10-gallon coffee mug had been dropped all over the control room. We tried to limit the mess; Jeff ran to get towels, Miss Isabel went to get cleaning products, and Moose ran to the kitchen while Ben and I were putting tissues over the liquid to absorb as much as possible. About 5 minutes after the chaos had been cleaned out, we saw Moose come back, super chill, without a towel or anything.