I've decided to publish articles on my website. I am wondering why, what for, and whether there needs to be a reason. Then I think maybe it would be better to just get started and let it all flow. Like stream of consciousness connecting with the one true source of all life. The sauce of the universe. Tasty. 

Upon a few deep moments of internal reflection, I think the intention is to somehow document my album recording process and to make myself accountable for making progress with it. Kind of like keeping an online journal, except I probably won't go into the ins and outs of my personal life. You never know, I might get bored and go off on a tangential philosophical ramble, or create a meditation audio track or do a book review or some other random thing – like my favourite food recipe. Or maybe this is just a recipe for disaster, but I'll never know if I don't have a go. I'm writing it with the intention to express, not to impress... 

In this first article, I wish to share with you my progress with the album recording. Over the past few weeks I've been sitting down in my music studio and recording scratch tracks of all the songs I am considering for the album. I want to get the songs in order before I sit down to record the album in full. It feels a bit like I'm curating an art exhibition, where the songs are the art pieces and the exhibition is the album.  

Anyway, a scratch track is basically where I sit down with my guitar in front of a microphone and sing and play the whole song once through while recording it, just to get an idea of what I've got to work with. So far I've recorded a selection of 19 songs, that make up almost one hour and fifteen minutes. Ideally I want to whittle this down to about 12 songs.  

This morning I transferred the songs onto my phone and went for a huge walk around the neighbourhood where I live, and listened back to them all. I'm trying to follow my gut with it and have already found that a few of the songs just arn't as great as I had hoped them to be.  

One of the songs that I'm talking about I spent so many days writing and crafting and working on. I remember I started writing it on a farm in the middle of the outback here in Western Australia where I was staying for one week around this time last year. I worked so frickin hard on it over the months but listening back, it just doesn't sound as good as I had hoped it would. Quite frustrating!  

Then I compare this to another song that I literally wrote while on the ocean one day last summer. I absolutely love this song. It is so carefree and effortless, and it just feels good to listen to. My gut tells me so.  

So, anyway, I feel like wrapping this first article up by reminding myself to trust my instincts more. Follow your heart, feel it in your gut, slathered in Universal Sauce.