Sounds: Empty Archipeg, Human Tree EP, Mist Giant

I  don't actually recall how "Empty Archipeg" began. It's one of our "Hits", the first batch of our songs. I know at least some of the structure came from a sample Dan brought in, at which point I was playing the cello. Back then, Fall of 2009, this song was a lot brighter, easier, lighter. We started it together and then midway through Mike G. got a chance to work for a month on Greenpeace's Esperanza (Mike schooled us when we called it a boat: it's a ship which is defined as that which can fit a boat. Confusion over). By the time he got back all the songs we had been working on had undergone pretty drastic changes: I was on keys now and the lyrics and overall tone of the song got very dark. I remember Mike standing there listening to what we'd come up with and then pausing for a moment once we finished. Then he said: "These songs have gotten a bit dark". It can be a tough challenge to inject oneself back into a song after it's changed a lot, but he did it and as you can hear, he nailed it. My favorite part is the interplay between the lead organ line and the guitar. That's the song's hook to me.

(We tend to try and hold back on hooks and payoff/super-dominant lines, trying to maximize their effect by  NOT playing them over much. The organ/guitar interplay is only in the middle and at the end, pulling out completely for the "rebuild". Mike is good at pointing out when/where we should do this [I'm always horrible and want to play the best parts over and over again], which we do on the soon to be released "D-Loop" on Glass Walls, the unreleased "The Late Keanu Reeves", and others.)

Sounds: What With, Human Tree EP, Mist Giant

It has been a year since we, Mist Giant, released the Human Tree EP, and I thought I'd do a little retrospective essay writing on the songs, the EP, the band, and our process, starting with each song and then going from there. These entries are written solely from my point of view and only represent my take on how the band works and how the songs were written. I'm sure each of us has our point of view and I hope that Dan and Mike G. will add to the discussion in the comments below.

Lots of people start bands and songs with a particular idea in mind. "I want to be in a hardcore band"; "I want to start a industrial band"; "I've always wanted to be in a shoe-gazer project". I'm no different. I bring to the table a lot of post-rock sensibilities and years being in instrumental projects. But, the coolest thing about Mist Giant, for me, is that our sound is made up of the compromises between what each of us brings to the table. There's metal, pop, post-rock, modern, minimalist, experimental, electronic, even hip-hop in there, but the project never suffers from a lack of focus, because our focus has always been crafting each song on its own. And our sound comes from these musical intersections. For me, and this project, music and creativity becomes and act of discovery. We never, as a group, sat down and said: "We want Mist Giant to be ____". We've had plenty of discussions of what we want to do, instrumentation, textures, philosophies of music and craft, but the sounds that come out of this process have always been the unpredictable resultant patterns of compromise and appreciation of the group dynamic. What the hell does that mean? Specifically, it means that often times one of us will bring in a song idea and it will morph and morph and morph into something so different and so far from where it started as to be a total bastardization of the original motif. In a sense, Mist Giant has, more or less, rejected the idea of ego-centric songwriting. Everything we write, we write as a group. Sometimes this can be frustrating: the original kernel of idea that you wanted, that magnum opus you've been working on, that song you've cherished and the idea of how it could turn out, get completely bashed against the wall. One probably shouldn't bring to practice a song/baby they are not willing to compromise with, because that song will get trashed or discarded. That being said, once we've learned to let go of our ideas, relax our egos, and let the band dynamic take over, we are, as a group, pretty pleased with results that tend to be greater than the sum of their parts, and the songs take on lives of their own.

Such was the case with "what with"