The band got together again in these past few days, the first time we’ve done so under our current line-up. And to prove we’re not lying rotters, we have a nice shiny band pic for you. TO HAVE.

In very related news, the recording of our new album and the re-recording of Big Cardboard Robot are well under way. Expect new/rehashed material… sometime. We’re not fixing any dates. We don’t like dates. Take that how you will.

Hey guys. Hey guys guys guys.

So we haven’t posted any updates or anything in, like, a while, so I thought I’d better do that. The album is almost finished; we’ve finished several other songs besides the ones available on the PureVolume page, and we’ve got all the music finished for several others (I just need to record the vocals sometime when nobody else is in the house). As well, it’s looking like we won’t be able to release the whole album through PureVolume, since the maximum file size for the site is 8 MB and it’s looking like one or two of the songs are going to be bigger than that (yeah, they’re REALLY long). But never fear, Mar Smauel will come up with some clever computery thing that lets you download the whole thing directly from the band’s main site.

It’s probably also worth noting that Nevik’s done more work on the songs lately; I remixed “Abacus” so there’s his acoustic guitar in the bridge (very symbolic) and he wrote most of the music for another song which we did without Smauel knowing, heh heh heh. Anyhow, the album should be released sometime this month, mostly likely towards the end of it. The whole thing will be available for free download from the main site as I mentioned, and then the physical CD (with album art and lyrics ‘n sturff) will probably cost around $5 or $10, just to cover the cost of production.

–Zimmy

Yesterday was a historic day for the band. It was the first time, since the band’s formation, that every member of Zed Narley were in the same room together, recording and jamming. Well, OK, maybe “jamming” is the wrong word; more like “playing or attempting to play songs by other artists such as Black Sabbath and Van Halen”. 😛 Cthulhu was back in town for that one day, so obviously we took the chance to get him down to the studio to record a couple of songs. We also took some group pics which will probably go in the liner notes for BCR, and our alleged groupie (we just have the one, plus a bunch of antigroupies) drew some fan art, which may also go in the afore-mentioned liner notes.

So basically at this point the album’s over half done. All the lyrics are written, and just over half the songs are very near completion. And the next — and last — single from this album will be released soon. Just as soon as I get the vocals down.

In the meantime, Happy Canada Day!

–Zimmy

So, finally that single’s done, and I don’t have to mix it ever again. I mixed it ten times in total, including the first one with the original vocals, which we will never let anyone besides us ever listen to, except maybe when we’re all big famous rock stars, or at least gods of the indie underground. ‘Course, that isn’t a lot of times to mix a song (U2 mixed “Hawkmoon 269” 269 times, hence the name), but it sure feels like a lot.

Anyhow, I was just thinkin’ maybe there should be some kind of explanation about how the band came to be, for posterity and all. Our loyal fans mostly know already, but what the heck. It all started around last January, when our friend Cthulhu, who lives a Long Way Away, came to visit over the Christmas holidays, and he, Smauel, and I got together and did nothing for a while. We were bored, so we decided to jam around — Smauel on bass, me on keyboard, and Cthul first on guitar and then singing.

What we came up with was pretty funny; in retrospect it sounded like a cross between The Doors and Maktone. But it was just so weird that we could improvise like that and make something that didn’t sound half-bad, that a few days later me ‘n Smauel told each other we should make a band. So we did, and originally it was going to have a bazillion people in it, but we whittled it down to Smauel, Nevik, and I. Also, originally I had in mind something like U2, and Smauel was thinking more along the lines of DragonForce (who knows what Nevik wanted), so it seems in the end we kinda combined the two and ended up with a prog rock band, since that’s apparently what we do best.

There. That’s it. And after four or five months, a bunch of disparate elements have finally come together into a pseudo-cohesive song. Heh, we may never get any further than this, but then again, lots of bands formed on a whim never even come this far. The memory… shall live on. (Don’t ask what it means.)

–Zimmy