The Making Of "The Soft Ache And The Moon".

by Richard Edwards

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1.	Mama Lost Her Mind - Demo 01:20	buy track
2.	January - Demo 03:28	buy track
3.	Monkey - Demo 04:57	buy track
4.	The Things We Will Do To Each Other Someday - Demo 04:31	buy track
5.	Pink Lightning -Demo 04:17	buy track
6.	Better World a' Comin' - Demo 02:10	buy track
7.	Cruel And Uncomplicated - Demo 04:43	buy track
8.	Inchyra Blue - Demo 03:32	buy track
9.	Happy Christmas (The Whole World Has Changed) - Demo 04:50	buy track
10.	Sit n' Squirm - Demo 03:12	buy track
11.	Velvet Ocean, Super Moon - Demo 04:17	buy track
12.	Testing Coil Pre-Amp 00:32	buy track
13.	Monkey Harmony Idea 01:23	buy track
14.	Inchyra Blue - Piano Demo 04:31	buy track
15.	Cruel And Uncomplicated - String Demo 05:26	buy track
16.	Happy Christmas (The Whole World Has Changed) - Piano Demo 04:51	buy track
17.	January - Piano Demo 04:39	buy track
18.	Pink Lightning - Piano Demo 04:18	buy track
19.	Sandra's Stuff - Piano Demo 03:57	buy track
20.	The Things We Will Do To Each Other Someday - Piano Demo 04:54	buy track
21.	Better World a' Comin' - Piano Demo 05:21	buy track
22.	Cruel And Uncomplicated - Early Instrumental Demo 05:24	buy track
23.	Inchyra Blue - Melotron Voices 03:47	buy track
24.	January - String Pre-Production 04:40	buy track
25.	Monkey - Free Take 05:05	buy track
26.	The Beach - Free Take 05:07	buy track
27.	The Things We Will Do To Each Other Someday - Piano Take 3 04:31	buy track
28.	Monkey - Full Band Instrumental 04:57	buy track
29.	Sandra's Stuff - Free Take 03:47	buy track
30.	Velvet Ocean, Super Moon - Upright 04:20	buy track
31.	Happy Christmas (The Whole World Has Changed) - Vocal Comp 05:46	buy track
32.	Monkey Vibes 01:18	buy track
33.	Sandra's Stuff - Drum And Bass Tracking 03:53	buy track
34.	Angel Voices 01:27	buy track
35.	Cruel And Uncomplicated - Mike Workin' Out Guitar Part 00:54	buy track
36.	Cruel And Uncomplicated - Free Take 05:34	buy track
37.	Better World a' Comin' - Keys Demo 05:27	buy track

about

I think The Soft Ache And The Moon is my high water mark though Ghost Electricity and the Director’s Cut of Sling Shot To Heaven have, on occasion, made me waver. The writing began in Los Angeles as I wrapped up promotional activities for Lemon Cotton Candy Sunset. Los Angeles was my sanctuary from illness, divorce, all the not so fun stuff that defined that album and would turn out to define TSAATM even more profoundly. I wasn’t sure I was ready to end my lost weekend but figured it was time. I bought a house in dire need of love and set about renovating it for my daughter and me. That’s when the writing really got going. The writing process and that of the renovation seemed to mirror one another. The writing was slow, not because of any kind of writers block but because it had become apparent that these songs were going to be structurally inventive, unusual, and long. I decided not to make demos, as I usually would when a song more or less had a form, choosing instead to record the little bits as they came to me and day by day add another brick to one of the songs. That method yielded something I’ve rarely done before or since. Songs that are almost little films, my brain allowing itself to bob and weave as it saw fit. The vocal range could be virtually unlimited on account of a singing technique I seemed to be gifted after my brush with death. The songs could fly. In being patient and writing it slowly over the course of a long year they became something I couldn’t do consciously. As close to uninterrupted thought as I’ve ever been able to write. I thought it might be fun to make it in Nashville. Then I got sick again and 35 lbs fell off me in a matter of days. In a panic that this could be the big one and I might be toast I used a royalty check to buy a Hesierman Tube 47, a Mohog compressor and a Coil Audio pre-amp. This record was going to have to be made remotely, my health made traveling to anywhere but the Cleveland Clinic out of the question, but I hadn’t recorded myself in any serious way since college. A lot of time was spent on gearsluts and on the phone with patient friends but I figured it out. I cold called Dave Palmer, whose work I had become a fan of, and enlisted him on piano and keys. I made acoustic demos (LP1 of this set) and using those we set out to make piano demos which we could then bring Johnny Flaugher and Pete Thomas who would play the basic tracks together, giving us a live band we could then overdub to. I had Dave do weird shit on this record, play “free takes” over a few songs with rambling, genius, piano playing I could cut up and use in little spots here and there to make it more cinematic. Mike got guitar going as I struggled to sing the vocals through the pain, often having to take breaks between verses. It was very difficult. I was about 110 lbs and struggling. But the record making was thrilling. We needed the Section Quartet on just about everything this time around. As always, I asked them to make it sound like fog on the beach and as always they did. The record is so full of pain, processing the end of my marriage, my misadventures trying to heal, or most likely just avoid certain feelings that had driven me veery close to a place of no return during LCCSS. But it sounds so heavenly, oceanic, beautiful. They are songs of such deep loneliness, long, beautiful but strangely sad nights learning to be a single dad to a daughter who took such good care of me, was such an incredible teammate, that I could never repay her. But I tried on the album’s final song which would be the first time I ever addressed a very ham-fisted suicide attempt in late 2016. The album is informed by that, knowing what it feels like to come close to the black screen. It’s only pulled back by love. When I hear it it’s the love I feel most acutely. So much recording was done and putting this together was our way of sort of honoring a record that I knew in the moment I might never be able to top. To my taste, anyway. It’s still true and the realization makes me proud and sad to varying degrees depending on what else is going on in my life on a given day. The kind of people who loved it upon its release loved it fiercely. Perhaps no one gave voice to that appreciation more articulately than Mr. Hampton, and we’re grateful he allowed us to use the essay he wrote about it in this set.

Happy Christmas, and thank the lord, that we are only brushed by this storm.

It’s my favorite record. Listen loud.

credits

released March 29, 2024

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about

Richard Edwards Los Angeles, California

Richard Edwards (Margot & the Nuclear So and So's) has been making music in public since 2003.

richardcharlesedwards.com

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