Six turns to Five

Empty Flowers finished recording our second album yesterday, March 10, 2013.  These eight new songs will be titled Five, and we once again recorded with Keith Souza and Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets - just outside Providence, RI.  Keith Souza has been recording music made by Randy and Bernie since 1995, when Keith recorded the first Cable 7”.  Between 1995 and 2001, Cable recorded with Keith five times.  As the years went on, Cable recorded at other studios and Keith recorded dozens of other bands in his amazing new studio, Machines With Magnets.

In the last year, Empty Flowers has made a series of decisions that represent a return to the familiar.  The four of us have all made music together in other bands, and we’ve known each other for years.  Since we live all over the East Coast, the survival of this band depends on us being able to work quickly and keep things econo.  For us, econo means working quickly, being prepared for anything, being prepared for everything, and working with people we know and trust.  

When it came time to record our debut album, Six, we chose Machines With Magnets because Keith grew up listening to and recording some of our favorite New England bands, and we knew Keith would immediately understand Empty Flowers’ sound.  As our band progressed past the 2012 release of Six, we knew we would be ready to make Five within a year.  Once again, it was easy to decide that Machines With Magnets was the place to make Five. 

Five was recorded over the course of three days.  On Friday afternoon, we completed our live basic tracks – we just stood in the same room and played the songs.   Most songs were done after 2-3 takes.  On Friday night and Saturday we cleaned up some guitar tracks and completed all the vocals.  On Sunday, Rebecca Mitchell of Whore Paint visited us to contribute vocals to the songs “Time Feeds the Dose,” and “Quit.”  You may remember Rebecca also contributed vocals to Six on the song, "Ice on Wings".  The album was mixed by Sunday evening, and Keith and Seth will be mastering the album in the next two weeks. 

We can’t say enough nice things about Machines With Magnets.  Keith and Seth are total professionals and their studio is the most comfortable environment for us to work in.  In our next blog post, we’ll discuss some of the equipment we used to make Five.

Keith Souza, Randy Larsen, Bernie Romanowski, Christian McKenna, Andre Galiffi, Seth Manchester

Christian and Rebecca Mitchell (Whore Paint)