Less than a week to go in the RPM Challenge, and Nick and I have 11 tracks in progress. I still have a ton of mixing ahead of me, but I thought I’d share some of our demo songs (titles pending):

The Day Breaks Fast…

[audio:https://www.charliemccarron.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/cagetones-the-day-breaks-fast-demo.mp3]

Nick came up with this gospel tune based on the first thing we recorded during our initial jam session. The final mix will still be sparse and simple, but I’m going to add some gospel-y “oohs.”

Just One More

[audio:https://www.charliemccarron.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/cagetones-just-one-more-demo.mp3]

My normal singing voice was sounding kind of lame on this song, so I tried a strange technique I was working on a few years ago but never put into practice until now. It’s called glottalization or vocal fry (had to look that up!). It makes my voice sound like I’m singing an octave lower than normal. It took me about four hours and nearly 100 takes. It’s a strange effect to hear by itself, but I’m pretty happy with it in the mix. Then I listen to this Tuvan throat singer and remember how much of an overtone-singing noob I am!

Acoustic Guitar/Electric Organ Piece

[audio:https://www.charliemccarron.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/cagetones-guitar-electric-organ-demo.mp3]

Nick recorded a drone with an electric chord organ, then improvised a wandering guitar and vocal part over that. The only thing we may add are some wind chimes.

Check back in a week, and we’ll have a full album for you! By the way, we’ve decided to revive the band name from our experimental trio. Nick and I are now officially Cagetones.