I keep toying with some of the track names on my upcoming instrumental rock album Zoetic. Some names just seem right from the get go and others never quite seem right, changing a lot in the process as I listen and work on them. All-instrumental albums are like that: fluid until the time I call it “done”.

On the whole, it’s changed significantly since last time. A few songs got name changes and a few even got lopped right off. They didn’t actually get removed, but instead repurposed, something I do quite a lot. Other projects come up that need inspiration, or a song doesn’t work within the overall context of the album, so it gets stripped off as a single. When you write music so haphazardly, these kinds of things will happen.

A nice solid ten tunes for one album always feels nice, even if one of them is kind of a cutesy “throwaway”. I still enjoy listening to the rough drafts, even after repeated listenings, which means that Zoetic is pretty solid. Jamming a couple of them with friends worked out well, so I think I got something good here. There’s always parts here and there that I need to improve, which I will…eventually. Mixing and mastering is a pain for me, too. I hope to get it polished off to a tasteful shimmer before mid-March.