ED HALE AND CREW RECORDING TWO NEW ALBUMS CONFIRMED

A lot can change during the recording of one album. Make that two. Transcendencesinger/guitarist Ed Hale, along with fellow bandmates Roger Houdaille, Bill Sommer, and Ricardo Mazzi,  has been in the recording studio in New York City for the last three months purportedly working on his next solo album, which was tentatively titled Born to Lose. The album was supposed to be a follow up to last year’s Ballad On Third Avenue, one of the most successful of the singer’s career; (its third single “New Orleans Dreams” is currently climbing up the Adult Contemporary charts in the  United States and receiving airplay in twenty-one other countries).
But that was before the band started attempting to choose and arrange the songs that would go on the new album. Hale presented Houdaille (bass) and Sommer (drums) with some forty-plus songs that he felt would be “good for the album.” “Ed kept telling us that we were recording an even softer more acoustic Ballad On Third Avenue, something more like Rubber Soul. But he kept bringing in these songs that were all entirely different from each other,” laughs Sommer. “We kept asking him ‘when are we going to start recording the soft acoustic album?’ Only a few fit that style.”
Instead what they ended up with was eighteen songs with two very distinct styles being represented. “I’d say about eighty percent of the songs sound like really good upbeat light pop songs, perfect for this new “Adult Contemporary” kick he’s on,” states Houdaille, who is also producing the album. “Then there are a handful which really do hit the mark and sound like the softer acoustic style he originally intended to record. We’ve been calling it ‘Sunday morning’ music. He’s been doing a lot of listening to groups like Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver and Iron and Wine  I guess. But the bulk of what got recorded was not that. It was more pop if anything. And that’s actually a good thing because that is where he’s doing best right now, in terms of radio airplay.” After two months and fleshing out more than  forty songs the band finally agreed what they had was two half-finished albums, rather than one finished album with extra songs to choose from.
So what to do? According to Hale the answer is simple. Original drummer Ricardo Mazzi “will fly up and we’ll cut another ten or so songs, five or so for each new album and end up finishing two completely different albums. One will be the original soft acoustic slowmo album that we started out trying to make.” One assumes Hale is referring to the Triple A style that Ballad On Third Avenue attempted to be. “And this other album, the one we’re closer to finishing now, will be a totally new direction for us. More like a lite acoustic pop album.”
So what about the Born to Lose album? “Well I still think we’ve got it in us. The songs are there…” Hale comments. “The songs are not there,” quips Sommer. “Ed wants the songs to be there, but his songwriting is his songwriting, and it is still skirting along that “Brit-pop” style more than anything remotely folky or Sunday morning sounding…”
“That’s not a bad thing,” Houdaille chimes in. “This new album, even though it isn’t what we set out to make, is really good. All the songs are cohesive for once. It just took us a while to get here. But they’re all tight, catchy, pop songs that fall under the four minute mark. That’s a big achievement already for Ed, cutting his songs down under four minutes. I think it has the chance to be his most commercial album.” “Exactly! And that’s what worries me,” Hale exclaims. “we’ve worked so hard to not fit into any mold that could possibly be called “commercial”… but now that I’m listening back to the songs…. I mean, you just can’t help but hear it. It does sound very modern.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll find a way to sabotage that by the time the recording is finished,” Sommer jokes, referring to Hale’s tendency towards over doing the sonic experimentation. “Not if I can help it,” Houdaille comments. “Ed is closer now to breaking big than he’s ever been. I don’t think it will kill him to have one commercially successful album in his catalog,” he laughs. “You can still record your avant garde noise album after this if you want to,” Houdaille says to Hale, referring to the oft-rumored “M3II” album of experimental guitar noise that Hale has been talking about releasing for the last ten years. “Yeah yeah… right… just as long as we don’t get trapped into performing concerts of all like ‘welcome to the best of the light pop commercial music we all love to hate’ type stuff,” remarks Hale.
Any idea what this new new album might be titled yet? The band dropped a series of phrases out ranging from “The Stranger” (from the song of the same name) to “Memoirs of the Prince of New York” (again another song title). All in all, an artist could be facing much worse problems. The good news is that fans can look forward to at least four new albums of new material from Ed Hale and his Transcendence crew over the next six months when the two unreleased Transcendence albums, All Your Heroes Become Villains (November 15th release) and The Great Mistake (no release date set) are included. The bad news? What bad news?

New Ed Hale Album ALL YOUR HEROES BECOME VILLAINS Released

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With each and every Ed Hale and the Transcendence album, one is never quite sure what to expect. During the nine years since their genre-defying breakout debut Rise and Shine, Ed Hale and the Transcendence have been musical shape-shifters, willing to assume whatever form and go in whatever direction their music demands. On their latest release, their fourth album, entitled All Your Heroes Become Villains, they harness the best of their previous efforts and multiply it by a gazillion. It was the result of a long, grueling recording process, appropriate for an album as equally accessible as it is complex and eclectic. Haunting melodies, rock-God guitar riffs, rhythmic adventurousness, bold sonic experimentation, inspired songwriting and Ed Hale’s impassioned vocals create a highly memorable experience for the listener that could easily be called a concept album. Each song seems integral to the work as a whole. All Your Heroes Become Villains comes off like an instant classic – stylistically and lyrically unified and thematic and by far their most ambitious work to date. This masterpiece is dark and heavy, and yet every bit the catchy ear candy that fans of the band have come to expect. Hale sings of hope, victory, loss, suffering and blind idealism on a personal and global level in his signature tortured baritone while the band weaves together their trademark post-modern rock meets Brit pop creating an aural soundscape that is truly unforgettable. Features the hit singles “Blind Eye,” “Waiting for Godot,” and “Solaris.”

ORDER:

STREAM ALL YOUR HEROES BECOME VILLAINS BY ED HALE & THE TRANSCENDENCE:

CREDITS:

Transcendence is: Ed Hale: lead vocals, guitars, piano, keyboards, percussion Roger Houdaille: bass guitar, background vocals Fernando Perdomo: guitars, electric sitar, mellotron, percussion, background vocals Allan Gabay: piano and keyboards Ricardo Mazzi: drums, percussion Karen Feldner: background vocals Additional Musicians Kamran Aghaiepour: keyboards and remixing Zach Ziskin: additional lead and rhythm guitar Leor Manellis: additional drums Matthew Sabatella: background harmony vocals Dee Dee Wilde: lead vocals on All Your Heroes Become Villains — Main Theme Emiliano Torres: trumpet Alex Zapata: trombone Produced by: Ed Hale and Fred Freeman Co-production and remixing by: Kamran Aghaiepour Songs Arranged by: Transcendence Lead Engineer: Joe Syring Assistant Engineer: Rudi Meeuwen Recorded at Criteria Hit Factory Studios, Miami, FL and Dungeon Recording Studios, Miami, FL Mixed by: Fred Freeman and Ed Hale Mastered by: Zach Ziskin All Your Heroes Become Villains album cover painting by: Gina Rowland CD packaging artwork by: Gina Rowland and Susie Aminian CD packaging layout by: Susie Aminian and Roger Houdaille Photography by: Jill Kahn and Ron Roman Photo editing and touch-up by: Flavia Molinari A&R by: Dying Van Gogh Records All selections published by Transcendent Music Publishing (ASCAP), Baby Joon Music (BMI), Think Like A Key (SESAC). © 2011 Dying Van Gogh Records, a division of Transcendent Media Group Inc.

The Great Mistake by Transcendence

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NEW! Thanks to those renegade mavericks at PureVolume.com fans can preview songs from the new Transcendence album “The Great Mistake” exclusively on purevolumeâ„¢
TRANSCENDENCE finally resurfaces from the recording studio with TWO NEW ALBUMS!!!
The band had been holed up without a break for the last five months in the recording studio finishing their newest CD, “All Your Heroes Become Villains”, an intense labor of love that took nearly two years to complete.
Not only did they finish that one, but they tracked and finished another tasty full-length as well, which is being called “The Great Mistake.” When producer Fred Freeman (Dashboard Confessional, New Found Glory) who was recording the group and mixing the “All Your Heroes” CD in Studio B would leave for the night, the group would grab an assistant engineer and head into Studio A where they tracked 13 more songs into the early morning hours.
While the “All Your Heroes” CD is on the deep dark heavy moody and conceptual side, “The Great Mistake” CD is more of a sweet and catchy sweaty garage-rock and power-pop morsel that harkens back to the sound of their last CD Nothing is Cohesive. The band has never sounded more lively rocking and tasty. For a moment it seems they put their eclectic expermental agenda aside, picked up their instruments, and just rocked the house, recording most of the songs live as a five-piece band.
In fact, what you hear exclusively on purevolume.com are “all faders up, live in the studio” versions of the songs that have not been mixed yet. Zach Ziskin of Hilary McRae fame is currently mixing the songs for a spring ‘08 release date.
SO WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM THE NEW ALBUM?
While “All Your Heroes…” may be a deep dark beautifully emotional head-trip, “The Great Mistake” CD would be the soundtrack to a ‘put the top down and drive fast’ road trip.
It is a collection of 12 songs the band recorded live in the studio with a stripped down drums, bass, two guitars, electric piano and vocals format. No DJ, no producer, no orchestration, and no additional outside musicians to the band’s basic five-piece line-up.
Simply put, “The Great Mistake” is a rocking good time with some of the catchiest songs the band has ever recorded — all falling under the three-minute mark — in sharp contrast to the “All Your Heroes…” CD, the longest song clocking in over seven minutes.
Tracklist for “THE GREAT MISTAKE”
01.Manchildwoman
02.Monday
03.Baby Bop
04.Nobody’s Listening To You
05.Mongo Kitty
06.Carol’s Catastrophe
07.I remember you
08.Jet Lag
09.The Divine Miss M
10.Who Ya Gonna Fuk
11.Hot Down
12.Quand Tu Mmm (Lust In Central Park)