I just finished “Tales of Dark and Light” for the new Caravan of Dreams ensemble and I was reflecting on the songs I have written to date. The first album for “The Small Change Diaries” was “Adam Blames Eve” which had 13 original songs.
This seems a lifetime ago and I look back and often think how I could have improved some of the material, but that’s part of the process of musical evolution!
The second release for the band as the Protest Songs EP with 4 songs. I like the idea of themed EPs and this included “Not one of us” and “Draw you out” which I further developed for the second album “Lullabies for Cynics” which also included a revamped version of Birdman with Laurent Zeller on violin. We shot a video for this which I think is terrific
“Lullabies for Cynics” is much more diverse than the previous material and I think the writing is a lot stronger. I started including guest musicians and both Phil Doleman and Laurent add some terrific dynamics to the material.
After two albums and an EP with The Small Change Diaries, I started writing for a new ensemble “Nick Cody and The Caravan of Dreams’ The 14 tracks on the debut album “Tales of Dark and Light” are again all originals. There are a lot more musicians on these tracks and the music is a lot more diverse. I wrote most of the tracks on either ukes or the Gregor guitarelle and then we worked up the vocals on piano in my weekly sessions with Agi. This has proved to be an excellent writing process and I think its some of the best material to date. I’m taking a lot more time with these songs and after signing off the final mixes we are now working on the live set. The songs are a lot darker that anything I have written before and there’s a lot more detail in the song structures. Writing original songs is a fascinating process and the Caravan material is a new departure. Here is a preview of some of the songs that will be released next year.
Here is one example
https://soundcloud.com/the-small-change-diaries/when-the-pain-begins