That’s Striking Distance

Striking Distance is a song Paul Kwiecinski wrote for a solo album project. The story of the song (below) is one of being inspired and improvising. As we move into the new world, the idea of distance has become a way of being. We've embraced that and come up with our brand of distancing.

We've morphed our technology, our program, even our music, to give you our new offering, "Virtual Sanity." 

Longtime Face The Music keyboardist and singer, Akie Bermiss—also poet, sci-fi nerd, band member of Lake Street Dive, and all-around cosmic fellow—unwittingly provided the lyrics to Striking Distance as a Facebook post. It was a sort of free form poem about (perhaps) a less than satisfying band rehearsal.  I read the post while in my studio, and got hit with the idea—seemingly out of nowhere—to do a sort of speaking recitation to music.

I hooked up my recording rig, and sat down to my keyboard.  “Maybe like a Tom Waits piano kinda thang.”  I didn’t have any preconceived ideas about chords or structure in mind.  I pressed the record button, and started playing to see what came out. “I’ll start on e flat.”  A little impromptu riff, then some chords; then back to the riff.

I gave it a listen.  “Ok.  Let’s see these ‘lyrics’.”  With no real notion of where I was going with it, I hit the button again and improvised the talking recitation bit.  Listening to the stream of the music, and going with the flow.  I figured I had a good starting point, and I could go back and revise, edit, and maybe turn it into something. 

I listened and thought, “Wow, this sort-of works.”  The music changes seemed to go with the changes in direction of the narrative—all unplanned.  I liked the piano part, and the gravelly weary voice that finds a bit of light, hope, and optimism toward the end.  I couldn’t think what edits I would make. 

I later tried redoing the vocal part, but none of them sounded as good to me as the 1st one.  I added an upright bass and a drum, and the final track still has the first performance of the piano and vocal.  It was like it all came in one package from wherever that stuff comes from.   The track ended up being the title track to my album… 

Dare to listen here.

—Paul Kwiecinski

Akie's original post:

what a painful, suffering slog this music grind. nothing is perfect, nothing seems good, even. all is questioning and wondering and left wanting. but, one gets used to it and works all the more earnestly in the face of that auto-derision. this may not have been inspired genius-level work, but it was productive. and it has quality.

and that's striking distance.