Sensitive Chaos is getting close to completion. Plenty of material has been recorded and Jim is assembling the final mixes and deciding what tunes will make it onto the CD. The focus of the album has shifted back to its original vision, that being an outlet for Jim’s instrumental soundscapes. “I worked for 6 months to include a vocalist in the project,” said Jim. “It has proven difficult to do, though I’m still talking with a few folks. I’ve got a good set of song-based material that I’ll hold aside until I can find a collaborator, but rather than wait until then, I decided to move ahead with instrumental material that can stand on its own.”
As mentioned last month, Jim collaborated with Philadelphia print and design artist extrordinaire Eleanor Grosch on a Sensitive Chaos logo. Eleanor has previously worked for such musical luminaries as Wilco, Death Cab For Cutie, Edwin McCain, and the Dave Matthews Band, and the shoe company Keds just released an Eleanor designed pair of sneakers.
The CD has been titled “Leak”, inspired by Eleanor Grosch’s logo art. “That bit came in at the end of design, after Eleanor and I had talked about the meaning of sensitive chaos being water. All the chaotic elements were there in her original designs, but when she came back with the dripping bit, I just laughed out loud. It was so poetic, but unexpected. This is a very different logo than I had conceived in my head. However, my goal was to let Eleanor take a simple set of attributes I had in mind, and express them in her special way. The more time I spend with her design, especially as I create all the CD cover artwork, the more I love what she’s created for me. It’s perfect.”
“Also at my Aurora gig in May, I created a new song that fits the Leak theme, so I’ve ended up using that song as the title song for the CD. So a few final touches and sweetening (I’ve enlisted saxophone and EWI player Brian Good to add some sonic flourishes to two songs), and this will be ready to go to the pressing plant.”