Album #2 by American Zen

by Richard Connor

As I'm writing this, we're not done with it.

But I'll tell you what it is and where it's going.

It's an album that Coyote almost finished in Utah.

Using the same 4-track recorder as we did on the first album, LEVEL 1 = Peace Of Mind, Coyote and I cut all these songs in Utah.

When he returned we released the first album and decided to build up the second album within our new ProTools studio here at Shaolin Records.

We only scrapped a couple of the songs, and converted them all from analog to digital. We did start from scratch on one song, "Peace Of Mind #1." Oddest thing. We lost the master recording. No, I'm not blaming Don.

This may have been a good thing since Coyote had wanted it removed from the first album anyway. So we went back to the cassette recording that Coyote made in his van and tried to recapture the sadness, despair, yet with a little hope built inside of it.

Tonight may be the night Coyote cuts this vocal, so I've got a real challenge. How do I make him feel his original pain, while making a vocal that the world, and Coyote, will enjoy hearing.

"God Will Protect" is a song I'm proud of. We flipped the tape backwards and upside down to record the guitar solo. It sounds great!

The instrumental numbers really show their spiritual progress as musicians.

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