Creeptones newest single- "Vacant Winds" was written after longtime Creeptones collaborator and friend Nico Lucido sent me lyrics out of the blue when the pressures of today's society were really wearing on me. "Let go the pain that imprisons you...you know you can drift into present mind" a simple phrase that's easier said than done, but to the willing , it's a wake-up. Here, Nico describes the genesis of the idea "I guess you can say that i was just thinking about the situation we were in with life literally changing before our eyes and sent you a few words in a text, then you ran with it because in that moment we were on the same wave. We're getting older so we are growing apart whether we like it or not, like how your skin sags. It's falling away but it's always attached just like us. Sometimes we do things that remind us we are still part of the same body of work." Nico and I have worked together since 2009 but we hadn't written a song in years, and this was a chance to share a positive message during a time where most of us could probably use a pick me up. I went home and finished writing the song the same day he sent the lyrics.

For this song, we used some classic instruments used in classic SNES games such as Earthbound and Sim City. We hope this track helps some people put their lives in perspective for a moment. Things can feel overwhelming, but no matter our instance, it's important to stop and smell the roses sometimes. Wishing you all the best for 2021

- Carmine

Here's some insight about the recording process:

From a recording Standpoint, Vacant Winds is the most satisfying project we have done to date, incorporating a host of new gear, new techniques, and new sound concepts into the process to continue our quest of improving our sound palette with every release. On this recording, I was particularly proud of the drum sounds and the clarity we managed to get in the mix while maintaining the layered sound throughout. I could go on about all the tiny details forever, but i'll try to just touch on the elements that have the most impact here.

First off, after the last album, we decided that if we're going to continue self-producing and engineering going forward, we should invest in getting higher quality gear. For both of our previous albums and various singles, we've always just worked off of what we had, which was no longer cutting it and able to keep up with what we were envisioning. We built a new vocal booth, obtained several new microphones and pres including a RE20, a Neumann TLM49, and a stereo pair of Neumann TLM103s, A Focusrite clarett 4-pre, and a Focusrite ISA one. This, coupled with a large suite of new plugins for Pro Tools, allowed us to step up the fidelity of our recordings and capture sounds the way we envisioned them, rather than just having to be satisfied with the limits of our old gear. The difference is particularly apparent in the vocals and drums; two of our weakest sounds previously in terms of engineering I now believe to be two of our strongest. I strongly believe in self-engineering for independent artists, especially for artists like us that use the studio as a compositional tool, as with the expense of professional studios, your are frequently limited in time, and therefore experimentation/attention to detail, due to financial constraints. Freed from these constraints, self engineering and production can enable the product to be the purest expression of the artist's intentions when the artist has the right tools at their disposal. Rather than the self-engineering being a hindrance, I believe we have now reached this point where it allows us to be more true to our vision; able to spend the time crafting tiny details in the music that would otherwise be impossible in a traditional studio, so the music is a pure expression of what we hear, and how we want other people to hear it.

We were able to spend three full days just playing around with micing techniques on the drums to find patterns that best suited Tommy's playing and best captured his sound. For the first time, his snare drum actually sounds on the recording as punchy and full as it sounds in the room. That's his real snare drum too; there is zero sample replacement in any of the drum sounds. The trick ended up being the careful use of three mics on the snare drum: an e609 on the top, an SM 81 closely micing the shell of the drum, and an SM57 on the bottom. The side mic in particular really captured the attack of the drum, so i used that as the basis for the snare sound and mixed the other two in for taste. Tommy's an excellent drummer who's spent years carefully crafting his sound. To me it would be almost an insult to sample replace his kit, and I'm very happy that i've finally been able to spend the time to capture and mix a sound for him that uniquely and accurately reflects how he sounds.

Vacant winds is in a unique position in our catalog too, as it is the only song we've recorded where the drums were one of the LAST major elements to be recorded. Carmine and I finished writing the song, complete with what ended up being most of the final synth and electronic elements, before even started laying tracks in our DAW for mixing. Then, one instrument at a time, we exported it all raw over to Pro Tools for mixing and production, which is where our sound concept really came to shape. Carmine and I lOVE layers of sound. With my orchestral background, the music inherently gets treated the way a composer treats an orchestra; layers of instruments coming together in different ways to create unique sounds. However, we also love clean production and big sounds. The problem with that in a studio setting is the more sounds you have, and the bigger you try to make those sounds, the harder it is to get mix separation and clarity. The result here is what we believe a good balance between these two concepts. Layers where possible, clarity where necessary, especially under the vocals when they need to be forefront. This comes again to the self production: we were able to get in and focus on carefully shaping the balance between clarity and thick polyphony, something that would be near impossible for artists in our position in a traditional studio setting.

I suppose all of this is to say, we really tried to step it up this time, and we hope it shows. Like i said, i could go on about the details forever. A lot went into this production, and I hope you enjoy it.

-Johnny Vines