hello

Hello. Apologies for the long delay here. I'm sure you appreciated, though, the delicious tension of the cliff-hanger ending we left you with last time. It turns out that we finished the record, which is from now on called Two Thousand. I just listened to it all the way through for the first time since we finished it and had a great old time. I think you will too. Some songs are from around the time of the last record, some were worked out gradually between then and now and a few happened pretty recently. We have many more songs but these are the ones we chose to go together for this record. All of them represent certain times well and there are a lot of different vibes and different sounds and different stories. There are things you'll hear on this one that you won't find on any other french kicks record, some things you won't find on any other record period, and also some familiar french kicks family sounds. We think it's a real good listen.
We look forward to involving you all in the thing. Please come see us play if you're on the east coast in april to hear some new songs live. There will probably be more shows in the later spring as we ramp things up for real touring in the summer when the record comes out. Which we're told will be in july. Please stay tuned for updates and new shows. If we can get it together to keep updating it, which is unlikely, this 'studio log' will gracefully transform into a more general 'log' about whatever we're doing, presented in a way that you will find simply charming. We hope you'll continue to stop by. Thanks for reading, see below for track listing for the new record. Talk to you soon. -fkx

"Two Thousand":

SO FAR WE ARE
ALSO RAN
CLOCHE
KNEE HIGH
KEEP IT AMAZED
NO MEAN TIME
BASEMENT: D.C.
ENGLAND JUST WILL NOT LET YOU RECOVER
HEY I WAIT I
GO ON

Day four. Drums done on six songs. Bass underway on one of them. By current estimate we should be about two thirds of the way there by the time the money runs out. They will be the best two thirds of a record you’ve ever heard. In fact if we were to somehow be granted a reprieve and get to actually finish it, there would surely be a whole camp who preferred the two thirds version as ‘more raw; more pure’. But that’s missing these days, don’t you think, that sort of fun-loving factionalism. Everyone’s the same now, we need to draw some new boundaries and start getting people back into categories for some old fashioned competition. It’s a muscle. You have to use it or you go soft. So we are offering you a chance here to get back in shape by defending to the less imaginitive fans and label representatives the merit of our two-thirds-finished record.

Day three. Trying for drums on three songs, succeeding, in keeping with a budding new tradition, in two and a half. Getting fantastic drum sounds. Sometime- suppressed vices and character flaws beginning to surface in people as we hit the stride which will probably carry us for a little while. A sort of catatonia that feels like it might be unpleasant but isn’t somehow.

Day two. Having failed entirely to accomplish the goals of the first day we are now beginning the string of desperate measures that will some day result in the record that you all will hear. It’s better that way, anyway. More exciting. Today’s first few endeavors were pronounced, collectively, ‘a wank’ by the producer and snipets such as ‘we don’t have any songs’ and ‘I hate making records this way’ could be heard from various rooms in the studio. And then from that suffering: art. A barrage of parts which, ot was pointed out, drive you to desparation if you focus on any one of them , but as a whole start to sound like something special. Off we go!

Day one in the studio. aparently something is happening but you'd never
know it if you turned up here. the goal for the day is to record two songs
live, mostly to capture the drums.

Preface by Lawrence Stumpf

Its not like this is the first time we've flown 3000 miles to record an
album-we've literally done it all. But LA, man what a city, today i saw a
guy spit into his hand, regard it thoughtfully before placing it carefully
into his pocket. Isn't that really what we're all doing? Where all
doing. Something.