I think we flew too close to the sun on this one. Hot on the heels of the V2 demo sessions, with which we were all pretty pleased, we really felt we needed an accurate recording of the full band on the rest of our material, and budgeted just under a week to re-record most of the "Paths" songs that remained in our repertoire, as well as a few revamped "Demolicious" songs AND two cover songs, totaling an attempted 12 songs in 5 days. We'd incorporated a full band version of still photography into our set, but had yet to co-opt "It Always Snows..." and had never attempted "My Very Mind". Re-worked versions of Overcome, End, and Sheathen existed, but were rarely played live.

Ultimately, we just bit off more than we could chew, and were not only rushed during the process, but were unable to complete tracking (no vocals). As luck would have it, this would be the last time Lowfive v1.2 would ever record together, so it was disappointing to see the project fail. We attempted to recreated the quick and fluid process of recording the V2 demo, complete with the V2's full band sound, but simply did not have the time. We were rushing through this so quickly that we tracked most of the instrumentation on several songs before deciding that the tempo was too fast, among other shortsighted faults. Although we'd once again improved our gear (the addition of a 100' snake enabled us to set up a control room separate from the tracking room for the first time), the quality was still less than we'd hoped for.

Although no vocals were recorded, and these recordings were mostly abandoned after the lineup change (Chuck and Matt stepped down in the fall to allow the band to remain active during the school year with new members Jason and Ian), i feel we were fortunate to get some of these songs and ideas documented, especially the full band versions of Still Photography, Sheathen, End, and Jesus Sunrise, as most of these would never see the light of day again (Still Photography was later resurrected for Lowfive v2.0, and Jesus Sunrise was introduced to Lowfive 2.0 but abandoned soon afterward).

Cover songs recorded during these sessions included the perennial favorite Take On Me, which was commonly requested at hometown shows by our pals in Minor Setback. As the band was relocating down to Bangor, we figured we'd record this one as a gag for them. The Ozma cover (Natalie Portman) was actually played live frequently during this summer, and felt especially appropriate because we were the only other band besides OZMA who religiously used cheesy Casio keyboards (the drum machine in NP is actually just one of Casio's preset drum beats). This version (2002), although never fully complete, was a good blueprint for the 2003 version we recorded with Jason and Ian in the upcoming winter.

All in all, these recording sessions were packed with superlatives; although we went into this with the highest hopes, we were met with the most frustration and rush-tration. Although we did have a lot of fun going out with one last bang, this was probably the saddest of all of the sessions, being one of the last times we'd all get together as a band (the original core), and not really getting anything worthwhile out of it.

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