Michigan-based progsters TILES have checked in with several updates regarding progress on their new studio album, Other Arrangements, and the release of Off The Floor II:

"It's our best work yet!!

Oh wait, that's what every band/artist says now. In fact, that lofty claim (i.e. marketing hype) has been said so often and for so many years that if someone doesn't say it music fans can only assume you're not delivering the best thing you've ever done!

Quite frankly, we're not sure how the new recording will rank amongst our catalog or even among the astronomical amount of music being released these days; but, we are working hard and to the best of our abilities - and are definitely excited by what we've come up with.

We officially began recording in March 2013 and after subsequent sessions in June, August and September find ourselves with all the bass and drums recorded and about a third of the rhythm guitars completed. We brought in longtime Tiles accomplice Kevin Chown to provide the bass track for 'Drops Of Rain' since Jeff had already played the maximum number of notes allowed under his contract. Kevin then proceeded to play lots of notes too, so we now could say this will be the Tiles CD with 'the most (best?) bass notes yet!'

On the recording front, experimentation is high on our list of priorities. We've expanded our stylistic range to include electronic & industrial grooves; and the great sounding drum room at Metro 37 Studio has inspired us to have Mark double some of his drum parts, with Terry Brown using some interesting techniques pioneered by Glyn Johns back in the 1960s. Chris is using a diverse arsenal of acoustic and electric guitars, banjo, mandolin, Mesa amps and mostly-vintage pedals to create some serious crunch and contrasting textures. He's even experimenting with super-heavy gauge strings (Elixir, of course) and alternate tunings in his quest for something a little different. Especially cool, so far, are some of Terry's mic placements for ambient sounds and hiding acoustic guitars (and banjo) behind extremely distorted guitars. Some of that distortion is coming from the Kollmanation pedal, which is a new boutique pedal designed by our old Edwin Dare guitarist buddy Jeff Kollman.

De rigueur in the prog world is the ever-present concept album and Tiles is guilty of generally having a 'theme' to each album. But, we've taken things one step farther with Other Arrangements. It has a storyline - a narrative that develops over the entire series of songs, complete with musical reprises and recurring themes. Maybe like a rock opera, but probably more like a "novella" - which is concerned with personal and emotional development, like a short story. There's not a lot of how or why things happen(ed) to our main character, but rather what he (or she) copes with in the aftermath of personal upheaval. Think A Pleasant Shade of Gray rather than The Wall or Scenes From A Memory.

By the way, Off the Floor II is mixed. We're now pulling together a few tracks from our 2005 appearance at the Rites of Spring Festival (ROSfest 2005) to include as possible bonus tracks ('Facing Failure', 'Paintings', 'Ballad of the Sacred Cows', and 'Window Dressing'). Our set was recorded on 24 tracks and Terry Brown is ready to start mixing within the next few weeks. Look for an early 2014 release...

(Although..., by including a couple more ROSfest tunes we could actually release a standalone Tiles at ROSfest 2005 disc that would run almost an hour. We'll have to take that under advisement... there's lots of good stuff available (and a few things we prefer no one hears again!))"

Check out pictures from the studio here.