being back in the same room, the same studio, to listen back to all the running dats from rainer’s last session was a super natural experience. like we were all there again together with rainer just beyond the glass. (the angle of the glass that separated the studio from the mixing desk had always room lights reflecting in it that often made it difficult to see what was happening on the other side.)
it took 3 years to even be able to feel ready for the task. and then surprisingly another year to completely finish it. not because we worked on it everyday, we had only worked on it a total of 2 weeks perhaps, but because of the subconscious shock effect of it all;
as uplifting as it was difficult to put up with such missingness in the shadow of rejoice hearing him be there again.
looking at it now, it was as if we made a science out of séance.
example:
rainer would get done with a take there and talk to us on tape from 4 years ago. here we were hearing him now ask what time it was on his mic and one of us back then must have answered him off mic cause he repeated now to us “7:30 ? …ok.” from beyond the control room glass.
at that same exact moment here in the future we looked at the clock on the computer screen and it was precisely 7:30 now again.
rainer is in the house.