Mark Scudder: Don't Wait

In the summer of 2001 I had begun recording a new spacemusic album that was to be the followup to Felix Culpa, and at the time it was going to be called Steering By Internal Stars. It was to carry a loose theme of moving forward and rememberance after loss, as I found my way by what I knew, hence the title.

I had written some pretty stuff immediately after Felix Culpa was completed ("Exordium" and "In My Life Once," which appear on the Felix Culpa Remastered Special Edition; and an early idea that became "Prelude") but in 2001 I wrote some very dark stuff, low drones and prepared electric guitar noises, and honestly I was unsure if the pieces were too dark.

Then, one day in early September, everything changed. My friend Paul Battaglia was in his office on the 100th floor of 1 World Trade Center when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the building. While 911 tapes would later reveal that he helped the injured and consoled the distraught until the building collapsed, he was nonetheless lost that day, at a terrible cost to everyone who knew him.

I didn't work on Don't Wait for quite a while after 9/11. I had scratch mixes a year later but the performances weren't there yet. After working through more loss in 2002, "Blue" and "I Wasn't Finished Loving You" were written and recorded. A move and a new job further delayed the release, but in 2004 the album was finished.