Final Steps Before the Shackleton Album Release

Tony Parker NESC
Apr 7
2 min read

Hi,

It's been a while since I last wrote here.

From the outside, it might look like things have gone quiet… but under the surface, it's been anything but.

The Shackleton album — Reshaped - Reworked - Remastering

Since early December, I've been deep in the process of pulling the Shackleton album apart and putting it back together again.

Listening back to everything with fresh ears.

Asking the hard questions, does this song belong? Does it carry the story the way it should?

Some tracks didn't make it through that filter. "A Brave New World " and "Breaking Through the Ice" have been let go. Not because they're bad songs, but because they don't quite fit the world this album is becoming.

At the same time, new pieces have been written to fill the gaps in the story. The parts that felt unfinished now have a voice. We are now looking at 17 to 18 tracks in total.

There's been a lot of rebuilding too, re-recording vocals, rewriting lyrics, reshaping guitar parts, pulling songs apart and stitching them back together differently.

I'll be honest, it's taking longer than I expected.

But it's also becoming something far stronger than I imagined at the start. Couldn't have done this without Peter's production skills.

Where things stand now

I've made the call to stop releasing singles for the Shackleton project.

No more fragments. No more previews.

The next thing you hear will be the album, complete and whole.

The final chapters, including the final rescue from Elephant Island, are now written, recorded, and ready. That part of the journey feels… finished.

Something unexpected

What I didn't see coming was this, a completely new project growing out of the edges of this one.

There were a lot of ideas that didn't quite fit Shackleton. Not wrong — just… different. They didn't belong to that story or have the feel we were needing for looking for.

Instead of discarding them, I followed them somewhere else.

That path has turned into a new album.

Something quieter. More spacious.

Ambient music built around New Zealand soundscapes, places I've been, places that have stayed with me. Long drives, open roads, the kind of music that doesn't demand attention but changes the atmosphere around you. Soundscapes, as in adding the birds, sea, and wind to create the feeling of being there.

It started as something just for me, something to listen to while driving and at work.

But it's becoming more than that. And honestly, I'm really enjoying it.

The image below is of Gore Bay, NZ. A place I stayed at a number of times as a child. Gore Bay is one of the songs on the new Soundscapes album. Thanks for the photo, Steve.