Background
After the first OSI album, Office of Strategic Influence, was released in 2003, Jim Matheos and Kevin Moore returned to their respective projects. Matheos released the album FWX and toured with Fates Warning. Moore moved from Costa Rica to Istanbul, Turkey. In 2004, he released the third Chroma Key album, Graveyard Mountain Home, and wrote the soundtrack (released as Ghost Book) to the Turkish horror film Okul. Matheos and Moore both had holes in their schedules, so decided to work on a second OSI album.
The writing and recording process were largely the same as that for the first OSI album. Matheos would send Moore guitar, keyboard and programming parts; Moore would then "chop them up and stuff". Matheos considers the writing process for OSI as more collaborative than writing for his other band, Fates Warning: "With Fates I write songs and we don’t really change a whole lot from my final version to the version that goes on the record," he said. "With Kevin it's much more collaborative in that I come up with a song idea and it can change completely from my original idea to the final product on the record."
Matheos originally intended the first OSI album as a "project" which would never produce a second album. For Free, Matheos and Moore wanted to use a different musician lineup to focus OSI on primarily being Matheos and Moore. They did not want to give the impression that the guests on the first album were part of the band. Matheos stated that the music on Free was "focused less on the progressive elements or the metal elements that were on the first record. We thought we could do something just a little more groove oriented." Matheos and Moore had both worked with bassist Joey Vera in the past and considered him "perfect" for the album. Moore was pleased with Vera's bass parts: Vera sent them to Moore in a state such that they required very little editing or enhancement for the final mix of the album.
Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy was listed as a full member of OSI on the first album, but found working on the first album to be a difficult experience. Moore noted that Portnoy "wasn't used to having other people have strong ideas about what the drum parts should be". For Free, Portnoy contributed drum tracks as a session musician, agreeing to "take ideas and do the best he could with playing", according to Moore. Portnoy's drum parts were recorded at Carriage House Studios in Stamford, Connecticut from November 18 to November 20, 2005.
Read more about this topic: Free (OSI Album)
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