PARE IT BACK!
Sometimes its possible to find yourself in the middle of a tune or song, and feeling like you have nowhere left to go. You still believe in the track, but you cant like it at the moment.
Answer: Pare it back.
If the song is strong enough, it should be good enough for a busker to sing it with just a guitar or accordion for backing, (remember we’re talking ‘songs’ here not electronica….)
So start hacking away at some of the tracks.
Take it back to maybe just bass and drums or guitar and percussion.
Often parts that you record later, say a string line or a 2nd piano part, are much more unexpected if you leave them alongside the main vocal or melody, taking away the obvious stuff can reveal the prettier ideas and lines.
In some cases, removing a part or a whole track can leave too big a space, but you can still make some impact by reducing volumes right down.
This way of working can actually be very creative, and allows for some radical re-thinking of your work