Hi Rex,

Great to see that you have completed your album - a significant achievement in the life of a musician/performer - may your inspiration continue to flow.

Please see the comments below and see if they make sense to you.

Topic 1 - articulating the creative process

I have a particular interest in artists bringing their creative process into full articulation. This, I think, is very helpful for the artists (who can then consciously choose to refine their process and/or abandon elements that don't work or, even, for the sheer risk of it, do something completely different) and also helpful to the rest of us as we are then privy to insights into the way other types of minds work.

It is especially important for us to do this in order to reduce the tendency for artists and audience to elevate the creative process to one of (for most people) unattainable mystery, something that is only possible with prodigious talent. 

That is not to say that 'gifts' are not involved but more to say that nearly anybody is capable of genius in one field or another given adequate access to the right resources and the right mentoring. At least, that's the vision I am used to working with and one which is, I think, necessary to lift the bulk of humanity up into their full intelligences.

I think of it like this: - those of us with access to extended creative space (like me with my privileged life-style that allows me to work at reading and writing all day, every day, to my heart's content) need to be explicit about our processes as a way of gifting to others some of the benefits of our opportunities. By this means a person with less easy access can find an accelerated pathway to the creative moment because they can stand on your shoulders ... 

There are several places in your OP where I see opportunities for you to develop and articulate your process.

For example: - 

How are you structuring your songs and how about the lyrics? By which I mean, do you consciously create musical/lyrical hooks and place them in strategic locations in the score?  See the New Yorker article 'The Song Machine' ( March 26th 2012) in which Jay Brown, president of Roc Nation, says "You've got to have a hook in the intro, a hook in the pre-chorus, and a hook in the bridge". My point here is not that this is necessarily relevant to your songs but, rather, here is a pattern language of song construction, clearly stated, and I can't find anything like that in your OP.

You do a nice discussion about the order of the tracks on the album in which you describe a process of asking others what they think (a focus group!) should come first and that their opinions allows you to change yours and, now you have adjusted to the change, you have come to like the high energy start.  I like the openness this illustrates and, here is another pattern language opportunity - 

(by the way have you read Alexander, Christopher, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. New York: Oxford Univ. Pr., 2010. Print. - one of the essentials for any creative in any field, I think) -

- in that discussion you might have extended the album design description into what criteria you used to arrange the whole thing and, also, compared this to any other album design wisdoms/knowledge that you can find elsewhere.

Topic 2 - relating creative processes to eco-social world-change

I recently met Alex Perales  in L.A. USA. at a Gaia U promotion in LA Ecovillage.
<alexohtli@hotmail.com>Alex is the director of the Tijuana Suena Comunidad Creativa and a musician/performer too.

We had a potent conversation about the role of songs in the context of world-change and he reminded me of the Mexican Government's 1980's clampdown on musicians that dared to celebrate the liberation of people form tyranny through their songs and performances. His advice to me was to read Attali, Jacques, and Brian Massumi. Noise: The Political Economy of Music. Minneapolis [etc.: University of Minnesota, 1985. Print.

I read some reviews, the summary on Wikipedia and parts of the book (it is available for free download in the internet - try Google). I recommend that you delve around in it a little. Maybe email Alex for a chat ...

I don't necessarily agree with the authors models and analysis (although the historical mapping of phases of music is fascinating to me and maybe reveals something about my own analysis of the origins for the patrix) and, it is quite hard to read, but, it is the only analysis I have seen (yet) of the political economy of music. I think this should be a thread (the political economy of music) in your OP's and in your song writing so that you can make some thoughtful analysis of your own work in relation to it's purpose and position in the field.

Ok - thanks for your attention and looking forward to enjoying the flow ...