15-11-2014, 09:56
OK where to start!
I used to play guitar covers with a group of friends years ago in a pub in Cape Town. Rodriguez, Dylan, Young - all that sort of stuff. Just a handful of acoustic guitars. And while that was always enjoyable and I do like all these artists, the music I was really into was Floyd, Oldfield, Vangelis, Yes, ELP, Jean Michel Jarre etc. Anyway, I was moving jobs, contracting and enjoying life so there wasn't much time to sit down and concentrate on doing a big project that would ultimately require years of work and a small fortune to complete - if I had known how long it was going to take I would probably not have started in the first place - ignorance is indeed bliss. Anyway I moved to Ireland after I got a phone call from Intel asking me if I would consider a contract in Ireland. Because work was non-existent in SA at the time, I agreed and came over to the Emerald Isle. That was 14 years ago and I am still here - did not think I would be. When I left SA the whole music technology thing was kicking in but I had not got to grips with it yet. After about 5 years in Ireland I was in a PC store and I saw a software package from Steinberg called PRO52 - an emulation of the famous Sequential Circuits Prophet synthesizer. I bought it wondering what it would sound like and once I installed it on my PC I was hooked. Suddenly the possibilities were endless. I realized that I was now in a position to actually try and compose something and have full control over the entire production.
The light bulb went on.
It took me another couple of years and another job change to get to grips with the technology, find the right workstation (I have been through 4 to date!) and buy and learn all the ins and outs of new hardware synthesizers and effects processors mixing desks, mandolins, banjos, amplifiers, effects pedals and a small fortune in VST plugins and software programs etc. etc. The list is endless. I estimate (conservatively I might add) that I have spent about 80,000 Euro to date on everything.
Right - that's the background to the project.
As for the project itself I started off with a simple piece - just 2 alternating notes on the PRO52 VST synth that seemed to match the mood of the snow falling outside. It was winter and I was living in a rural part of Ireland. It took me so long to finish this introduction to my project that by the time I was happy with it, spring had arrived.
The light bulb went on again.
I now started thinking in terms of creating a large piece with four movements - each representing the four seasons and 'Scenes from a Solar Cycle' was born. Yes I do know what a solar cycle really is but it is a play on words. There are twelve tracks in this project
Winter Sequence
Polar Storm
Across the Siberian Plain
Below Zero
Spring Sequence
Awakening World
Biorhythmic
Into Eden
Summer Sequence
Meadow at Morning
Saharan Haze
The Endless Evening Sky
Autumn Sequence
Leave in Flight
Skeletalscape
Sea of Darkness
So I composed the twelve tracks listed above, and because I am a person who is easily bored, decided to start a second project while this one was still going on as a kind of diversion. So 'The Hypnotic Motion of Tides' was born and away I went down that road for a while. This project is all about the sea and all things related to it. And while on that road I started reading a lot of books about mountaineering, maybe subconsciously thinking about how I was going to conquer this 'little' project which was starting to turn into a large nightmare. So 'Mountain Mantras' was born as well. This one is loosely based on the IMAX movie 'Everest' which I had seen in a theatre in Cape Town many moons ago.
The light bulb was now starting to overheat a little.
I continued on all three projects at the same time for a number years - bear in mind I have quite a demanding job and some days you are just too tired to apply yourself to creative pursuits - the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. At some point I decided that I was rather curious as to what people would make of this music. Is it any good at all? Would anyone actually buy it? So I put a couple of individual tracks up on CDBaby and while they did sell, I realized I had made a mistake. People who listen to this sort of material normally want an album's worth, not single tracks. They want something they can immersive themselves in for a period of time, not just a couple of minutes.
So I thought, right, I still have not finished any of the projects to my satisfaction but I do have a whole lot of completed tracks - why not try compiling them into a sampler CD and that would give people a chance to sample my work and if they like what they hear that might purchase the projects once they are complete. Most of them are pretty close to completion now anyway. And that is how this CD/EP was born. It is a selection of tracks from the three projects previously mentioned. I tried rearranging the sequence of the tracks many times before I was happy with the overall flow of it.
And that, in a nutshell, is how Into Imagined Lands was born.
For the artwork - you only see a fraction of it on my website - I wanted to depict the fact that I had actually summoned up the nerve to release something, hence the diver 'taking the plunge' into a sea of imagination (the mind's eye) with a vivid almost psychedelic backdrop - an image of a place called Antelope Canyon in Utah USA. So I fiddled around with various images for weeks - stock photos from iStock - until I came up with what you see. Being a lifelong Floyd fan, I have always been impressed with Storm Thorgersen's work and I have to admit that the cover of Richard Wright's 'Broken China' had a lot to so with influencing my final choice and composition. My goal was to make a simple but striking image - only you can be the judge of that.
So the tracks for this EP are
Prologue (from 'Mantras')
Across the Siberian Plain (from 'Scenes')
Under Waves (from 'Tides')
Manta Ray in Motion (from 'Tides')
Flying Over The Frozen Sea (from 'Mantras')
Saharan Haze (from 'Scenes')
Loss (from 'Mantras')
Epilogue (from Mantras')
The tracks for the CD will be
Prologue (from 'Mantras')
Across the Siberian Plain (from 'Scenes')
Under Waves (from 'Tides')
Manta Ray in Motion (from 'Tides')
Flying Over The Frozen Sea (from 'Mantras')
Meadow at Morning (from Scenes')
Saharan Haze (from 'Scenes')
Biorhythmic (from 'Scenes')
Loss (from 'Mantras')
Epilogue (from Mantras')
So that's the background info - next post will be about the actual tracks, ideas behind them, instrumentation etc. and the colossal mistakes I made putting it all together.
The light bulb is now just glowing contentedly...........
I used to play guitar covers with a group of friends years ago in a pub in Cape Town. Rodriguez, Dylan, Young - all that sort of stuff. Just a handful of acoustic guitars. And while that was always enjoyable and I do like all these artists, the music I was really into was Floyd, Oldfield, Vangelis, Yes, ELP, Jean Michel Jarre etc. Anyway, I was moving jobs, contracting and enjoying life so there wasn't much time to sit down and concentrate on doing a big project that would ultimately require years of work and a small fortune to complete - if I had known how long it was going to take I would probably not have started in the first place - ignorance is indeed bliss. Anyway I moved to Ireland after I got a phone call from Intel asking me if I would consider a contract in Ireland. Because work was non-existent in SA at the time, I agreed and came over to the Emerald Isle. That was 14 years ago and I am still here - did not think I would be. When I left SA the whole music technology thing was kicking in but I had not got to grips with it yet. After about 5 years in Ireland I was in a PC store and I saw a software package from Steinberg called PRO52 - an emulation of the famous Sequential Circuits Prophet synthesizer. I bought it wondering what it would sound like and once I installed it on my PC I was hooked. Suddenly the possibilities were endless. I realized that I was now in a position to actually try and compose something and have full control over the entire production.
The light bulb went on.
It took me another couple of years and another job change to get to grips with the technology, find the right workstation (I have been through 4 to date!) and buy and learn all the ins and outs of new hardware synthesizers and effects processors mixing desks, mandolins, banjos, amplifiers, effects pedals and a small fortune in VST plugins and software programs etc. etc. The list is endless. I estimate (conservatively I might add) that I have spent about 80,000 Euro to date on everything.
Right - that's the background to the project.
As for the project itself I started off with a simple piece - just 2 alternating notes on the PRO52 VST synth that seemed to match the mood of the snow falling outside. It was winter and I was living in a rural part of Ireland. It took me so long to finish this introduction to my project that by the time I was happy with it, spring had arrived.
The light bulb went on again.
I now started thinking in terms of creating a large piece with four movements - each representing the four seasons and 'Scenes from a Solar Cycle' was born. Yes I do know what a solar cycle really is but it is a play on words. There are twelve tracks in this project
Winter Sequence
Polar Storm
Across the Siberian Plain
Below Zero
Spring Sequence
Awakening World
Biorhythmic
Into Eden
Summer Sequence
Meadow at Morning
Saharan Haze
The Endless Evening Sky
Autumn Sequence
Leave in Flight
Skeletalscape
Sea of Darkness
So I composed the twelve tracks listed above, and because I am a person who is easily bored, decided to start a second project while this one was still going on as a kind of diversion. So 'The Hypnotic Motion of Tides' was born and away I went down that road for a while. This project is all about the sea and all things related to it. And while on that road I started reading a lot of books about mountaineering, maybe subconsciously thinking about how I was going to conquer this 'little' project which was starting to turn into a large nightmare. So 'Mountain Mantras' was born as well. This one is loosely based on the IMAX movie 'Everest' which I had seen in a theatre in Cape Town many moons ago.
The light bulb was now starting to overheat a little.
I continued on all three projects at the same time for a number years - bear in mind I have quite a demanding job and some days you are just too tired to apply yourself to creative pursuits - the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. At some point I decided that I was rather curious as to what people would make of this music. Is it any good at all? Would anyone actually buy it? So I put a couple of individual tracks up on CDBaby and while they did sell, I realized I had made a mistake. People who listen to this sort of material normally want an album's worth, not single tracks. They want something they can immersive themselves in for a period of time, not just a couple of minutes.
So I thought, right, I still have not finished any of the projects to my satisfaction but I do have a whole lot of completed tracks - why not try compiling them into a sampler CD and that would give people a chance to sample my work and if they like what they hear that might purchase the projects once they are complete. Most of them are pretty close to completion now anyway. And that is how this CD/EP was born. It is a selection of tracks from the three projects previously mentioned. I tried rearranging the sequence of the tracks many times before I was happy with the overall flow of it.
And that, in a nutshell, is how Into Imagined Lands was born.
For the artwork - you only see a fraction of it on my website - I wanted to depict the fact that I had actually summoned up the nerve to release something, hence the diver 'taking the plunge' into a sea of imagination (the mind's eye) with a vivid almost psychedelic backdrop - an image of a place called Antelope Canyon in Utah USA. So I fiddled around with various images for weeks - stock photos from iStock - until I came up with what you see. Being a lifelong Floyd fan, I have always been impressed with Storm Thorgersen's work and I have to admit that the cover of Richard Wright's 'Broken China' had a lot to so with influencing my final choice and composition. My goal was to make a simple but striking image - only you can be the judge of that.
So the tracks for this EP are
Prologue (from 'Mantras')
Across the Siberian Plain (from 'Scenes')
Under Waves (from 'Tides')
Manta Ray in Motion (from 'Tides')
Flying Over The Frozen Sea (from 'Mantras')
Saharan Haze (from 'Scenes')
Loss (from 'Mantras')
Epilogue (from Mantras')
The tracks for the CD will be
Prologue (from 'Mantras')
Across the Siberian Plain (from 'Scenes')
Under Waves (from 'Tides')
Manta Ray in Motion (from 'Tides')
Flying Over The Frozen Sea (from 'Mantras')
Meadow at Morning (from Scenes')
Saharan Haze (from 'Scenes')
Biorhythmic (from 'Scenes')
Loss (from 'Mantras')
Epilogue (from Mantras')
So that's the background info - next post will be about the actual tracks, ideas behind them, instrumentation etc. and the colossal mistakes I made putting it all together.
The light bulb is now just glowing contentedly...........
'The purpose of life is a life of purpose' - Athena Orchard.