I've done this for all the songs I've released so far so I see no reason why the songs from "A Fragile Peace" should be an exception, but first I thought I'd say a bit about the E.P. as a whole and what I see as the "concept" or "story Line" behind it.

Since this is a Digital Only release the running order of the songs hasn't really been set in stone but for me there is a logical order that actually ends with the title track. The reason for this is that it begins in a kind of dark place and works its way out of the darkness to a more positive place.  The reason the song "A fragile peace" concludes this is because this positive place is not a "Given" and cannot be taken for granted, it is a place we fall from very easily if we areN't careful about keeping things in perspective. In other words, even when we find ourselves in this positive place in the light, the darkness is only a few steps away...

So I began the E.P. with "against the wall (No one left to blame)", a dark song about a personal breakdown. Once this "Bottom" is hit a personal evaluation of what puts someone in this place happens in the next song "Non-Dogmatic", kind of a  simultaneous evaluation of circumstances and a self-affirmation. This affirmation continues in song 3 "The Bitter End" a title which seems negative but is actually not. The final step is to a state of acceptance and "peace" with one's self, thus "A fragile peace."

This is just a basic overview and I'll go into more detail about each song in the later posts...stay tuned!

Just thought i'd check in with a few words about the new e.p. "A Fragile Peace". As I mentioned before this was not part of the original plan for 2011 but i decided it was a good thing to do in order to get things sorted out in my head and prepare for what comes next and in that way it has been really helpful. i feel now like i'm ready to start a new chapter in this story, that will take some time now that I've devoted nearly half the year to getting these songs finished and released, but a bit of a break is probably a good thing. there will be a bit more music this year but the next e.p. will probably have to wait until early 2012. In the meantime there is some travelling to be done, a live show to get back on its feet, projects to be worked on that are far removed from this alter ego and some personal affairs to get in order. It looks like I've got my work cut out for me for the rest of the year...

If you haven't already heard the new e.P. check it out here and get free downloads in exchange for an email address or connect through facebook and get a bonus track as well.  You can get a little appetizer by checking out the title track in the video below...

It's that time again, that "special day" that marks another year gone by in my life and it's difficult not to get a bit sentimental and start thinking about the past, present and future. Thinking about the present always feels a bit odd considering that you are actually in the moment and as soon as it passes it is actually the past and the future is really only seconds away.  But looking further than that I can say I am generally optimistic about what will hopefully come next and as for the past, I think Sinatra summed it up best when he sang "Regrets, I've had few..." but that's all just part of it, isn't it?

And I do have a lot to look forward to, musically and personally. The near future will bring new music in the form of the latest E.P. "A Fragile Peace", 2 brand new songs and 2 that have been out there for a while in demo form but have been re-worked, polished, enhanced and are now in a finished form.  I'm also really looking forward to getting back to the homeland for a few weeks in June and July.

For now I'll leave you with that and the video below that I stumbled upon recently (strange that I'd never seen it before considering The Doors are a favourite band of mine).  Words of deep insight, prediction, prophecy of what was to come and why music like mine actually exists? Maybe a little but I think there were already people doing this with the new electronic tools at hand so the conclusion is fairly logical...

Time again to collect my thoughts and put things in perspective after a long winter that started off with a bang and thankfully faded away gradually giving way to mild weather.  Maybe it's because of this that I feel a certain kind of optimism, there's something in the air and I notice people around me feeling it too...

The next E.P. is ready for mixing and I'm looking forward to presenting it, probably in May. During the recording process I experimented with the vocals a bit, refining older, deeper parts of my voice and using the higher parts of my range to create harmonies rather than in the forefront. This led to some drastic changes in a couple of songs that have already been out there in demo form and I believe it has made them stronger and more present than they were before.  Some adjustment to the lyrics helped with that too.

This E.P. wasn't part of this year's original plan but I'm glad I've taken the time to do it.  In a way it closes a chapter by finishing off all of the initial batch of experiments that created this alter ego and has inspired me to approach the next batch with a more open mind. 

And it has also given me time to look at other aspects of what I'm doing here. The lack of live performance is becoming the proverbial thorn in my side right now and I wish I had put a bit more effort into getting some gigs lined up for this year.  There is still time for that and I hope this situation will change and I can get out there and show off this new material in the autumn.

But for now, at least until this next E.P. is finished, this is where I'll be...

And last but not least in this "story behind the song" series, Light Sleeper.  This one is kind of a ballad dedicated to the people I know who are "light sleepers", easily woken, never really deep in slumber.  I am not one of those people (most of the time) but some people I am very close to are and I know how hard it can be, not as bad as outright insomnia but pretty close and quite often having fairly serious consequences. 

As I mentioned, I have rarely slept lightly but when I have it has had to do with having too much on my mind, worrying, anxiety.  I assume this is the reason why others sleep so lightly and I know it is not a pleasant place to be.  But in the song I am an observer, wondering why, trying to help and reassure and in that way maybe it is also a kind of lullaby.

The music came together fairly quickly and easily but I originally intended to put some acoustic guitar on it instead of piano.  It sounded ok with guitar but not "fragile" enough to compliment the lyrics so I switched to piano and started out with a fairly busy piano line and slowly wittled it down to what it now is which I think conveys the sleepy, languid feel I wanted to capture.

And that's it for The Chameleon E.P. stories behind the songs. I've decided to go back and finish of some older songs that were demoed and collecting dust on that proverbial shelf before moving on to any of the newer material that has amassed over the past few months.  Just something I want to get out of my system I guess.  Thinking about releasing these songs in the spring, around May I think so there will be some more tales to tell then.  In the meantime I'll certainly be checking in here from time to time when I can delude myself into believing that I actually have some interesting to write about...

Stay tuned!

And on to the next in the "story behind the song" series, track 5 "Battle For Utopia".  The first thing I can say about this is that the title (and thus the main idea for the chorus) was a bit of a sticking point.  I came up with the idea and didn't think much about it until I went to finish the lyrics and the recording and when I did start thinking about it I found it to be a bit "over the top", like the title of some cheap fantasy or sci-fi novel.  I considered some alternatives but they didn't capture the concept I was going for so in the end I decided just to leave it and all you have to do is really listen to the song to find out that it is not some kind of tacky prog rock story about an actual battle with elves and swords or lasers and robots for that matter.

The idea behind the lyrics is that we are all looking for some kind of "utopia", a place or a state of mind where we are truly content and happy to actually be alive.  The fact that most of us are doing this on a purely selfish level and in very different ways can often lead to a battle of wills when interests conflict.  I think we also do battle with ourselves in our heads, going against our instincts, second guessing decisions, allowing animal desires to overrule reason or vice versa.  And it is perhaps not one long battle but a series of constant smaller battles, some we win, others we lose.  The trick is to win more than you lose, and if you can, then you might just be able to get close to this place called utopia.

As for the music, it came together fairly easily and didn't go through much alteration after the original composition was in place.  There was a point when I considered cutting it back quite a bit as it is quite long but I decided to let it be and to have the double effect of it being a song with a bit of a story as well as being its own "score" for the imagery it conjures in your head.

So that's it for now.  One more to go next week, stay tuned!

Now for number 4 in the "story behind the song" series, The Ritual. This one is a bit like "The Chameleon" in that it underwent some drastic changes very late in the game.  The main synth line and the guitar line were a lot different up until the mixing stage when it became apparent that something just wasn't working. I started making adjustments to the guitar line but no matter what I did it continued to clash badly with the main synth which originally had a heavy delay effect that created a very busy echoing.  It sounded great without the guitar line but the two together were not working at all and even a very simplified guitar line didn't seem to help.  I have to admit that there came a point when I was ready to scrap the whole thing but after taking a break from it for a few days I decided to come at it from a different angle. I scrapped the original main snyth track and the guitar tracks and even re-worked some other tracks and finally got everything where it made a lot more sense.

The idea for the lyrics came from some very personal experiences described in a very abstract way and are a little bit like "Sysyphus Situation" describing the kinds of things we do or let be done to us on a regular basis that are not particularly good for our physical or mental health. The obscure religious references are something that always seem to come out once in a while, the result of a childhood spent in a fairly serious Catholic home and school perhaps?  Like I've said before, I'm not religious but I still find the human need for rituals and irrational belief systems quite fascinating.

Stay tuned for more next week...

And on to the track 3 in this "story behind the song" series, Twilight Showdown.  First off, I just want to make it clear that this has nothing to do with a certain series of vampire films that have been popular with teenagers in the past few years - I haven't seen any of them and don't plan to.  Twilight is simply a time of day that has always had a special feeling for me and when I listened to the music I created for this one it was almost immediately apparent that whatever was happening, it was definitely taking place at dusk.

It also wasn't long before images similar to that of a Spaghetti Western started forming and the idea of a showdown came soon after that.  So there I had the basic concept, a duel between gunslingers meeting at twilight on a windswept plain with tumbleweeds blowing by, but to actually narrate this simple plot I started drawing on my own experiences growing up in a small town full of teenagers bored out their skulls, becoming aggressive, with almost every party or social event ending in at least one fight. Despite being otherwise very intelligent, two friends of mine were some of the most notorious fighters in town and one night, for whatever reason, they turned on each other. I was right there and tried to stop it but it was hopeless and what a spectacle it was, a real fight to the finish with both ending up in tears and covered in blood.  There was no real winner or loser in that one. I think they both lost and things were never really the same between them again.  Kind of sad, the casualties of suburbia I guess.

I orginally planned to sing this one but it just didn't sound right.  I switched to speaking and it made a lot more sense, it is a little bit of a story after all.  And there you have it.

And on to the next in the "Story Behind The Song" series, track 2 "Sysyphus Situation".  Musically this one came together quite well and didn't undergo any significant changes in the final recording and mixing stage.  I think the only sticking point was the ending and for quite a while I wasn't sure how to bring it to a close.  One day as I was editing I made some cuts at the end that seemed kind of abrupt but when I played it back it sounded kind of cool.  I wasn't sure I would keep it this way but I did and I think it was the right move.

As far as the lyrics there isn't too much to say.  Most of the music had already been created before I started thinking of a name or words and as I was listening to it the feeling of an up and down motion became apparent.  Anyone even a bit familiar with Greek mythology will know who Sysyphus was, the one who was condemned for eternity to push a rock up a hill only to have it roll back down every time so he would have to start again.  Parallels in everyday life are plenty and sometimes it's hard not to feel that no matter how hard we try to achieve something and get closer to some sort of grand state of satisfaction and contentment, the whole process is basically an exercise in futility and cannot be achieved.  But I also wanted to convey a bit more than some idea that life is hopeless.  I think there has to be some level of acceptance, that there are simply things that we cannot change and if we can accept that then maybe there is hope for some kind of happiness.  I am not really a religious person but there is a poem from Reinhold Niebuhr that I find good to remember when things seem futile and hopeless and I think it is the unsung sentiment in Sysyphus Situation...

The Serenity Prayer
God,
Grant me the serenity;
To accept the things I cannot change;
The courage, to change the things I can;
And the wisdom, to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever and ever in the next.
Amen

Starting off this "story behind the song" series with the obvious choice of the title track from the newest E.P. Probably the most interesting thing about this song is the development it went through to become what it is now.

Originally this one was planned to be much more guitar-oriented and it wasn't until I got to the final mixing stage that I realized that something just wasn't right.  The guitar riff was much more elaborate and dominant than in the final version (yes, there is a guitar in there but with a massive amount of reverb and delay) but somehow it just seemed too complicated for what was going on around it.  At first I thought it just needed to be properly EQed to sit better in the mix but no matter how I tried it just kept glaring out at me and to some extent threw off the rest of the beat and flow of the song.  Another thing that led to this problem was some drum tracks that were reworked into a simpler, punchier form.  So what you are actually hearing is really quite a bit different than the orignal intention but for the better I think.

The double vocal line was kind of an accident that I ended up liking.  I started by doing the vocal line quite high where my voice is stronger but found that it somehow didn't fit the feeling of the lyrics.  I kept that track but sang a lower version which I found good but somehow also lacking something.  While I was playing things back one day I forgot to shut off the first higher vocal track and ended up hearing both together which led to the idea of using two vocal tracks.

I really can't remember where the idea for the title and lyrics came from but once I started thinking in this direction everything fell quickly into place.  I realized that I have been a bit like a chameleon at certain times in my life, fading into the scenery, hiding maybe, allowing myself to be absorbed into other people's ideas and schemes, subserviant to other's dominance and running away or "disappearing" when I realized I didn't want to be in that position.  Kind of cowardly but I think if we are honest with ourselves we can admit that we all do this once in a while.

I have an idea for a video for this one but it will take some time to put that together.  Hopefully something will be ready by early spring...