Objects In The Rear View Mirror…

First off, I’d like to apologise for my absence from this blog. Several things kicked off in January, among them a Sylvium gig ( which I will talk about in a different post), a roleplaying event I host yearly with several of my best friends for which I not only am a writer, but also the audio guy and working out new songs with Nur Armata.

But it is with sadness that I relate to you that Nur Armata have decided to call it a day. As much as we were extremely prolific in the past weeks writing new material and working this out during a very powerful and superb sounding rehearsal, finding time and energy to plan another rehearsal and/or recording session to work on the finished material proved impossible. Combining the band with personal life, family ( two of us have children) and work unfortunately ended the band prematurely. In hindsight, this was something that had happened before ( way before I even joined the band in January 2012) but it still came as a surprise to me.
Even though this was a decision made a while back in February, I am still disappointed in the demise of the band. The songs we had were powerful and great, the chemistry felt superb to me. I always hate saying goodbye to a band I was fond of.

I wish Andrea, Patrick and Henk nothing but the best in their next musical endeavours and perhaps, in another time and space, we will get together and work out that music we had. Because the music proved magical.

so, what does this mean for Ghost? Well, that remains to be seen. At the moment I’m very busy writing new lyrics and vocal lines for Sylvium’s second album that we plan to release this year, so I’ve decided to focus on that first and get to recording Shifting Mirrors when I’ve worked out several things. It might mean I can actually release the album in 2014 instead of 2015 ( as related in my previous post) but I don’t want to jump the gun and later recant again after finding out it didnt’work at all. I’d rather make sure everything is well written, recorded and mixed to the best of my abilities and released for your enjoyment at a time when I can also support the album on a tour. But that’s just one of my many planned schemes.

… And then it hit me…

It’s quite funny that, although I’ve been writing my own songs for years now, I’m still amazed at how easy the new songs are coming together that I have been working on for Sylvium.

‘Coraline’ is proving the most difficult one of all and not because of the time signatures. The song has been experiencing a lot of trimming lately, as the only bit remaining is the beginning of the song, the rest has been removed ( but not deleted as they are great songs/bit in their own right).
Whereas the song wasn’t a collection wibbly wobbly timey wimey solo’s and odd time and tempo changes, it’s now been changed from a body of work spanning around 9 minutes to a much more precise song with its verses in 11/8 and the chorus in 6/8.  Although the verses are quite poppy, the chorus is where the power lies. The tuning of this song was changed from Drop D to Drop C, not because I wanted to sound all death metal like, but because it sounded amazing with clean sounds. If anything at all, it matured the song. I’m still due to write a bridge for this track, I’m pretty sure that’ll work out over the coming days!

‘Tool(s)’ is the heavy metal middle 8 section that was salvaged from ‘Coraline’ which will be worked out for something else. It’s an almost military rhythmic track in 7/8 with a harsh ending. So far, I’m liking it!

‘Bridge Burning’ is a funky rock tune in 6/8 I tried to add to ‘Coraline’ but it never really gelled for me. So right now, I’m looking as to where I would use such a piece. It’s the most Ghost-like tune I’ve got out of the bunch I wrote, so I might bag it for myself!

‘Lilypad’ is so far the quietest thing I’ve written in a while. Clean guitars with massive delays and some gentle keyboards going with it. Not sure where this track is going, to be honest, but it is sounding very good to me!

‘Wrong Side of the Reel’ is a new track which I began writing when the delay effect I had added to a specific guitarsound began to feedback. So far it’s almost like ambient space rock.

Apart from these songs, is a stack of riffs I have which I will figure out in due time once these tracks have been demo’ed. Given I’m going to follow a course on how to work with Cubase ( as I have worked in the past with a horrible DAW that shall remain unnamed) I should have demo’s soon! Exciting days are ahead! 🙂

I’ll be away for the holidays, spending it with my lovely girlfriend and our cat. For now, I wish you all a merry and happy christmas!

Another beginning: Sylvium (the Gift of Anxiety)

Progdreams II came and went on the 19th of may 2013, a pleasant little festival that brought me Beardfish, District 97, Spock’s Beard and Sound of Contact. All amazing bands that played my socks off that night and put a big smile on my face.

That night, through a mutual friend, I met Wouter. Wouter was this friendly and enthusiastic progrock lover with whom I had a great chat about our favorite music. After my friend suggested I send him some of my music sometime, we exchanged our names on Facebook and later that night after I came home, I sent him the link to my Bandcamp page.

He brought me in contact with Ben van Gastel, a guitarist living in the west of Holland and before I knew it, Ben sent me a message saying he was impressed with how I sang and wanted to see if we could collaborate on a song for his band Sylvium, who were busy at the time recording an album. After a couple of drinks and discussing where this could lead, we decided to take a dive and see what we could come up with.

The songs had already been written, but since Sylvium was without a vocalist, I was free to write whatever I felt fitted the concept of fear. ‘Weathering’ was the first one finished and after recording a demo take of my vocals at my home, the band became more enthusiastic than I had anticipated. Eventually the idea to have another song with vocals came up, which became ‘Surround’.

Although intended to be only a collaboration, the band was extremely pleased with how both songs came out and how the band sounded with two guitarists and added me to their lineup. Right now, as I write this, I am in the process of working out what parts to play, programming my effects unit and getting some extra equipment that I need for gigging. I’m certainly quite excited that our first gig will be on the 13th of september in Alphen a/d Rijn, as we play next to The Aurora Project and Galahad. It’s going to be blast 🙂

Shifting Mirrors: Prologue to a project of dreams

This is the most daunting project I have ever undertaken and one I take extremely serious, as this is the first ever professional release of my music that will be known as “Shifting Mirrors”. For this, I will require help. Help from awesome people like you. Yes, dear reader, I mean you!

Very soon, once all the details have been worked out and everything is put in place for this project, I will reveal how you can help with this to make it a success. That doesn’t mean I will leave you in the dark, so let me light a candle and show you some of the things I will definitely include on the album.

“Shifting Mirrors” will feature six songs, namely:

( in random order)

Driving With Open Eyes
Inches To Fall
The Big Fade Away
Dodge The Debris
Marooned
Parting The Seconds

This doesn’t seem like much for a full album release, but Marooned clocks in at 10 minutes and The Big Fade Away at 26 minutes!

On top of this, I am planning to record a set of 10 covers of songs that I have a great fondness for. Which songs these are, will be revealed in time.

If you’re already interested in hearing some of my tracks, head over to my bandcamp page, where you can find the instrumental demo for Marooned and the demo for Parting The Seconds.

Another thing I plan to do, is regularly update this blog and my Youtube page, to keep you informed on all the cool things I have in store, so watch this space!

Parting the Seconds

On the 25th of May 2011, I released my first digital album of selected songs that I had recorded over the years in my little home studio into the unsuspecting world. The response was positive and more heart warming than I dared to imagine, so with that in mind, I began working on new music that I intended to release just a year later.

However, several things, such as my day time job, interfered and caused significant delays until I found myself unemployed halfway through November 2012. The perfect time to begin setting out the plans I had in my head, something I can finally share with all of you.

Working in my home studio taught me several things in recording techniques, but also showed that I can’t produce professionally with the current setup that I have, nor that I know everything. So I’ve decided to record as much of the keyboards, guitars and bass in my own studio and to have the drums and vocals be recorded in a professional studio where I can also have the production done.

Very soon, I hope to have a full plan where you guys can help me make that dream come true and record ‘Shifting Mirrors’. I can’t give any details as of yet, but I can tell you it will involve a Kickstarter project.
To show you all my gratitude for all the support I’ve been given so far, I am making this free download available of ‘Parting The Seconds’, one of the tracks that will be featured on ‘Shifting Mirrors’. Head over to my bandcamp page ( link below), enjoy the music and thanks so much for the support so far!

Parting the Seconds

Blogging.

This blog will be about the music of Ghost. But before writing more I’ll be setting things up around here. Via the two links on the left you can already listen to some of the songs.