It's been a long, long, long time since I posted any of my music, so here's some new material. I have a lot more if anyone is actually interested, but since I don't know if anyone actually is interested, I'll leave it at this for now.
I'm going to link to all three files right now so you don't have to wade through a sea of verbosity to find them, but I suggest checking out the backstory in the extended entry just so you know what the hell you're listening to:
Anyway, the first song here is a fun little experiment I've been conducting over the past few days in between getting settled into my apartment and trying to restart my job search.
A few important details: This song was done entirely with GarageBand instruments, but each and every note/beat is from my brain, not a pre-made loop. To put it another way, I didn't play it, but I did write it. I composed the whole thing in TuxGuitar, exported it as a MIDI file, imported the MIDI into GarageBand, tweaked the instruments, reverb, etc., then exported it to iTunes as an AIFF file, converted it to MP3, and uploaded it to the Internet.
...The above paragraph could probably be part of a longer answer to the question of why I've decided to be an editor instead of a writer or a musician.
Anyway...
The song itself, which I decided to call "Entropy" because it was written while the rest of my life was in a state of disorder, was partially inspired by Dream Theater's epic Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence. I wanted to try something in a bit more of a prog vein, but I don't have the resources or the talent to record what I had in mind with real instruments, so I took advantage of technology.
"Entropy" is an instrumental that mixes my usual heavy rock style with some more unconventional stuff. For example, it switches between three different time signatures (try to identify all of them!). Also, it contains all the following instruments, or at least digital approximations of them:
- Electric guitar
- Bass guitar
- Piano
- Drum set
- Timpani
- Triangle
- Shaker
- Vibraslap
- Congas
- Orchestral strings
Incidentally, I have at least minimal experience playing everything in that list except the last one. Have I mentioned that I practically lived in the band room in high school?
So, check that out and see what you think. I feel like this song may have a different kind of appeal than my usual "METAL METAL GRUNGE METAL GRUNGE GRUNGE METAL RAAAAWRRR!!!" approach.
Next up are two related songs in my more traditional metal genre. I mentioned a while back that I was trying to write a concept album based on The Shadow Out of Time, my favorite H.P. Lovecraft story. Since then, I've managed to complete two songs, so it's still a work in progress, but you can listen to what I have so far.
I recorded both of these by playing my guitar through my trusty PODxt (mostly using the Triple Rectifier model) over GarageBand drums and bass (using the same TuxGuitar-MIDI-GarageBand method as "Entropy"). "Shadows," the opening instrumental, was recorded in GarageBand, and "Amnesia," based on Chapter 1, was recorded in my Tascam Digital Portastudio, so it sounds a bit more professional. Also, "Amnesia" has lyrics, which you can check out below if you really care. As always, feedback on any of this stuff is both welcome and encouraged.
Amnesia
My life interrupted
My routine disrupted
Wondering what did
I do to deserve this?
My memory corrupted
I can't reconstruct it
I'm controlled by something
With another purpose
Lost in confusion
Is this an illusion?
Or did an inhuman
Form take me over?
I've seen it in nightmares
My mind travelled somewhere
It seems so familiar
Yet it fills me with horror
Assaulted by visions
I changed in an instant
Remaining insistent
That I did not know myself
But some were convinced
That there was someone else hidden
And watching from within
My body now a shell
I sought arcane knowledge
Though I cannot recall it
Can't see past the wall that
Divides me and those years
Mysterious sojourns
So many were concerned
But one day I returned
And the stranger disappeared
I cannot bear
To face the thought
I've been somewhere
That time forgot
But I must know
I'll find the truth
If this life was my own
There must be proof
It seems I was a puppet
For five years of my life
My friends were frightened of it
I lost my children and my wife
My speech aroused suspicion
That I was not of this Earth
A lurking terror had arisen
From my unexplained rebirth
My pursuit of education
Was relentless and precise
I sought forbidden consultations
And built a strange device
Today I have no memory
Of what my search revealed
But still, the visions call me
I have to know what's real
I cannot bear
To face the thought
I've been somewhere
That time forgot
But I must know
I'll find the truth
If this life was my own
There must be proof