This album was the one that heralded the move from Atari based sequencing to PC based. To the listener this probably won't mean a great deal, and indeed the music itself will not have changed much in either its scope or presentation. But to me this album has seen the most dramatic of changes in the way I compose and record my music.
The new album features five distinct tracks. Apart from the last track which is unashamedly a true song, the other four long tracks are based on multiple reoccuring themes that intertwine around each other. This is similar to my other more lengthy tracks on the other three CDs. I loved making 'The Bell' on my last album '1632'. This long track, reminiscent in parts to the work of Mike Oldfield, uses a common theme throughout, but different melody lines, beats and general moods to create a variety of parts that could almost be separate works in themselves.
Inspiration comes from many sources, and as you go through life you pick up on many new styles. But one of the most suprising sources for many of the pieces on 'Fuji' was from Howard Shore's musical score for the film version of the Lord of the Rings. I don't tend to listen to classical music much, but hearing Howard's choral work made me want to do some of the same. Unlike Howard, I couldn't get a real choir so I worked with a mixture of samples, synths and Rachel's own voice to create some fairly dramatic choral pieces and backdrops. I think I avoided the cheese...
The 52 minute long album is available from me as a paid download mp3. The download is provided as a bundle of 'high quality' 320kB/s mp3 files and one m3u file. It is priced at 2GBP. Paypal is the preferred route for most buyers, please e-mail me here for my Paypal details. Once you send the money to me I'll send you your own personal links to download the album files. No artwork is provided with this version.
The album is also available through MusicZeit both as a 256kB/s mp3 or as a CD quality FLAC download. New artwork has been made especially for Musiczeit customers.
Track Listing
I have included some 30 second sound snippets of some of the songs. Just 'right hand mouse click' on the blue name and 'save as...' to download the mp3 file. All files are around 400 to 600KB.
Spiralling This one was originally intended to be classic Berlin School [eg 1970s Tangerine Dream] but ended up as a series of melodic pieces with proper tunes. It was almost all done on Propellerhead's Reason.
Kahnu The massive pad work at the start of this song took quite a while to get right. In fact, the first three minutes of this track were my last to be recorded using the Atari with live mixing and mastering. There's some big modular work here and lots of little P3 loops pop up all over the place during the second half of the track. The vocal work is all Rachel on this one. The lyrics in the middle section are 'sort of' in Latin and were partly inspired by the theme music from the BBC's 'Silent Witness'. Its all nonsense really but it was great fun recording it.
Tarquin's Message Again another attempt at a Berlin School piece but ended up quite differently. Almost Jarre-like at the end. Very heavy use of the Sequentix P3 sequencer on this track. Reason again provides most of the synth work, but the Oakley modular does the bassline sequences. What was Tarquin's Message? "Your dinner's on the table"
Tarshi The titles to my tracks come mainly straight out my head the moment the first few bars are laid down. The computer needs to have each track saved as a name, and for this one I thought of a nonsense word as usual. Tarshi. If you do a Google search on the word 'Tarshi' you may find it amusing. This track is huge and it was due to all the complexities in recording it that made me realise I needed to move away from the Atari. That I accidentally erased all the audio work on my old sampler for this track is another reason. The vocals are mostly Rachel, but you can hear me during the bit with the tabla...
Angel I don't often write songs these days. But this one is more songlike than usual. You could even call it a pop song; it has lyrics and a catchy tune. It was recorded on Cakewalk Sonar. And after that experience I went and bought Tracktion. The synth pads are mostly the Korg 03R/W and the bassline and leads are my modular.
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