Aethelli-Blog

Melodic Revolution Records

2011-12-13T10:23:00.000-08:00

I'm pleased to announce that Aethellis has joined the Melodic Revolutions Records label. The label is undertaking promotion for a wide release of the new album Northumbria.

On behalf of the band I want to thank MRR's Nick Katona for his support and enthusiam for the new album!

Aethellis: Northumbria release

2011-09-17T12:22:00.000-07:00

There was a minor setback for the masters of the new Aethellis album Northumbria where when converted to formats where compression is employed, the tracks displayed some increased vocal sibilance. Concerned with this issue, the "offending" tracks were re-mastered and sound great in any format now. Whew!

The tunes are being submitted for copyright and when I return from a vacation later in September we'll begin releasing tracks for streaming and downloading online followed by CDs being made available.

Unfortunately an event scheduled for today (September 17th) was cancelled at which the band was performing. We were really looking forward to it but that's how it goes sometimes. Fortunately another performance was picked up just prior to that cancellation, this one at the Harford Fall Fest, Bel Air MD on October 15th. There will be copies of both the original and new CDs available there during our performance and we'll be playing tracks from both albums.

Then time to hunker down and learn more new material and prepare for the CD release concert!

Havre de Grace gig

2011-08-14T19:19:00.001-07:00

Just a quick note to say THANK YOU to all the folks who braved the rain and came out to the Havre de Grace Seafood Fest. We had a great time playing on Saturday (August 13th) and were genuinely touched by the standing ovation and calls for "one more song!" Just goes to show you when Charlie Daniels plays the night before it gets the crowd geared up!!!

"Saint Augustus" video

2011-01-06T13:37:00.000-08:00

Finally got the "Saint Augustus" video online and created the new Aethellis video channel on YouTube. Next up will be the live video of "Djibouti" and soon a "Northumbria" video to coincide with the release of the new album. Whew!

Recording "Sounds Good"

2010-11-09T13:29:00.000-08:00

"Sounds Good" is the last track on the new Aethellis album and last Thursday I recorded Erik's bass part for the song (he is co-author of the tune as well). Last night we recorded Mike Harrington on drums at Mark Van Natta's studio. Mike has a funny Keith Jarrett-like way of humming the music while he plays! So we did 3 takes and he minimized the humming by the end of the session. He may do that live but we'd never notice!

Chris Marks is scheduled to put his guitar parts down in the next week or so for "Sounds Good." His parts will nicely compliment Mark Van Natta's guitar bits as they do totally different things in the tune.

Dyan Brown has had to postpone recording her vocals for a while so I'm focusing on polishing up my vocals on a few of the other tracks and getting some mixing underway. I'm determined to have this all wrapped up by year's end and the plan is for a concert in early 2011 to debut the new material live. So stay tuned for upcoming Aethellishows! It's shaping up to be a busy year!

Northumbria update

2010-09-20T08:55:00.000-07:00

All the main parts for the new Aethellis album, Northumbria, have been recorded. There are just some vocal parts to record along with some bass, guitar and drums on the final track (by Erik Marks, Chris Marks, Mark Van Natta, and Mike Harrington respectively). All these are scheduled to be done in October after which mixing will commence.

So things are taking longer than planned, but then again I've expanded the scope of the new album and the process of adding new things pushed the completion date back. That said, most keyboard tracks are pretty much pre-mixed so that should shorten the overall completion time.

The track listing has been firmed up and is as follows with approximate track lengths -

1. Northumbria (Hall, 10:48)
a) Northumbria
b) Mephisto Breeze

2. The Awakening (Hall/Van Natta, 3:27)

3. Van Diemen's Land (9:58)
a) Dire Need (Hall)
b) The Penal Colony (Van Natta/Hall)

4. Without A Sound (Hall/Gill, 5:30)

5. Celui Qui Soit La Bosse (Hall, 2:54)

6. Exchequer Prague (Hall, 3:16)

7. The Peace Path (Hall, 10:09)

8. Sounds Good (Hall/E. Marks, 4:44)

Sure there are some shorter tracks (and to some that's not PROG!) but they are more in the vein of eccentric miniatures rather than standard pop tunes (not that there's any thing wrong with pop tunes, eh?). The closest any song comes to a standard pop tune would be "Without A Sound" which is sort of a prog ballad, if you will.

I plan to release the full version of "Northumbria" as a single along with a music video of the first section.

Also in the video front, from the the first album, "Saint Augustus" will be released in December along with a new version of "Hubris." I'll be retooling "Hubris" as it was rendered for YouTube with their bandwidth, file size and video resolution limitations back in 2007. Things have changed rapidly since then. I have the original footage and will get a high quality re-render and put out the revision by year's end.

Jazz Fusion - Aethellis : "Djibouti" live (end section)

2010-08-06T13:16:00.000-07:00

While we're in the process of preparing two new Aethellis music videos ("Northumbria" and "Saint Augustus") I thought I'd get this little live clip of the band up which was recorded last year by my wife Cheryl. It was to be an outdoor gig at St. James in Parkton, MD but the rain dampened that endeavor.

It features our whacky guitarist Mark Van Natta doing his bizarre jazz fusion lead. Take heed, this is the LIVE version - there's no such lead on the album version!

Play the video from our Facebook pages.

Bait and Switch TV vids

2010-07-02T15:09:00.000-07:00

I've been working on episodes of the satirical Bait and Switch TV show for a few years now, doing music, sound effects and voice overs. It's been really taking off online with several videos really making an impact on YouTube (see below).

My epic production Beside the Manor Selby had its theatrical premiere at Imagicon in May. It'll have its online premiere later this summer and plans are to also have available on DVD at Amazon.com

Oh the Aethellis front, the new prog rock/electronica album Northumbria is coming along nicely and is on target for completion mid-to-late Summer. I'm also working on two new promotional videos, one for the title track of the Northumbria album; the other for "Saint Augustus" from the first Aethellis album. They are thematically related and both pertain to particular events of the 7th century.

Here's a sample B&S video -

"Northumbria" sound sample

2010-04-14T06:12:00.000-07:00

FINALLY! There's now an excerpt from the title track of the next Aethellis album, Northumbria.

"Northumbria" excerpt - click here

The full version will clock in around 10 minutes and there are vocals in the tune as well.

The excerpt can also be heard at Aethellis.com and Aethellis at MySpace.

Northumbria and Beside the Manor Selby updates

2010-04-08T07:22:00.001-07:00

Just got word that my World War I epic Beside the Manor Selby will have its premiere at ImagiCon, Birmingham AL on Friday, May 21st at 5 p.m. It will be shown again at 3 p.m on Saturday, the 22nd. Both screenings will follow the sci-fi epics Shubian's Rift and Shubian's Rift: Failed Diplomacy which I both scored (along with Selby of course).

Cult actor Conrad Brooks who stars in Selby is also promoting the movie at a convention in New York the weekend of May 15th.

Aethellis: Northumbria is coming along as well and I expect an excerpt from the title track to released online this weekend or early next week. I wanted to have it ready in March, but soundtrack commitments and preparing the widescreen version of Selby delayed that a bit.

"Northumbria" - title track nearing completion

2010-01-11T08:31:00.000-08:00

This past weekend the drum track was recorded for "Northumbria," the title track of the new Aethellis album. As stated before this tune will have a cacophany of dissonance blended with sweetness all stirred together in a pyrotechnically-performed proggy stew. Okay, it's obvious I just came off from watching Julie and Julia, but it's time for lunch!

As this track is nearing completion and I'm VERY excited about it, I'm going to post an excerpt from it online in March for folks to hear. Hopefully it will stimulate more interest in the new material which will be for the most part a departure from the style in the first album. It will still have the "Aethellis" sound however.

As mentioned on the website, a concert is planned for later this year which will be videotaped and feature material from both albums. Of course the live versions tend to be a tad more adventuresome; "Djibouti" in particular takes on a new life when performed live with Mark Van Natta's guitar solo taking the jazz-influenced tune "way outside." So we hope to capture that on video for people to hear.

I still have a load of soundtrack work to do, but with Beside The Manor Selby completed and premiering soon, Aethellis: Northumbria will be my focus in the months ahead with a tentative completion in the Spring.

"In Grief Unbound"

2009-12-24T07:59:00.000-08:00

As mentioned in my October 11 post,

"In Grief Unbound" will feature the vocals of Dyan Brown. This track with a more conventional orchestral arrangment will also appear in the feature Beside The Manor Selby.

The video is now online at YouTube (and below!). Beside The Manor Selby is basically complete with the exception of converting it to a film look. There will be premieres in 2010 and the production will be in release on DVD and online as well.

Genesis: Chapter and Verse and Ray Wilson

2009-11-02T07:50:00.000-08:00

I bought the book Genesis: Chapter and Verse earlier this year after reading several positive reviews. Being a longtime Genesis fan from the deep dark 70s, I've been fortunate to meet Phil Collins and Tony Banks back in 1982 and have collected many books on the band including Armando Gallo's I Know What I Like (the first detailed book on the band as far as I'm aware), Hugh Fielder's The Book of Genesis, and more recently Dave Thompson's Turn It On Again.

Of particular interest to me was the Ray Wilson era. By the mid-90's after Phil Collins announced his departure from the band I was delighted to discover they would continue with a new singer and drummer. I felt they could use a bit of a change-around to freshen their approach (much as I've loved Phil's contributions to the group). When I heard some clips of the new album Calling All Stations online I was quite intrigued. Ray's voice was darker and as many people have commented since, similar to Peter Gabriel's.

Once I bought the album I had some reservations about the band's new direction but for the most part was enthusiastic as it sounded very unlike We Can't Dance and Invisible Touch. In particular, "The Dividing Line" almost sounded like a track from The Lamb. In fact, in one section the chord progression reminded me of "Lilywhite Lilith." That in itself gave me goosebumps; Tony Banks' chord sequences often have that effect on me. Same with "Uncertain Weather;" some people said the song would not have been out of place on And Then There Were Three with its sweeping orchestral breeze. I would have to agree.

I also enjoyed the opening to "Alien Afternoon" with the augmented and diminished chords setting the eerie mood. Those kinds of harmonic touches were fewer (or at least buried in the mix beneath the drums) back in the latter 80s. It was a refreshing change.

When the 1997 tour was announced I was surprised the band would be playing a large venue like the (then named) Capitol Center near D.C. I thought the management would have started with smaller capacity halls, see how it went and build from there since Phil, a huge drawing card, would not be there with the band. As it turns out Tony Banks said that's what he would have done; but the thought was that the 80s and early 90s fame the band enjoyed would carry over into this new incarnation. Sadly that was not the case and the U.S. tour was canceled due to low sales.

Disappointed, I managed to get a VHS tape of a rehearsal for their first European gig in Budapest of all things! 'Twasn't great quality but I got to see Ray's stage presence and check out Anthony Drennan's guitar lead on "Firth of Fifth" (which I preferred to Daryl Stuermer's, much as I love his playing). I thought Nir Z did a great job on drums and was intrigued with the young blood infusing the band with new energy. The European audiences apparently responded warmly to this semi-return to the Gabriel-era stylings and I was hoping for another album to observe the band consolidate its new assets and move into a new era. From what I've read, Ray did too. I think the next album would have been even better and perhaps the band would've had a chance to build on their European successes and return to the States on the next album tour. I don't believe they would've had the "... nasty lingering death ..." Tony Banks predicted for them. No one will ever know unless they have access to a parallel universe travel device.

Again, disappointment as this particular lineup ceased to exist. I understand Mike and Tony's reluctance to start all over again to build the band up. Tony apparently seemed keen but Mike still wanted to keep the Mechanics going and that would have drained the needed energy from establishing this new Genesis. From my perspective (not having been in a mega-band!) it would have been stimulating and challenging to gear up and remake the band once more. I think had they continued it would have been somewhat like Yes' recent tour successes with Benoit David and Oliver Wakeman. New young blood in the band that has really stimulated and "fired up" the "old" guys. Steve Howe really has been into it the past year with this new incarnation of Yes and I wish Genesis had stuck it out and done something similar.

I'm please that there are several videos of Ray's stint with Genesis; a particularly nice version of "Calling All Stations" I found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6LJgZ1U5GY

Chapter and Verse has a very informative section on this era of the band with some nice photos and I appreciated the two-page commentary from Ray Wilson ("Ray's Tale"). I hope to catch him live when I travel to Europe.

Northumbria

2009-10-11T08:41:00.000-07:00

The next Aethellis album will be called Northumbria, named after the title track. "Northumbria" will kick off the album with a cacophany of dissonance with moments of modal solemnity.

Other tracks include "The Penal Colony" (written with guitarist Mark Van Natta), "Exchequer Prague," "Sounds Good" (written with bassist Erik Marks) and "The Peace Path Suite."

"In Grief Unbound" will feature the vocals of Dyan Brown. This track with a more conventional orchestral arrangment will also appear in the feature Beside The Manor Selby.

The album cover was designed by my wife, Cheryl.

I've just completed writing the rest of the music for Selby and expect the whole production to be completed by the end of October (see below in an early post for link to the trailer). Once that is done, I will begin the process of fine-tuning the recorded tracks for Northumbria and hopefully be mastering the new album by early 2010. Thanks to everyone for their interest and patience!

"Saint Augustus" video coming soon

2009-09-15T20:12:00.000-07:00

I'm heading to Montreal next week to shoot some footage for Beside The Manor Selby (see previous blog entry) but have been shooting and editing for the new music video of "Saint Augustus." The music in the video will differ from the album by having a slightly extended intro with those now infamous polytriads but this time on pipe organ. I expect to have the video completed (along with Selby) by late October.

I also hope to have ready a video of the live version of "Djibouti" soon which was just taped at a recent gig. This version is quite different from the album in that guitarist Mark Van Natta takes an extended lead at the end which goes quite a bit "outside" as they say! Spiffo keen!

In addition I've recorded a new song for both the Selby soundtrack and (with a different arrangement) the next Aethellis album entitled "In Grief Unbound" featuring the amazing Dyan Brown on vocals.

More soon!

Beside The Manor Selby, Bait and Switch TV

2009-07-16T16:06:00.000-07:00

Well it's been over a year since I updated this blog. Gadzooks, tempus fugit! Anyway, some folks have been asking when the next Aethellis album will be out. And I've been updating its progress somewhat on this blog and giving excuses! Like my soundtrack work has been keeping me busy. Meh!

Anyway... the album IS progressing. Actually about all the tracks have been recorded in some fashion. Most basic tracks are laid down and in some cases the tunes are ready for mixing. I may in a fit of inspiration come up with a new bit here and there, but basically the basics are basically there. Basically.

I'd been working on music and sound effects for the Bait and Switch TV pilot when I wrote the last blog. You can check out video clips from it at http://www.baitandswitchtv.com/watchtv.html. It's a very witty satire on the food and drug industry produced by Stanion Studios. Check it out.

Since then I've been doing video orientations for various mental health organizations. But I've also been putting the finishing touches on my epic, Beside The Manor Selby. I wrote and directed it and am in the process of scoring it. It will be premiering most likely in the Atlanta/Sharpsburg/Newnan GA area as a broadcast. Then on to DVD and online viewing.

It stars cult actor Conrad Brooks (of Ed Wood fame) and features George Stover (of John Waters fame) and takes place during The Great War. I should be finished by September at which point I'll be focusing on the soundtrack album (mostly classical/romantic style music). By Christmas I'll be hard at work finishing up the next Aethellis album! It's been slow in coming but I don't want to rush it or half-a** it, you know? As I said before, I have been working on it whenever I had some time set aside. At least I'm faster than Peter Gabriel! (Just kidding, Pete!)

Enjoy the trailer. For more details on the plot and such, visit www.ellsounds.com and click on the links to Selby. There will be a dedicated website shortly before the release.

More on the new Aethellis album

2008-04-02T04:15:00.000-07:00

I'm making it a point to work on the new album in between all my soundtrack and video work which at this time is quite intense. But I love it!

Regardless, I'll be recording Cherylandra's vocals in the next week for the album's (currently) longest track for which Mark Van Natta has also recorded guitar and vocals. Should be a tidy little epic!

Some other tracks should prove to be fairly quirky and rather un-mainstream with such niceties as quartal harmonies and asymmetrical meters. To be fair the first album had its goodly share of such attributes (like the polytriads and varying time signature changes from in "Saint Augustus") as they were they woven into a somewhat more mainstream synth-pop sound. But I tried to maintain compositional interest by stating and developing themes and recapitulating them with variations in the album tracks. An extension of that approach can be heard on the video version of "Hubris" where I took the guitar solo from later in the song and re-interpreted it as a classical/jazz hybrid for the new introduction. The video version still has the creepy augmented-chord sections in the middle which I tried to match with a creepy yet funny delivery!

And I truly love ongoing modulations throughout a piece (like in "Portal" and "Saint Augustus"), jazzy harmonies and a bit of fugue ("Djibouti"). So I plan to carry on some of those approaches for tracks on the new album.

I hope to have some interesting and strange timbres in the new album too; with my new software synths I have many sounds to explore and tweak so I'll try and keep the orchestrations varied and interesting.

It's been an enjoyable process and I'd say the album is about 65% done. I appreciate all the comments and questions about it from folks who have been following the band. and I hope to have it finished by the summer. We've already been playing some material from it live to good response which bodes well for future performances of the new album.

There is a demo version of one of the new tracks, "Exchequer Prague" at the MySpace Aethellis page. It's a tongue-in-cheek hybrid of techno and jazz with a sort of comical keyboard solo at the end. Enjoy!

Working on the next Aethellis album

2007-11-20T13:55:00.000-08:00

My pal and guitarist/vocalist Mark Van Natta was over at my studio last night laying down guitar tracks on a new tune. The song should run about 9 1/2 minutes and have some interesting time signature variations. I put quite a bit of guitar down myself but wanted Markie to add his style. His lead part took my original idea and sent it soaring.

This song will also feature Mark on vocals as well as our new female singer, Cherylandra. It should be dando-spiffo-keen with a bit of female vocal flavor. I've been enjoying music by such bands as Kaipa and Dream Aria that feature female singers and really wanted to add that texture to the Aethellis mix. They have a power and range that gives me prog-bumps.

Two tracks slated for the album were sent to Jose Luis Martinez, producer of the progressive rock journal Descubre La Caja de Pandora for a compilation CD which will be included as a bonus gift with the sixth issue. One of these, "The Penal Colony" was originally composed by Mark and myself back in 1988. A revised version of it appeared recently in the sci-fi epic Shubian's Rift under the end credits (I did the soundtrack for the rest of the movie). I revised it yet again for its Aethellis incarnation based on some suggestions from Mark.

Since I have some TV pilot soundtrack work to focus on, plus the continuing shooting of the drama Beside the Manor Selby (featuring cult actor Conrad Brooks), we're doing the new album tracks a bit at a time and hope to have it completed sometime next year.

Elton and the Internet

2007-08-27T13:04:00.001-07:00

I've been an Elton John fan since the early 70s and learned to sing by imitating his voice while playing along to his songs. Now Sir Elton would like to do away with the Internet, temporarily at least. According to an article in The Sun, Elton would like to shut down the Internet for 5 years as an experiment to see what kind of art would be produced, intimating that the music nowadays is of poor quality as a result of everyone being online. He feels that music was of better quality in the early 70s than today and that musicians need to interact more instead of blogging.

I do feel that mainstream music in the 70s was better than today. It was a different world and there was no World Wide Web with the incredible media fragmentation and diversity we have today. Part of my admitted bias stems from the fact I am a progressive rock fan and that in the 70s, progressive rock was indeed part of the mainstream. It's sometimes amazing for me to remember but Yes and ELP played to huge audiences and had albums in the top 10. There was also your jazz rock and fusion folks like Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever who redefined jazz in a rock context. At any rate, there was mainstream music (i.e. on the radio and put out by the major labels) that had a fair degree of musical sophistication.

Even Elton John himself had "proggy" tendencies, witness "Funeral for a Friend" and the "Carla/Etude/Fanfare" from The Fox. But even his "standard" pop music fare was beautifully conceived and executed, particularly with the perfectionistic approach of Gus Dudgeon.

I would have to disagree with Elton though that there's not as much good music today. There's just so much more out there via the Internet that it can be too overwhelming to discover it. I don't feel the major labels and conventional radio have much too offer anymore. But boy, in my networking on MySpace, I've found scores of excellent bands and musicians! Most don't have any major label support, let alone ANY label support. But you could check out some of my "friends" at the Aethellis MySpace page and find a great deal of quality music ranging from ambient electronica to classical to jazz to progressive.

Elton admits to being a "Luddite" but has his music available for download and had his 60th birthday concert streamed over the Internet. But as far as using computers to compose, he would rather stick to the piano. And that's fine. For me, writing at the piano enabled me to remember what I composed better than improvising into a sequencer program on the computer or recording to tape. I had to go back and play things over to really commit my new piece to memory. And sometimes that made me work on it more and develop it better.

That said, sequencers and software enable me to create pretty much any sound I want and do the "one man band" thing. It also allows me to try things out to see how they might sound and then cut and paste. This can be a good thing. But as Elton pointed out, collaboration with other people (not over the Internet but live) can be lead to interesting music; a way to bounce ideas off of each other. Both approaches are valid and indeed there are those who have little in the way of conventional musical ability who are able to create interesting music because of the technology.

So I must say Sir Elton, there is an abundance of creativty and great music out there on the Internet, you just have to look. Many excellent musicians and bands would have been unheard otherwise. So please, let's not shut it all down, but rather explore it! I'm so glad I discovered you all those years ago and there are others out there online who deserve to be discovered as well.

The story behind "Saint Augustus"

2007-08-24T15:07:00.000-07:00

I've been asked at performances about the lyrics to the song "Saint Augustus." When I wrote the lyrics years ago in graduate school I had been fascinated with Ancient Greece and the end of the Roman empire (in the West, not what became the Byzantine Empire) and the beginning of the so-called "Dark Ages" in Europe.

Saint Augustus/Augustine was the Bishop of Hippo (in Western North Africa, one of the regional councils along with Carthage and Rome) in the 5th century who witnessed Rome's collapse and watched the governing bodies wax and wane with astonishing rapidity. A Neoplatonist, he was struck by the corruption and commented, "Without justice, what is sovereignty but organised brigandage?"

The lyrics are written from the viewpoint of those who followed the Bishop and were questioning their place in the calamitous events. The chorus, "Saint Augustus will you help us, will you grant us light?" refers to the Neoplatonic philosophy that evil is not a thing of its own, but rather the absence or lesser good. Thereby the light being "good" and the absence of it are what the followers are experiencing.

I thought "Saint Augustus" had a slightly better ring to it than "Saint Augustine" and a friend of mine at the university suggested that title to me.

So here are the lyrics with the aforementioned background as some explanation. Enjoy!

Honor is a virtue which cannot be replaced
By thought, word or deed
He listens and obeys the creed
Only to go to his own

Saint Augustus, will you help us
Will you grant us life?
Saint Augusts, will you burn us?
Or will you grant us light?

Few men at arms would guard him from those
Whose wounds sting and fester
Exacerbated by his cruelty
Some day they will be at war

Saint Augustus, will you help us
Will you grant us life?
Saint Augusts, will you burn us?
Or will you grant us light?

Children go and journey fast
Look to the first and be not last
You are the forgotten hope
To which we turn in time of need
Don't look back, you may turn to salt
As brightness then would claim your eyes
This old city would be ashes
Unlike a phoenix it will not again rise

Children go and journey fast
Remember our forgotten past
Grow up strong to teach your own
Not to allow corruption of a throne
Don't come back, we may not be here
Destroyed perhaps by our own fear
Go on children and live for glory
And when you can avenge us here