"Northumbria" - title track nearing completion

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"

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

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

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

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

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

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!