Standing Next to a Mountain

I got the sad and unexpected news this morning that guitarist extrordinare, Steinar Gregertsen passed away after a battle with cancer.

Steinar will be known to you – in the context of this blog, anyway – as the lead guitarist on the title track of Fantasy Bridge.  His blistering solo on that track elevated it to a whole new level. And though we never actually met outside of cyberspace his passing has left me with a real sense of loss.

As I come to write this tribute, it occurs to me how little we actually know about the people we meet in the virtual reality that is the internet.  But nonetheless, that very ephemeral contact is no less real.

I first came across Steinar online where we were both members of a couple of music production forums, and where we would both post examples of our music for general production critique, to help out with technical issues, or often just to chat about music related topics and life in general. He was articulate, and kind, and always a gentleman.

I was looking for volunteers to provide some lead guitar during the recording of Fantasy Bridge, and Steinar, looking for a break from mixing his second album, graciously said he’d have a go.  And, what an amazing job it was too, sensitively interpreting my demo tracks and then enhancing the whole thing with an amazing solo of his own creation.

In the last few years Steinar’s passion had been the lap steel guitar. He recorded two albums, both of which are available at CD Baby, and I recommend you check them both out.

Southern Moon, Northern Lights A series of musical visions, both original and unique arrangements of some of his favourite songs, inspired by the music of the Mississippi Delta and the fjords of his native Norway, performed on his acoustic and electric lap-steel guitars.

Standing Next to a Mountain A tribute to the Music of Jimi Hendrix, which Guitar Player Magazine describe thus:

Covering Hendrix tunes— let alone recording an entire album of them—is risky business. Yet in this case, the superb musicianship, sublime tones, and superlative arrangements justify the effort.

Rest in Peace Steinar.

Is it really February already? And was my last post really November? I really can’t believe it. 2011 gone, the Fantasy Bridge release a distant memory. 2012 already a month in and no updates from me on Album No. 2.

I guess it’s time for a little bit of an update then. The bad news is that my faithful iMac has developed a fault, insomuch as it’s firewire port has died. Now any die-hard reader might remember that my Multimix FW is the primary interface for all things musical into the computer.  and that little FW suffix is the give away.  It moves all that musical stuff in and out via that Firewire port. So right now, as I type I can’t get anything from the mixer into the iMac and anything recorded on the Mac back out to the speakers.  The said Firewire port is integrated into the iMac’s main logic board and Apple want the best part of £600 to replace that, and that is getting on for half the cost of a 2012 spec iMac, or potentially a Macbook Pro, so at the moment I’m making do while I decide which way to jump.

I have sorted an interim solution, in that the Roland Fantom G has it’s own USB audio interface, so I can at least listen to stuff I’ve recorded, and if I’m using virtual instruments, or sounds from the Fantom I can record these. It’s put a bit of a kibosh on the writing process, but on the other hand it’s making me think laterally and use some of the other tools at my disposal for writing.  The Fantom and the Alesis Fusion both have built in sequencers for instance, and though their workflows are very different (and rather challenging after the gloriously easy way Logic works) it is a way to change things up a bit.

And what about progress on the album front? I hear you ask.

Well I have six songs written, and for the most part lyrics for all of them.  Also there are demos, in various stages of completeness, but sans vocals:

The Long Song (Title still to be decided). This one’s about the day the Seventh Angel in Revelation blows the last trumpet, signifying the end of the world – Well it is 2012 and there are all these mad ideas about this being the last year in the Mayan calendar, so I thought it a quite fun idea for a big prog epic.

Voices: About the life of a man who hears voices in his head all his life. There is rather a nice  horror movie twist at the end.

Learning to Fly: Which is basically as the title says.  It uses a classic Roland polysynth sound.

The Rhythm of the World: Based around a drum groove that builds up on various ethnic percussion sounds, and a chant-like vocal. Having recorded a demo though, I have discovered that it’s key is too high for me to comfortably sing, so I need to look at transposing it down somewhat.

Why?: A piano based torch song about a post-apocolyptic world where everyone lives underground.

The Embrace of Tides: (working title) A 3 part epic inspired by some of the ideas in David Brin’s Uplift stories and notably the idea that sentient life is drawn to live near ever steeper gravity wells. The three parts are: Event Horizon, Hidden Refuge, and  Light Rider. This is probably the least complete song of the bunch. I kind of know where it’s going, but a lot of the detail is missing. As are, at this point, all the lyrics!

The Long Song and Embrace are going to come in at around 20 minutes each, so I think these six songs will probably make up the album. I have a couple of other ideas rattling around too, and I’m going to carry on writing to get these complete, in case any of the others stick out as being wrong for the album as a whole.

I am tentatively looking to have fairly complete demos of all the songs by the start of Spring, and then start recording in earnest.

I’ll also try and blog a bit more regularly too.

Watch this space.