Shifting Gears

I think that I am to a point where the best thing for me to do is to temporarily walk away from the album that I am working on for the sake of gaining a fresh perspective. I think that I'm happy with the tracklist, but the next step is the part where I listen to all of the songs and take detailed notes about what needs to be fixed. At this point, I feel like I am a little too close to the material to be objective. Besides, I've got some other, non-music stuff that I need to work on right now.

So here are a couple of songs off my most recently completed album, Embers (2021). Fun fact: part of the reason that I chose that name is because I decided in September 2020 that I was going to write, record and produce another album; then I wrote most of the songs in November and recorded them in December. (-embers, get it?) There was more behind my reasoning than that, but this is the inside joke to myself that I threw in there for good measure, as I like to do sometimes. (My dissertation/book is riddled with them--but that kind of made sense, since it's about comedy.) 

In any case, here are a few of my favorite songs off the album by that name, which I just released about four months ago. The first is called Mixtape. I came up with the riff/chord progression in the same room as where my daughter was putting together a streaming playlist. Taken together, it made me think about the art of making a proper mixtape, and the many hours that I have spent getting them just right. Shortly thereafter, this song came into existence. 

    I made a mixtape on my radio

    It can be your soundtrack wherever you go

    I hope these songs will remind you of me

    The good times we've had and those yet to be

    Please take this mixtape when you go...

The next song that I would like to share with you today is the closing track on Embers. It is called We Are All That We Need. It's a simple song--just electric piano, bass, drums and vocals (and a few sound effects)--but I'm quite proud of it. Structurally, it's one of my only songs with both a prechorus and a bridge, for whatever that's worth.

    

    Like the water we drink

    And the air that we breathe

    I do believe

    We are all that

    We are all that

    We are all that we need...

Just for fun, here's one more from that same album. This is the song that I wrote about the time that the citizens of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia symbolically declared their independence from the USSR by holding hands between their capital cities. It's called Black Ribbon Day.

    Two million people strong

    Four hundred miles long

    Of strangers holding hands

If you like what I'm doing, please share it with others who may like it as well. As a one-man-band/DIY recording artist, I am also a one-man marketing and public relations team. That is to say that I need your help in reaching a broader audience. Besides, the less time I have to spend promoting my own work, the more time that I can spend creating it.

Enjoy. Thanks for listening and for supporting independent art.