Hello music lovers!!!

Sorry for the blog delay, but things have been picking up musically as of late.  First of all on the EPOCH front we've been fighting the final details of our track, "Colossus".  Last night we finished adding and editing all the vocals and guitar leads.  It's amazing how good a quality mix can make a song sound.  "Colossus" really took shape as all the details got sorted out.  Now it stands to be one of the strongest tracks on the CD.  I'm sure next week will be more final touches to the track, but then it's on to the next song, "Zone 4".  "Zone 4" is one of our most progressive tracks so should prove to be quite the challenge to record in studio.  But we're up for it, chomping at the bit actually.  Things are definitely going in a positive direction for us now as we are all anxious to get out and start playing our material live again.  Tonight Progzilla (Mike of EPOCH) is hosting one of his famous jam parties where we get together with other bands and friends for a huge open jam secession.  They are always really fun and I get to do what I love the most, jam with various talented and cool musicians.  Guess I'm just a musical tramp at heart.  Oh well, love me or hate me for what I am I guess.  It's all good.

On the SongQuest front things couldn't be better.  The new material we've been writing has really inspired the band as of late and we've decided to start working on a fresh set to take out and play live.  This is something we've needed to do for a while and should prove to be a good kick in the butt for us.  The new tracks are as follows:

1)      Ashes to the Ocean Floor:

2)      Victims of Peril:

3)      Incantation:

4)      The Last March:

5)      Ambush at the Pass:

6)      Trying to Bleed Again:

All the tracks are extreme prog with a heavy emphasis on quality melodic vocal harmonies.  Which is a direction I've wanted to take for a long time now.  It all came to a head for me two weeks ago when I was left alone all night Saturday with a guitar in my hands and a head full of vocal melodies.  I plugged in my equipment to record and next thing I know I'm looking out the window seeing the sun coming up.  It proved to be a magical night that really inspired me.  I managed to write all of the lyrics and most of the music for the new tracks without a whole lot of conscious effort.  Any artist out there knows not to mess with the creative spirit when it's on a roll, so I just let it happen and I feel blessed.  I brought the ideas with me to our last Songquest jam secession and we managed to capture some of the freshest and most theatrical material in a long time.  So now we plan to solidify the best of the new stuff and take it out to the people.  Also, Brad just bought himself a new Roland Fantom XR keyboard brain.  The new sounds have inspired us all to step up our game (good job Brad, but you still owe buddy).   Tim, Bob and I have committed to meeting an extra night a week to work on material so that's proven to be a big help with the momentum too.  We've worked out most of the details to "Trying to Bleed Again", where I play bass (which I love) and sing and Bob plays guitar.  The concept behind the lyrics are essentially about trying to recapture feeling and emotions after living so many years in a numb and lifeless state.  The music rocks and grooves pretty hard so it's easy to capture ones attention with.  Yes, things are looking good in SongQuest world!  More details to come soon.

In the Valarien and Elohymn world things are also on the move.  Valarien has committed himself to getting together more often with Tim and I.  In fact we've penciled in a tentative secession for later on this month and one in April around the time of Progfest.  Our material is getting stronger and stronger with each secession so I look forward to some interesting developments in the not too distant future with that.  We've decided to start a MySpace page dedicated exclusively to that project so tune in later for news on that. 

One other interesting thing happening.  Tim's brother Jason who is a great lyric writer and hip hop artist has recruited Tim and I to back him on a weird Prog/Hop experiment that is coming together quickly.  The material we've come up with is severely groovy in a strong prog-rock way.  I was more surprised than anyone that this project would sound so good, but hey what the heck it's fun.  So look for details on seeing that un-named project come to life.  Ok, gotta get ready for the jam party.  Be excellent to each other and keep on Proggin! 

Love you all,

Randall.