EPISODE 3 - "Californizer & Normalizer 2"
Dear friends,
I thought it was about time for a long overdue update on everything. I recently returned from another successful recording session in Southern California, tracking at Doubletime Studios in El Cajon with Jeff Forrest and Griff Peter's Hilltop Frog Studio in Escondido. Again I was blessed to have Bryan Beller on bass and Marco Minnemann on drums - a real dream team rhythm section. We finished off a couple of tracks for "Reality Is My Plaything" (my next release) and we laid down the basic rhythm tracks for a new guitar instrumental album as well. The whole rehearsing and recording process was also captured on video tape for a special making of DVD which I'm hoping to release with the aforementioned guitar album. During my 3 week stay, I also hooked up with Mike Keneally who added some great lead and background vocals to some of the "Reality" songs. The overall results are superb and it was again both fun and inspiring making music with these guys. So now there is a wealth of new material and stunning performances eagerly waiting to burst out onto CD! I'm hoping for a summer release for "Reality Is My Plaything" - there are still a few vocal parts to finish off and Lalle Larsson's keyboard sections yet to track, but its finally all pulling together.
For those who can't wait that long for new stuff, I've just uploaded to my myspace page a sampler from the "Normalizer 2" project I recorded with Marco Minnemann. This is going to be a series of releases where each featured artist has written and recorded music to a 51 minute drum solo by Marco. So what you'll have are the same drum tracks for each album but completely different music on top, or as Marco puts it - different pizza toppings to his pizza dough drums. Artists in the series include Mike Keneally, John Czajkowski, Trey Gunn, Alex Machacek, Mario Brinkmann, Marco & myself. My own version, entitled, "Normalizer 2: Dance With The Anima", has a very cinematic feel, and while recording, the music conceptually morphed into a soundtrack for a series of "Anima" dreams I had last year. Compositionally I feel this album represents some of my best work to date. The track listing is as follows:
1. Adventures In Myth
2. Midnight Tryst
3. Ecstasies Of The Starlight Self
4. Lallejee's Animatronics
5. Inamorata In Peril - Part One
6. Dirt Under The Fingernails
7. Twisted To The 7th Degree Off Starboard
8. Four Daughters Of Phrygia
9. Inner Constellations Of Feeling
10. Melodies Of Me
11. Mariana's Guide To The Deep
12. Signposts
13. Dance With The Anima
14. The Tactile Ones
15. Synchronistic Mirrorball Gyrations
16. Melodies Of Me Too
17. Jade Fluid
18. Maid With Spanish Fly
19. Precipices
20. Inamorata In Peril - Part Two
21. Flirting With Intensity
22. A Healing Of Shattered Hearts
The CD also features some truly wonderful performances by Lalle Larsson on keyboards, as well as harmonica player Gary Compton from Harvest Record's 70's blues band Panama Ltd. It now looks like the whole series will be kicked off with a special compilation CD sequenced from sections from all of the above artists CDs.
You can also hear more clips from "Dance With The Anima" playing behind a chilled but quirky interview that I did with meta-creator Carl King about a month ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4fInvYowT0 Speaking of interviews, I'm also featured on Lalle Larsson's new Seven Deadly Pieces DVD - a captivating testimony to Lalle's creative genius and phenomenal musicianship. Its a real audio/visual treat - see
www.lallelarsson.com for more info.
Well, it'll be good to finally have several recording projects bare fruit this year.
Thank you all for your continued support.
Peace & best wishes,
Phi