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Firefly Dream - Album release
I haven't being very active here lately. Been fighting my issues by burying myself into a musical project. It's now done: you can give it a try on bandcamp:
https://josephbalson.bandcamp.com/album/firefly-dream
here are the YouTube versions I'm slowly uploading:
Comments
Good to have you back posting Joseph, will make the time to listen later 🙏
I am slowly making my way through it this morning - beautiful work.
Just listened all the way through - it's awesome!
Amazing, as usual ! Glad to have you back here, we missed you (I did at least 😉)
Thank you guys ( @JanKun @richardyot @GeoTony ), I really appreciate a lot.
for those who do't like bandcamp, I'm in the process of uploading it on YouTube. I'm just super slow.
It will also be on most platform in. couple weeks if everything goes well.
Here is already the first track:
Wow. I just listened to the whole album on Bandcamp! Some really beautiful moments and some really suspenseful and quite unsettling moments. Love the deep string sounds you use and the articulations. What did you use to make this album?
My favourite is Insomnia (even though it doesn't have that string sound!). Well done indeed!
I enjoyed this. The thematic development was very good to my ears. I especially liked the repeated sonar buoy sound in the first tracks.
I appreciated when the hope broke through in the first track. I would like to hear more of that. Maybe because I like to do that … play with suspense/sadness and hope.
I particularly liked Requiem For A Soul. Super sad After the Giants Were Gone. I can only come up with this track, Azovstal as my saddest track. Of course, totally traditional as compared to what I think of as your industrial acoustic (that’s a compliment) Hope you don’t mind a discussion about sad music. So much more satisfying, IMO.
You’re very masterful at this serious expression. If that expression pleases you you’re way ahead of the game, IMHO.
Trying to find time from the day you posted it, I listened to a third of the album with interruptions. I realized from the beginning that I need the right mood, without interruptions, to listen to the whole thing so I can give a true impression. For now, I’m very interested, it’s deep and colorful. It’s on my ‘need to listen’ list. Great work. 👏
@AlterEgo_UK I started this album in GB on the Mac, thinking I would finish in NS2, but for some reason, I just did it all in GB. There really isn't anything fancy: sample patches I made in soundpaint, some short recordings of real instruments that tweaked and used in small phrases. For once, the final products differs quite a bit from the original things I wrote, and I have been reusing themes from previous music I made that I felt had a place here.
@LinearLineman I don't know if my music is sad, or hopeful, or something. I have issues identifying my own emotions and even more putting them in words, so I do it with music or photography. I'm not really aware of what I'm projecting until someone tells me. Doesn't mean I'm not trying to project something, just means I don't really know what it is most of the time. Anyway, sadness seems to quite fit what I feel most of the time. I totally don't mind a discussion about ad music even if I'm not sure I'm qualified to discuss the topic.
Unlike you, I can't really just sit at the piano improvise and BOOM: awesome result. I envy that skill. It's much slower and frustrating for me. At least I'm lucky enough to be able to write down on paper the music that's in my head. But it is also a bit like trying to draw on paper the Japanese dragon you see flying in the sky: it's moving, changing, and what you put down on paper never really can be what you saw in the sky.
Avostal evokes me lot if images, it is subtle, soft and powerful at the same time.
I like industrial acoustic.
@Luxthor That is exactly how it is supposed to be listened. Lot of albums including mines are meant to be a whole, listened without interruption. Doesn't make it easy to get people listening.
Just Listened to the whole album on good headphones… 🙏
In my mind there are a lot of similarities in the sound world and types of music that I am trying to do (and largely failing) and what you have actually achieved here. So given that I guess it’s inevitable that I like it 😊
The cello is so beautiful , I’m intrigued how you managed to get that level of expressivity?
The two ‘Giants…’ tracks were perhaps my favourites with Insomnia a close second and then really everything else… no weak tracks.
As @LinearLineman posted one of his tracks , I’ll take the same liberty, this is one I did last week that I think explores some of the same sounds / mood…
Your description of your feelings is profound, Joseph. Have you always had this deficit, even as a little boy? It feels like an emotional color blindness, but, as you say, you are projecting feelings that come across quite clearly.
You know, I met a woman a month ago who, very unexpectedly, I have fallen deeply for. However, when we first met I mistook a naturally occurring monotonic-Ish voice as an expression of unhappiness. I concluded from our first conversation that she was unsuitable as my experiences over the last 18 months, starting with my late wife’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s to her decision to stop eating and drinking (in hospice) to hasten her own death this past March to avoid a horrorshow decade or more in a facility, and my role in implementing her wishes, made me run from any unhappiness or depression.
Fortunately, and by luck, she cleared it up for me. Since that time I have come to love her voice and I have granularizedmy listening. Her range of modulation is limited top and bottom, so I listen within that truncated spectrum for subtler shifts in expression. I can hear the more subtle fluctuations now and while the monotonic quality is still there I can hear all the normal emotions.
I wonder, since there is musical emotion you create from a thinking/feeling place, if there is a range of
Feeling that requires a “magnifying glass” to perceive. The opposite, I guess, is like a person that has no pain sensation. They simply feel nothing.
I hope it’s okay that I write so frankly. You’ve been very open about your situation so I'm thinking it’s ok. Extraneously, verbal self expression has become more limited these days on the forum. I welcome the opportunity to have a discussion about something as real as you’re experiencing. I think you know that this place is full of kind hearts. While there is peace on ABF these days, the soup is not as thick.
@GeoTony, lol, that gets sadder and sadder, and the hopefulness is there. I think there’s a great difference in all our styles, but more between Joseph and us,
Joseph is using minimalism to create (IMO) a pure sadness and yet an illusory one. You and I incorporated fully developed melodic lines while Joseph overcame the note choice deficiency by charging each small section with intense energy. So the mind could then take these emotionally charged fragments and fill in, on its own, the emotional connection. Like a computer program can fill in the missing information to create a complete picture. That seems pretty hard to do but @jo92346 managed pull it off.
Lullaby For A Salamander - I really like how this develops. It reminds me of that game where a small group of people sit in a circle and whisper an idea to the person sitting next to them, but each one changes it a little bit. There is a basic theme but everyone contributes something new. Sometimes the end result is wildly different. Sometimes not. This technique is now on my short list. I have something that would work nicely with this process. It’s called On A Mission. I need to go back and reevaluate the transitions, but I’ll try for posting this weekend. Thanks for the inspiration!
Aurora Borealis - I love how the supporting voices create a solid foundation for the cello player. That is absolutely killer! When I was in college, there was a dude on my floor who played cello. He was a bit out there, but we clicked. Sometimes, at 2 in the morning he would go down to the student lounge and just start free associating. He was off in his own world. One night I sat down at the piano and started jamming with him. He didn’t even look up, but he would nod yes or no to my accompaniment. This reminded me of that.
I don’t find your music to be sad, at all. I dig it.
@Paulieworld, I use sadness for lack of a better word.
Great work @jo92346. Definitely have to listen to the album as whole to appreciate the development - as intended. I found the first half beautifully minimal, meditative and calming. With a preference for the second half (Insomnia onwards) for the progressively richer harmonic themes - darker, but more expressive. Good to have you back. Thanks for sharing.
@GeoTony who are you to say you're failing? most genuine artists know they're failing. I know I'm failing too. But then I read people who like my work. I like your work. They like your work. They can't be all lying about it. That might mean we're not failing, artistically at least. Economically, oh yes we are failing miserably, but it doesn't really matter.
Expressivity? I don't really know. I don't quantize, and use 3 faders for expression and sample crossover/mixing.
Phone home is beautiful and soft and raw. the modesty in the writing makes it powerful, I love the kinda offsetting of the cello part (for lack of better way to describe it) and the repetitive motif. Not a failure.
@LinearLineman Yes I was like that when I was a kid, it was actually much worse. But even if I learned a little since, I can't say it is of any real help. Your analogy with the voice is interesting, so is the one with the magnifying glass, but that doesn't really apply to me. It means you're super good at noticing minute differences in someone's expression of feelings/emotions, and interpreting them properly.
I don't think I lack emotion, they are quite pretty strong, I just can't name them, or recognize them properly in other people ( which made my whole life a mess of misunderstandings and awkward moments ). Well, after so many decades on earth, I don't mistake anger in people for happiness anymore, or contempt for interest. At least most of the time. Still on a day to day basis I keep preferring avoiding any social interaction.
That is where music (and photography) comes in. If putting words on things doesn't work, notes and images do. That I actually like or not the end result (most often not) I think my music reflects the emotions/feeling I had when writing it. Can't really explain it in written form, but when after I listen to a piece I made, it matches the memory of the emotion at that time. I'm lucky I can do that (perfect pitch that abandoning me for months and classic music education helps), because if I couldn't, all those emotion would stay inside and I'd have exploded years ago.
Now, the mystery is: I think my music matches my emotions, can express it, but does that mean that what the listener gets from it is what I was actually projecting? Let's say someone thinks a piece is hopeful: was it what I was actually feeling and projecting? Or is my music capable of evoking in the listener what I was feeling? Or does they feel something entirely different? there is no real way to know since words are just agreed conventions: they work only for the people who share the same understanding and experience associated with the word. I think most normal people do share the same kind of experience associated with sadness or hopefulness or happiness, etc. In my case, I can't be sure.
The use of minimalism comes from the philosophy of "less is more". Like in the horror movie, you're afraid of the monster in the shadow, but as soon as you see it it just becomes a neat puppet or some CGI and it isn't frightening anymore. I chose most of the time to not show the monster. A few years ago, I was using a big PC music workstation capable of almost unlimited real time low latency tracks rendering. Going from that to the iPad and my old MacBook actually helped a lot "uncluterring" my music. When NS2 crashes because of too much load, I know I'm doing something wrong. Technical limitations always were the triggers for creative solutions.
I think, in the case of this genre of music, it is important to trust the listener: they are capable of filling the musical holes unconsciously. Someone said "the most important notes are the ones you don't ear". I'm totally on board with that. Economy of notes in the writing, mixing some tracks almost to a subliminal level: someone else said "you don't need the ninth in a 11th chord." Maybe that was the same guy.
@Paulieworld I really like these comparisons. Retrospectively it makes total sense.
@pbelgium yes the two halves are quite different. they are supposed to be the two sides of the same coin. Goodnight the the owl being teh end of the first half, insomnia being teh transition and closed windows the beginning of the second half.
Your album is great. The cello in some tracks (Firefly Dream one of my favourite) is heartbreaking, I wish I'll get to your level of expressiveness when composing one day
Where do the cello sound comes from? Is that you playing the instrument or some samples/vst/app?
Beautiful!
Thanks @unlink
the cello is just a lot of samples assembled in soundpaint. had to fight with some phasing because of the fader assigned to crossover, but overall I like it.
Just listened to Lullaby for a salamander. On a visceral level it’s beautiful to listen to. Made me feel sad and happy at the same time. Nostalgic is another word. On the compositional technique level, the way you stated and then developed that rhythmic motif gives it cohesion. The tried and true arch form gives it balance. Great composition. Gonna listen to the others now.
@Paulieworld i like the game analogy. Heres a crazy idea… I would love to hear some of you prolific masters out there play that game with a musical idea. One of you sends a recorded musical snippet (a minute?) to someone else. Then that person comes up with their version and sends it, but not the original, to somebody else. And so on. Nobody hears what anybody wrote except the one right before them. Then when everyone has done their versions, you all hear everyone’s take on it and how it changed from the original. Maybe string them together to make a kind of theme and variations. Given the extremely different styles, methodologies , and philosophies out there, should be interesting.
I would really like that. I remember the first time I played it was in Cub Scouts. I can’t remember much more than that, but everyone got a laugh out of it. I have a few things that I started and never finished. Can I send you one? No rush. I’ve got two things that I promised myself I would finish, but perhaps after that!
@Paulieworld sure! I would be honored.
This is the one I'm most happy with:
Still uploading one a day on YouTube.
I've been listening to your album this week. It's beautiful, this track particularly stands out.
Also the Piano album is great, and your nature photography is stunning.
Awesome work!
I recently read this from ee cummings: “I am an artist, a man, a failure and an artist, man, failure must proceed!”
and also this:
"A lot of people think or believe or know they feel — but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling — not knowing or believing or thinking.
Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself."
Then just saw this quote by a guy writing about a particular piece by Mozart:
“ …a bitter hymn to the inevitablity of artistic solitude.”
I usually don't try to express a particular feeling. For me one of the main enjoyments of making music is discovering the "feeling" as I make it. often surprising which makes it interesting.
@Stochastically must mean you have other way to express those feelings. I envy that. I live those quotes, quite deep.
Thank you so much @SpookyZoo
Geisha's lament is so beautiful, every articulation crafted with such care.
Thanks @belldu . this one took a (very)long time to put together.
The whole firefly dream project started in summer 2019.
Finally listened to the whole album in one piece. Ohh, what to say, It was like a journey to a distant world for me. Everything is clean and transcribable, nothing is alien to me. Same mood and vibe through the whole album, like it a lot. It's a true piece of masterwork.
From the start I noticed a discrepancy in song naming with my vision and emotions, so I listened without looking at the names , I made notes related to the list numbers. No worries, I barely ever found naming to be equal to my perception. (Disclaimer: I will transcribe my experience through the words, I'm a visual illustrator more than a poet, actually I’m not a poet at all, so be aware! )
My experience of listening to the album. Started easy (1. to 3.), attracting you in, bit by bit, walking through meadow to the dense ancient forest. On the way relaxing in the shadow of enormous monuments. Till you find yourself in the middle of the story (4. to 5.), struggling with emotion then suddenly opening the door to the thrilling moments of realization.
Then for me the most beautiful part from 6. to 11. I find myself in the vast valley waiting for the sunrise, remembering the good times, uncertainty, hope, regret, life.
Crown of all things is at the ending, swipe that all uncertainty and unleash the will for life in small things.
That's that, I hope you can extract something meaningful from this. I certainly enjoyed listening, cheers!
Thank you for listening and sharing what you experienced @Luxthor . I find it fascinating what people can get from music. You're not that far from what I intended in terms of visual impressions.