I was inspired to write “When I Close My Eyes” while listening to Enigma Principles of Lust. Both songs have a very similar beat and mood. However, I wanted to make it even more atmospheric and visual. I kept envisioning being on a ship lost at sea during a storm and then finally seeing a light house.

iTunes | Amazon

THE STORY BEHIND THE SOUNDS
I have been asked before if I write music visually or emotionally. The creative process starts off visually and then emotionally. It is important for me to tell some kind of story with movement. The story doesn’t necessarily have to be dictated by words but also sounds. The song also needs to have some kind of conflicting emotional tension. The mood of a lot of my songs tend to be melancholic but will always have an uplifting ending to them. That is very important to me to have light at the end of the dark tunnel.

When I Close My Eyes overall has piano, strings, pads, music box, effects and a steady beat. There is a subtle harp and fluge horn during the verses. The harp represents the lighthouse guiding the ship while the fluge horn is the fog that dampens the light. I felt that the ending of the song had to have an uplifting crescendo to take the ship out of the storm. I was in the zone while recording the synth lead heard at the end. It was recorded in one take. Its purpose was to add a lot of tension in otherwise a very harmonic arrangement. Who wants to hear an ultra clean song anyway? The tension is then climaxed by the reintroduction of the string arrangements, arpeggiators, LFO effects, and reversed drums. I tend to love reverse sounds because they add a lot of psychedelic movement that doesn’t exist in the real world.

What do you see when you close your eyes?

I don’t consider myself to be a violent guy. The last time I got into a fist fight I can remember was probably in 8th grade. Not to say I didn’t have my share of bad burns by people I thought were friends in my later years. However, I always try to be passive and not acknowledge that person’s existence until my grudge is gone.

However, I’m not sure how I would react to someone cutting my face open though. Well, that’s exactly what happened in the film Daniel written and directed by Manuel Neves that I composed for staring Robert Seelinger. It is a story about a man named Daniel who is seeking revenge on the guys that severely hurt him and left him a massive scar on his face. Daniel is confronted with the emotional burden, which tests his relationships with his girlfriend and close friends Bray, Steven, and Rafi.

Daniel -- Part 1

Read more…

Delta Dreams Music At Albert Einstein Memorial

For the past year, I was given the privilege to provide music and sound engineering services for the Albert Einstein Memorial and National Academy of Sciences. I remastered the audio recordings of one of the first ever Albert Einstein interviews on his theory of relativity as well as other scientists.

My song Ibiza (Trance Mix) can also be heard at the beginning of the Cell Phone Tour.

Here is the tour guide in Cell Phone Tour in PDF format or you can call 202-595-1836.

This song was also licensed for the Equilon Pipeline (now Shell Oil) commercial as well as 2 feature films: Double Dare (Zoe Bell) and Searching For Paradise (Chris Noth)

UNSOUND METHODS
I basically removed a lot of the noise from the recording through EQ, filters, and noise gates effects using Digidesign ProTools. I also ran the audio recordings through compressors to even out the sound and make them louder. Compression essentially makes the quieter parts louder and the louder parts quieter producing an even consistent volume.

MORE INFORMATION
The tour is sponsored by the Cultural Programs of the  National Academy of Sciences (CPNAS)

For more information, you can visit

2101 Constitution Ave., NW,
Washington, DC, 20418
www.nationalacademies.org/arts

Jed from Bass Bandits and Wax Dolly Podcast contacted me on MySpace to see if he could remix Before My Eyes. I gladly obliged. His remix is wonderful and really sounds like New Order did it. Excellent driving bass lines and beats.

Download the Before My Eyes (New Order Remix) for FREE (Right click, Save As…)

Jed and his band Bass Bandits live in UK. We collaborated via the Internet by using SendSpace. I exported the stem tracks from ProTools (vocals, acoustic and lead guitars, synth lead) and he did his magic.

You can visit Jed and his Wax Dolly podcast http://waxdolly.comoj.com/podcasts.html

Ali Larter Shape Magazine

My Delta Dreams song Escape The Matrix was listed in SHAPE Magazine on with Ali Larter (OBSESSED / HEROES / Final Destination actress) on the front cover. The song was part of a monthly work out playlist.

The funny story is that I did not even know about that until a fan sent me a MySpace message. She said she was on the treadmill while reading the magazine and had to do a double take.

What a better way to wake up in the morning and seeing your music in a magazine with Ali Larter on the cover eh?

The music playlist is listed on page 148 in March 2008 Issue. The music is part of a 30 Minute Work Out Playlist. Other artists include Arctic Monkeys, Bruce Springsteen, Shooter Jennings, Louis XIV, White Rabbits, and Stacie Rose.

Shape Ali Larter (OBSESSED HEROES) and Delta Dreams

THE STORY BEHIND ESCAPE THE MATRIX
Escape The Matrix was originally meant to be a mega mix of my songs from the Dream In Stereo album put to a dance and drum and bass beat. It features some melodies, vocal samples, and atmospheres from the other songs.

I recorded it using the software based sequencer Cubase VST and had several other songs opened at the same time. I was almost done with it when I accidentally overwrote the track with one of my old songs. I lost 4 days worth of work! I was never so disappointed in myself. I got back on the wagon and it took me just 2 days to redo everything.

SUCCESS!
The brightside is that the song ended up being used on 2 major films:

• Searching For Paradise (HBO/Sundance) featuring Chris Noth (Mr. Big from Sex and the City / Law & Order) and Susan May Pratt (Drive Me Crazy) about a crazy girl obsessed with an actor. It was someone autobiographical according to the writer and director. You can hear it in the NYC subway and park scene.
• Double Dare – a double-barreled, action-packed documentary about two Hollywood stuntwomen, Jeannie Epper and Zoe Bell. Jeannie, who refuses to retire at sixty-two, doubled for Wonder Woman in the 70’s, and Zoe landed the coveted job doubling Xena at the age of eighteen as well as Uma Thurman’s double in Kill Bill. You can hear it during an Award Ceremony scene with Zoe being drunk. I met both Jeanie and Zoe at the film screening in New York City and must say they were both very wonderful. Zoe has a larger than life personality and I remember asking her if she was ever interested in acting. She said she never thought about it. Next thing I know she is a lead in Quentin Tarrantino Death Proof. Jeanie was very nice and it a pleasure hearing her stories over drinks.

So the moral of the story is to NEVER GIVE UP on ANYTHING you BELIEVE in!  One thing leads to another and you just never know.

Ali Larter appears in OBSESSED thriller with Beyonce Knowles on April 24, 2009