<![CDATA[Erika Lynn Adams - Music, Bands, and Other Creations of Sound]]>

<![CDATA[Erika Lynn Adams - Music, Bands, and Other Creations of Sound]]>Sun, 07 Jun 2026 23:01:59 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Muse-icians: Mythos]]>Fri, 02 May 2025 18:35:14 GMThttps://www.elatales.com/music/muse-icians-mythos

1996-Present, Ages 12 and Up
Gather round and I’ll tell you the tale of a music lawyer and a classical guitarist by day, New-age duo by night.
(5/2/25)

We’ve all heard stories of our favorite celebrities and artists working ordinary day jobs before achieving or to finance their creative fame. I myself have worn several occupation hats in between writing over the years: fast-food worker, ticket-taker, candy-seller, TV production assistant, among others. Yet, as I was researching this music project, I was amazed to learn just how many in that one industry specifically studied law! These include but are in no way limited to: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, creator of the much-performed ballets, Swan Lake and The Nutcracker; Francis Scott Key, composer of “The Star-Spangled Banner;” Columbia Records producer Clive Davis; and Paul Simon of the folk-rock duo, Simon & Garfunkel. Now, I’ll readily admit that I know as much about law as I do the meaning of life, but few professions could interest me less. Yet such an apparent juxtaposition just goes to show how employees and artists are not mutually exclusive, as is the case of half of this musical duo.

Born September 24th, 1964, in British Hong Kong, Bob D’Eith grew up training as a classical and jazz pianist in West Vancouver, British Columbia, playing in several semi-professional bands until finishing high school. He later earned degrees in History and Law from the University of Victoria. Joining Alternative Rock group Rymes with Orange as keyboardist in 1991, he toured Canada many times before stepping back to be a co-managing non-touring member of the band, during which it received a Juno Award nomination for Best New Artist and he himself was honored with a Best keyboardist nomination at Canadian Music Week. During all this, he started his own private practice in real estate and entertainment law, having worked as counsel for various law firms throughout the 1990’s. He also served as a member of the British Columbia Legislative Assembly for Maple Ridge-Mission from May 2017 to September 2024, and as Parliamentary Secretary for Arts and Film from December 2022 to November 2024. As of writing, he practices solely as a music lawyer and is both Executive Director of the British Columbia music association Music BC and President of the music label and consulting company, Adagio Music.

It was after D’Eith’s time with Rymes with Orange and several years of urging from his father that he teamed up with his brother’s best friend from high school, classically-trained guitarist Paul Schmidt. The idea behind what would eventually become Mythos was to create music better suited for film and TV rather than for commercial radio, as well as showcase the duo’s composing ability. Ironically, it was around this time that instrumental songs—New-age and otherwise—were beginning to make their way onto radio. The duo decided to try their luck and send in one of their early EP’s, “November,” which immediately became a hit. Their first two studio albums, Introspection (1996) and Iridescence (1997), were released under D’Eith’s Spark Records label with next to no publicity outside of Canada. But after Mythos was picked up by Higher Octave Music, said albums were reworked and combined into the project’s eponymous album in 1998, earning D’Eith and Schmidt greater exposure and acclaim, including a #18 spot on the Billboard Top New-age Album list the following year. Incidentally, like several of my favorite New-age artists, my own exposure to Mythos was via the New-age compilation CD series, Pure Moods, “November” being their contributed track.

Though D’Eith and Schmidt are the musical heart and soul of Mythos, and though their name is literally the Greek word for myth, the duo brings the “world” into their world music. Rather than recruit long-time members like a traditional band, they instead bring in several renowned guests for their myriad albums, from musicians like Jazz singer Jennifer Scott, who’s performed at Jazz festivals all over Canada and the U.S, and virtuoso bass-player Rene Worst, who’s worked with big names like David Bowie and Aerosmith, to technical artists like engineer and mixer Mark Hensley, who won a 2018 Emmy for his sound design on the Netflix series, Genius.

Speaking of the world, I can no longer see Mythos’s cover art and not think about the two weeks I spent in Italy back in high school. As of 2025, the artwork of every album was done by visionary painter and sculpture, Gil Bruvel. Inspired by the likes of Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, and Georgio de Chirico, his work to me is like Hieronymus Bosch if he was inspired by Cirque du Soleil. Each cover features the face and/or body of a woman as the centerpiece, wearing an ornate costume ball-like mask or outfit, sometimes surrounded by what I interpret as Italian puppet/jester iconography: vibrant and spirited but also mysterious and sensual. Many such minute details hide both in front and inside the booklets that you could spend hours scrutinizing the imagery and find something new each time.

For Mythos’ later albums, staring with their fifth, Journey, Bruvel began a shift away from the elaborate background details while making the female centerpiece more geometric and abstract with more subdued color palates. While I do miss the old European romance of the former, I see the experimental vibe of the latter as an evolution rather than a downgrade.

Even if one listens to Mythos without knowing D’Eith and Schmidt’s names or history, one can still get a clear sense of their comradery. That’s not to say they don’t each excel as soloists, though there are very few such pieces in their entire roster. D’Eith’s piano-playing has a purity to it: as bold and powerful as a youth in his prime, or as sincere and meditative as an old man reflecting on his life.

Schmidt’s acoustic guitar reminds me a lot of flamenco, as quick and passionate as a Spanish dancer, yet it can also be as gentle and romantic as a waiting lover.

(A quick side note for anime fans: Am I mistaken, or is that a snippet of Schmidt’s song “La Cathedral” which plays about nineteen minutes into episode 10 of Hellsing?)

But it’s the duets that truly make Mythos shine. Through their masterful skills at their respective instruments, the two men together offer many unique combinations of moods and tones, making their songs all the richer and more dynamic.

As mentioned earlier, though primarily instrumental, Mythos does include some vocalization. You know how most vocal songs in general place the singer in the forefront while the instrumentation backs them up? Well, Mythos does the opposite: the singers do the backing up here, to the point of becoming their own instrument alongside the strings, synth, and percussion. While not so quiet they can’t be heard at all, they are often soft enough to blend right in while the piano and guitar retain center stage.

For better or worse, the same goes for the very rare few songs which do feature actual lyrics, whether due to the piano and guitar being the main attraction or just the sheer vocal volume or lack thereof. If you compare, for example “Turn to Grey” and “Dreams of Jade,” I think the latter song is stronger because of Jennifer Scott’s deeper and more commanding voice while Christine Duncan’s higher and more delicate one is so faint it almost feels distracting. Almost.

Activities like practicing music law or traveling to Europe can seem commonplace on the surface, yet in the right context they can lead to memorable experiences. Music from a single source that could feel equally at home in a modern cafe or a retro Sonic the Hedgehog game is equally memorable, especially when it comes from a place of friendship and creativity. This is the specialty of Mythos, two talented friends combining ordinary piano and guitar and various World styles and music professionals to produce an extraordinary array of timeless, nostalgic, and imaginative auditory art.

CREDITS:
Special thanks to KTWH 99.5 Two Harbors Community Radio. All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

MAIN THEME:
“The Call” - Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

https://www.briandmorrison.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BriandMorrisonGuitar/
https://www.youtube.com/user/briandmorrison

All other songs are by Mythos:

“Brazil” (from Mythos [1998])
“November” (from Mythos [1998])
“Destiny” (from The Reality of a Dreamer [2000])
“Venice” (from The Reality of a Dreamer [2000])
“Legacy (Featuring Cam Blake)” (from XXV [2021])
“Motif” (from Mythos [1998])
“Introspection” (from Mythos [1998])
“Leyenda” (from Eternity [2002])
“Reveries” (from The Reality of a Dreamer [2000])
“La Cathedral” (from Mythos [1998])
“Alchemy” (from The Reality of a Dreamer [2000])
“Surrender” (from Purity [2006])
“Duet” (from Journey [2013])
“Ascent” (from Eternity [2002])
“Adagio” (from Purity [2006])
“Turn to Grey” (from Eternity [2002])
“Dreams of Jade” (from Eternity [2002])
“Paradox” (from Mythos [1998])

Download the full 15-minute episode here!

Mythos on Wikipedia

Mythos’s Official Website

Mythos's Facebook Page

Mythos’s Official YouTube Channel

Scott Haskin's 2022 Interview with Bob D'Eith and Paul Schmidt

Mythos on Spotify

Mythos on Apple Music

Mythos on Discogs

Mythos on Amazon

Mythos on eBay

^^ Back to Music, Bands, and Other Creations of Sound

]]><![CDATA[Songs of the Wanderer: Loreena McKennitt]]>Fri, 01 Jan 2021 21:16:42 GMThttps://www.elatales.com/music/songs-of-the-wanderer-loreena-mckennitt

1985-98, 2006-2019, Ages 13 and Up
Gather round and I’ll tell you the tale of a lady whose music breathes new life into history’s most ancient, exotic and passionate stories.
(1/1/21)

I’ve been making up stories in my mind since childhood, though I seldom put them to paper. It wasn’t until high school that I really began to write seriously and regularly in my spare time. Nor was it until my sophomore year that I found a teacher who took that writing just as seriously. Enter Mrs. Lloyd, 10th grade English. Upon learning about my Auditory Processing Disorder, she gave me a very special gift: Reach For the Moon, a book of poems by Samantha Abeel. Like me, Abeel had a learning disability that severely hindered her in school, but she found solace and strength in the act of writing. Mrs. Lloyd later gave me another gift. I had once mentioned to her that I was growing increasingly fond of this New Age/Celtic artist from my Pure Moods CD collection. Imagine my delighted surprise when she gave me two of said artist’s CDs to keep. Turns out she was a longtime fan! And so, Mrs. Lloyd, this one’s for you.

A lady born of Irish and Scottish descent in Morden, Manitoba, McKennitt originally studied veterinary medicine, but opted instead to become a musician upon discovering artists like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and Gordon Lightfoot. Her passion further blossomed when she traveled to Ireland to hear authentic Celtic music for herself. From there, she took up busking around Canada to pay for the recording of her first album. As of 2018, she has released ten studio albums and six live albums under her own label, Quinlan Road, and provided music for T.V. shows like Highlander: The Series (1992-98) and Legacy (1998-99), documentaries like Full Circle (Women and Spirituality) (1993), and movies like The Mists of Avalon (2001) and Tinker Bell (2008), just to name a few.

She’s received many Grammy nominations and Juno wins, as well as Billboard’s International Achievement Award in 1997, and even performed the Opening Ceremonies at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. But it’s not only her music that’s made her so distinguished. In 1998, she founded the Cook-Rees Memorial Fund For Water Search and Safety, following the tragic drowning of her fiancé, Ronald Rees, his brother Richard, and their close friend Gregory Cook, in a boating accident (hence McKennitt’s ‘98-‘06 hiatus). She donated all of the three-million-dollar profits from her then-latest album, Live in Paris and Toronto to the fund. Moreover, on top of being an Honorary Doctor of many fields from various Canadian universities, she is also a member of the Orders of Canada and Manitoba; a recipient of Queen Elizabeth’s Golden and Diamond Jubilee Medals and the Canadian Forces Decoration; and a Knight of France’s Order of Arts and Letters.

I believe this love and respect for her fellow man and their stories is a driving force behind the noble grace of McKennitt’s songs. Besides her skill with the piano, harp, and accordion, her dramatic soprano vocals ebb and flow from soft and whispery to powerful and operatic, resulting in a voice filled with dignity and compassion. Her inspiration is firmly grounded in real-world history and culture, an authenticity which makes the quality of her music all the more majestic and haunting:

"Breaking the Silence"

From the troubled heart of South Africa
Nicaragua's festering sore
The turmoil on the streets of China
Death crying out for more

But oh my heart be strong
And guide when eyes grow dim
When ears grow deaf with empty words
When I know there's life within

The ways in which McKennitt pays such tribute come in many lyrical and thematic forms. Her earlier albums are comprised almost entirely of covers of traditional Irish, Scottish, and English folk songs. Her mature yet spirited inflections make her sound as if she herself lived and breathed and sang during those ancient times, from “Blacksmith” a boisterous song belying a tale of love found and love spurned:

"Blacksmith"

A blacksmith courted me
Nine months and better
He fairly won my heart
Wrote me a letter
With his hammer in his hand
He looked quite clever
And if I was with my love
I'd live forever.

To “The Wexford Carol,” as glorious and humbling as the Nativity it praises:

"The Wexford Carol"

Good people all, this Christmas-time
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done
In sending his beloved Son.

I’m particularly fond of her homages to the finest poets and writers in Western literature in the form of her setting their written pieces to music, partly because I’m always reminded of my British poetry and Romanticism courses in college whenever I hear them. Her rendition of “Stolen Child” by William Butler Yeats is filled with as much maternal warning as bedtime story fantasy:

"Stolen Child"

The drowsy water-rats
There we've hid our faery vats
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries

Come away, O human child
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand.

Alfred Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” she treats with the slow, somber beauty of a funeral befitting the tragic life and death of its title maiden:

"The Lady of Shalott"

There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay,
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.

And with sensual use of guitar and violin and the galloping beat of a dashing desperado, she fully captures the olden day intrigue and romance of Alfred Noyes’ “The Highwayman.”

"The Highway Man"

He'd a French cocked hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle; his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

In the mid 90’s and the early 2000’s, McKennitt began to broaden her geographical horizons, and her musical ones along with them. Her extensive travels and experiences through Spain, Morocco, Greece, and other Mediterranean countries add a fresh spice that compliments rather than clashes with her traditional Celtic sound. But more than that, they celebrate the countries’ respective cultures and the people who shaped their histories. I find this quality exceptionally strong in her instrumental pieces. For example, she plays for us the story of “Marco Polo,” the famed Venetian merchant whose explorations opened the eyes of Europe to the mysteries of Asia and beyond. And “Kecharitomene” (a Greek word meaning “full of Grace”) is the name of the convent in which Anna Comnena, an 11th century princess and writer who painstakingly chronicled the history of the Byzantine Empire, spent her final days.

But like all journeys, when one begins, another inevitably ends. In October 2019, McKennitt officially announced that she is stepping away from music production indefinitely in order to spend time with her family and to focus on efforts to fight global warming and to address the harmful effects of technology, even going so far as to quit Facebook the year before. I commend her for facing and discussing these serious issues, as we threaten to lose sight of our earth and each other with the world’s ever-increasing reliance on technology. Whether or not we hear new songs from her in the future, I wish her the very, very best.

In the Jim Henson’s The Storyteller episode, “Hans My Hedgehog,” there is a line repeated throughout that describes the title character’s bagpipe music:

“It was a sound both bitter and sweet, beginning in hello and ending in goodbye.”

If there is a real-life musician that embodies this sentiment, it’s Loreena McKennitt. With her elegant singing she invites and greets with open arms; with her passionate playing she bids a fond and poignant farewell. Showing great respect for other musical styles outside her ancestral one, she creates a beautifully unique new-age sound all her own. But more importantly, she uses that very sound to preserve the legacies and honor the rights of all mankind whose emotions, desires, and questions are universally shared regardless of ethnicity and era. Every one of her songs is its own pilgrimage, as much a spiritual experience of humanity as a sonic excursion into antiquity.

CREDITS:
Special thanks to KTWH 99.5 Two Harbors Community Radio. All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

MAIN THEME:
“The Call” – Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

https://www.briandmorrison.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BriandMorrisonGuitar/
https://www.youtube.com/user/briandmorrison

All other songs are by Loreena McKennitt:

“The Mummers’ Dance” (from The Book of Secrets [1997])
“The Mystic’s Dream” (from The Mask and Mirror [1994])
“Breaking The Silence” (from Parallel Dreams [1989])
“Blacksmith” (from Elemental [1985])
“The Wexford Carol” (from To Drive the Cold Winter Away [1987])
“Stolen Child” (from Elemental [1985])
“The Lady of Shalott” (from The Visit [1991])
“The Highwayman” (from The Book of Secrets [1997])
“Marco Polo” (from The Book of Secrets [1997])
“Kecharitomene” (from An Ancient Muse [2006])
“The Old Ways” (from The Visit [1991])
“Lost Souls” (from Lost Souls [2018])

Download the full 15-minute episode here!

Loreena McKennitt on Wikipedia

Loreena McKennitt’s Official Website

Loreena McKennitt’s Twitter Page

Loreena McKennitt’s Official YouTube Channel

Loreena McKennitt on Spotify

Loreena McKennitt on Discogs

Loreena McKennitt at Barnes & Noble

Loreena McKennitt on Amazon

Loreena McKennitt on eBay

^^ Back to Music, Bands, and Other Creations of Sound

]]><![CDATA[A Young Angels' Symphony: Libera]]>Sun, 31 Mar 2019 21:25:01 GMThttps://www.elatales.com/music/a-young-angels-symphony-libera

1995-Present, Safe for All Ages
Gather round and I’ll tell you the tale of a group of boys whose voices are as pure and infinite as their name.
(12/7/18)

If there’s one regret that I have, it’s that I never took up an instrument as a child, as I was too focused on keeping my grades in check. That’s not to say I didn’t get my music fix in my education; I did the next best thing and became a choir singer. Due to the myriad musical tastes of my various teachers, the repertoire of songs I performed became increasingly eclectic over the years, from Billboard hits and Latin hymns to indigenous chants and Christmas jingles, both instrumental and acapella, and even with props once in a while. By the time I became a second alto in high school, I’d gained a special appreciation for group vocalization in music. Choirs truly remind me of the dedication it takes not only to develop one’s singing voice to artistic levels, but to do it as a team, creating richer, more powerful sounds. And few exemplify that dedication—or that power—better than these boys.

Libera was founded by Robert Prizeman, British composer, graduate of the Royal College of Music, and choirmaster since 1970. Its first members came from the Anglican parish of St. Philip’s, Norbury, in South London, releasing their first commercial album under the name St. Philip’s Choir. In 1990, they released their second, this time under the new name Angel Voices. The group would use both names on subsequent albums throughout the 90’s. It was in 1999 that the group took Libera as its official commercial name, when Prizeman released a CD containing remixes of his song, “Libera”, and the group released what would be their self-titled album later that same year. The Latin singular of “liberare” (“to free”), the name comes from the group’s signature song, based on the Libera Me portion of the Requiem Mass:

Libera me domine de morte

Are you the friend I cannot see
Are you the one who cares for me
It’s only you can set me free
Aeterna

Not only have they toured in numerous countries all over North America, Europe, and Asia, but they’ve even had the honor of singing for two popes: Pope Benedict XVI in 2008, and Pope Francis in 2016. They also became a registered charity in 2007, with a U.S. arm set up in 2014. Soundtrack contributions include the films Shadowlands (1993) and Hannibal (2001), among others, and—one of my personal favorites—soloist Steven Geraghty for the Playstation 2 game, ICO (2001).

Consisting of approximately forty members, ranging in age from eight to sixteen from all over London, most possess unchanged boy soprano (treble) voices, with the lower parts being sung by the teens. As their director, Prizeman strives to emphasize the different qualities and ranges of the boys’ voices, both individually as soloists and together as a group. Prizeman structures nearly all of Libera’s songs in one of two ways. Some pieces, like “Time”, are his own original compositions, his gift for poetic lyrics complimenting the exquisitely solemn nature of the music they are paired with:

I rise in the spark of life, the dawn of all time.
I call to the world still yet to be.
The music is everywhere, in life, in the sea and air
to join in the powerful song of all eternity.

Other times he arranges new songs from classical or contemporary pieces. Regarding the former, I’m especially impressed by songs whose source material was originally instrumental, such as “Air”, based on “Air on the G String” by Johann Sebastian Bach; “Lacrymosa”, based on the “Aquarium” movement of Camille Saint-Saëns's The Carnival of the Animals:

Lacrymosa
Dolorosa
Voca Me
Libera
Salva Me

You are the voice that calls in the silence
You are the light that shines in the dark
You hold me in any sorrow
See me through every shadow
Salve Me

or “The Fountain”, based on “Prelude in C Minor” by Frédéric Chopin:

Dolorosa, flumenosa, desolata, lacrimabila

Libera projects a distinct aura of comfort and tranquility. Their album covers feature numerous symbols of peace, especially white ones: doves, swans, sunlight, clouds, stars, and snow, just to name a few. They will often perform in their signature white cowls (hooded robes), especially when live. I think Libera means to touch listeners, namely ordinary people, who strive and long for a better world and a better future. The booklets of their first two albums, Libera and Luminosa, features inspirational quotes from various authors and philosophers throughout history. When read together, they seem to present the central theme of their respective album, the first representing freedom:

“Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.”
- Voltaire

Free me to fly away
Salva me

And the second representing light:

“The light of the sun is but the shadow of love.”
- Henry David Thoreau

Keep me as the apple of thine eye
Hide me under the shadow of thy wings
Keep me as the apple of thine eye
Hide me, hide me, hide me
Hide me, hide me, hide me

Starting with their third album, Free, the quotes were replaced with song lyrics; truth be told, as much as I like knowing the lyrics so I can sing along, I really do miss those beautiful quotes. (Sigh)

With such an air of exalted purity, it may be hard to remember that these boys, like those quotes, are human at their core. They consider themselves as “an alternate kind of boy band” rather than a group of “choirboys”; for all their divine harmonies and musical fame, they are all still regular boys, and they are proud of that. In fact, sometimes they trade their robes in for white or black hoodies with slacks, or even entirely casual clothing in the case of their music videos. And as I mentioned, their catalogue isn’t limited only to church hymns or classical pieces. Speaking from personal experience as well as personal opinion, not many songs transition well to the choir style, especially those of fundamentally differing genres like Rock and Pop. But these kids have the practice of song covering down to a fine art—literally. They add a youthful vigor to the already refreshing “Orinoco Flow” by Enya:

Sailway, Sailway, Sailway
Sailway, Sailway, Sailway
Sailway, Sailway, Sailway
Sailway, Sailway, Sailway

From Bissau to Palau in the shade of Avalon
From Fiji to Tiree and the isles of Ebony
From Peru to Cebu, feel the power of Babylon
From Bali to Cali, far beneath the Coral Sea

They bring harmonious virtue to a new level in their rendition of “From a Distance”, written by Julie Gold and popularized by Bette Midler:

From a distance there is harmony
And it echoes through the land
It's the voice of hope
It's the voice of peace
It's the voice of every man

“Wayfaring Stranger”, a 19th-century American folk song sung by such musicians as Johnny Cash and Neil Young, is made all the more poignant and melancholy for being sung by children:

I am a poor wayfaring stranger
a travelling through this world of woe
But there's no sickness toil or danger
in that bright land to which I go

And in Celine Dion and Andrea Bochelli’s “The Prayer”, the tear-inducing love and spirituality is flawlessly retained:

Let this be our prayer
When shadows fill our day
Lead us to a place
Guide us with your grace
Give us faith so we'll be safe.

Historically, choirs have been associated primarily with the church. And, in many respects, Libera is no exception. However, they achieve something that few other choirs of this kind have. Their rich, clear vocals and fresh musical approach give strength to words and sounds that emanate from the distant past in order to create a message of hope and peace that can resonate with those living in today’s world. Whether through the caress of a single, soft note or two, or the rush of a glorious harmony, even children are more than capable of reaching people’s hearts as well as their ears.

CREDITS:
Special thanks to KTWH 99.5 Two Harbors Community Radio. All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

MAIN THEME:
“The Call” - Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

https://www.briandmorrison.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BriandMorrisonGuitar/
https://www.youtube.com/user/briandmorrison

All other tracks are by Libera:

“I Am the Day” (from Free [2004])
“Libera” (from Libera [1999])
“Do Not Stand at my Grave” (from Free [2004])
“Te Lucis” (Based on “Canon” by Tallis) (from Libera [1999])
“Time” (from Peace [2010])
“Air” (Air on the G String by Bach) (from New Dawn [2008])
“Lacrymosa” (Based on “Aquarium” from Carnival of the Animals by Saint Saens) (from Luminosa [2001])
“The Fountain” (Based On “Prelude in C Minor” by Chopin) (from Peace [2010])
“Salve Me” (from Libera [1999])
“Vespera” (from Luminosa [2001])
“Orinoco Flow” (from New Dawn [2008])
“From a Distance” (from Hope [2017])
“Wayfaring Stranger” (from Hope [2017])
“The Prayer” (from Beyond [2018])
“Never Be Alone” (from New Dawn [2008])

Download the full 15-minute episode here!

Libera on Wikipedia

Robert Prizeman on Wikipedia

Libera's Official Website

Libera's Official Facebook Page

Libera's Official Twitter Page

Libera's Official YouTube Channel

Libera on Discogs

Libera on Apple Music

Libera on Barnes & Noble

Libera on Amazon

Libera on eBay

^^ Back to Music, Bands, and Other Creations of Sound

]]><![CDATA[Teens of the Galaxy: M83]]>Sun, 31 Mar 2019 13:51:18 GMThttps://www.elatales.com/music/teens-of-the-galaxy-m83

2001-Present, Ages 16 and Up
Gather round and I’ll tell you the tale of a band whose sound matches the nature of the spiral galaxy from which it takes its name.
(4/6/18)

I discovered Owl City on my car radio in the UMD parking lot. About a year or so later, I discovered this music project at UMD as well, this time while I was at a vending table in the hallway outside the bookstore, selling copies of The Roaring Muse, the official magazine of UMD’s Literary Guild. Many of the other vendors advertising their own respective clubs, charities, and causes would often play music on their laptops, presumably to alleviate the boredom or, more likely, to grab people’s attention—like mine, for instance. On the other side of one of the pillars that stood behind my table, another table was playing the chorus of a song I was unfamiliar with. Truth be told, it did sound a little annoying at first, being mixed with the hustle and bustle of students and teachers and all the other noises of the campus. Even so, the series of notes rhythmically punctuating the air in a sort of high-pitched staccato was too intriguing to ignore. I decided to take a quick break from my own vending duties to go to the table and ask the boy there about the song’s title and its artist, which he very kindly provided. As soon as I got home, I was able to listen to the song properly. And I have to say, in retrospect, college couldn’t have been a more appropriate time or place to hear this music for the first time—except for high school, maybe.

Though originally a duo featuring Nicholas Fromageau, today M83’s sole official member is its creator, Anthony Gonzalez, a vocalist, songwriter, and record producer from Antibes, France. After an injury at the age of 14 left him unable to play football, an interest that he shared with his family, his parents bought him a guitar, encouraging him to develop a keen interest in music. He would go on to form the project M83 with Fromageau three years later, though the latter would ultimately leave it 2009 in order to pursue his own music career. The band is named after Messier 83, one of the sky’s closest and brightest spiral galaxies; so close, in fact, that it is fully capable of being seen with binoculars. Located approximately 15 million light-years away from earth in the constellation Hydra, it is also known in the New General Catalogue in Nebulae and Clusters of Stars as NGC 5236, as well as the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, due to its resemblance to the Pinwheel Galaxy found in the constellation Ursa Major (a.k.a. the Great Bear).

And now that I’ve thoroughly bored you all with that random astronomy lesson, back to the music!

Inspired by such bands as My Bloody Valentine, Pink Floyd, and Tangerine Dream, M83’s electronic sound is laced with a distinct 1980’s vibe, a combination of contemporary pop and the dream pop of the same decade. The aforementioned song, “Midnight City”, has been featured not only in a variety of shows, films, and commercials, both in Europe and North America, but even in the 2012 UEFA European Championship and the London 2012 Olympic Games. Moreover, North American listeners will likely recognize M83’s songs from many films of the early 2010’s, including, but not limited to: the entire soundtrack of Oblivion; “I Need You” in Divergent; “Wait”, in The Fault in our Stars; and “Another Wave from You” and “Outro” in the remake of The Gambler.

Having first heard “Midnight City” and its corresponding album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming (the sixth), and from there, its fifth, Saturdays = Youth, and its seventh, Junk, I had initially become much more familiar with M83’s later music, ranging from 2008-2016 as of the time I write this. But as I listened to the first four albums, ranging from 2001-2007, I began to notice an increasingly apparent change in style. Starting with Saturdays, from a lyrical and rhythmic standpoint, the songs feel very developed and structured. In contrast, Gonzalez’s earlier pieces sound more like experimental demos. From backdrops of random voices or other sound effects, to a lack of precise musical arrangement or direction, this era of M83 is marked by a more definitive ambience, ambiguous, spontaneous, intuitive.

Now, I don’t know if Gonzalez intended this, and I might be reading too much into it, but this change in style could reflect a process of personal reflection and maturation through music. More to the point, I think the aesthetic and thematic approach of M83 as a whole can be summed up with one word: teenager. Dreams, freedom, love, loneliness, melancholy, nostalgia: Gonzalez touches upon many of the feelings young people long to understand and the questions they long to answer, with songs that masterfully illustrate the nature of youthful rebellion and imagination. To begin with, the band’s distinct vocal style involves lyrics often being sung in a deliberately soft and whispery voice on top of much louder instruments, a figurative expression of a restless, artistic soul trying to find meaning in that ugly, beautiful chaos we call life, in ways neither right nor wrong. One may remember and lament a past life now gone, on “Sunday Night 1987”:

Lost memories
Faded pictures
Can you drive me back
To this very moment

Julia
Alexander
Where did you all go?
Love

Chase life in order to unearth its secrets, declaring “We Own the Sky”:

Each shade of blue
Is kept in our eyes
Keep blowing and lightning
Because we own the sky

Secrets from the winds
Burnt stars crying

Struggle through the pain and confusion it inflicts, in the aptly named “Teen Angst”:

How fast we burn
How fast we cry
The more we learn
The more we die

The more we learn
The more we cry
How fast we burn
How fast we die

I hear the planet crying now,
I hear the planet crying now...

Or hit it head on in a spiritual blaze of glory, like the daredevil narrator of “Steve McQueen”:

I woke up stronger than ever.
Driven by big waves of fire.
To run and yell all the way.
Nothing can hurt me today.

There's a magic inside.
Just waiting to burst out.
The world is a goldmine.
That will melt tomorrow.

I realize how pretentious all this might sound, my own lofty words not helping, I’m sure. But I prefer to think of it as poetic. As I listen to this, I often imagine kids sitting cross-legged on their beds or under trees, writing stories or other deeply personal thoughts in their notebooks, just as I did a lot during my high school years. One of the more unique features of M83’s songs is the inclusion of brief monologues by younger narrators in between choruses. These can range from childish and whimsical to introspective and poignant. In “Raconte-Moi Une Histoire” (Rough translation: “Tell Me a Story”), a child imagines how much more fun life would be we all turned into frogs and became “the biggest group of friends the world has ever seen / Jumping and laughing forever”:

. . . And after you finish laughing
It's time to turn into a frog yourself
Its very funny to be a frog
You can dive into the water
And cross the rivers, and the oceans
And you can jump all the time, and everywhere
Do you wanna play with me?
We can be a whole group of friends
A whole group of frogs
Jumping into the streets
Jumping into the planets
Climbing buildings
Swimming in the lakes, and in the bathtubs . . .

And the eponymous “Graveyard Girl” feels more at home in the darkness than she ever could in the sunlight, the cemetery her sanctuary, the “wise and silent” stones her true teachers:

“I'm gonna jump the walls and run
I wonder if they'll miss me?
I won't miss them
The cemetery is my home
I want to be a part of it
Invisible even to the night
Then I'll read poetry to the stones
Maybe one day I could be one of them...
Wise and silent
Waiting for someone to love me
Waiting for someone to kiss me
I'm fifteen years old
And I feel it's already too late to live
Don't you?”

There is one other intriguing feature that aids this trend: not counting instrumental pieces, very, VERY few songs ever drop their respective titles. These can be comprised of short, single couplets, like “You, Appearing”, or they can be full anthems, like “Intro”. Regardless, this lack of direct referencing between a song and its title adds a new layer of depth and mystery to their meanings, just as any good poem does. It also invites us to ponder the spirit and mindset of the writer, like how we may ponder the universe and what our place in it will ultimately become.

It’s your face
Where are we?
Save me
____________
We carry on, carry on
Follow us, we are one
The battle's fought, the deed is done
Our silver hum runs deep and strong
Hand to the heart, lips to the horn
We can save, we can be reborn
Hand on my breast, I'll keep you warm
Hail!

As I’m sure many will testify—myself included—the teen years comprise arguably one of the most turbulent points in a person’s life, a time when we wonder whether to leave behind all that has brought us unadulterated joy while agonizing how to face the inevitability of our future. On the other hand, it’s also a time to embrace the world, through self-reflection and realizing our full potential. As nostalgically retro as it is contemporarily visceral, M83 is Gonzalez’ sonic love letter to that immortal era and all that it stands for.

CREDITS:
Special thanks to KTWH 99.5 Two Harbors Community Radio. All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

MAIN THEME:
“The Call” - Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

https://www.briandmorrison.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BriandMorrisonGuitar/
https://www.youtube.com/user/briandmorrison

All other tracks are by M83:

“Midnight City” (from Hurry Up, We're Dreaming [2011])
“I Guess I'm Floating” (from Before the Dawn Heals Us [2005])
“Night” (from M83 [2001])
“Birds” (from Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts [2003])
“Sunday Night 1987” (from Junk [2016])
“We Own the Sky” (from Saturdays = Youth [2008])
“Teen Angst” (from Before the Dawn Heals Us [2005])
“Steve McQueen” (from Hurry Up, We're Dreaming [2011])
“Raconte-Moi Une Histoire” (from Hurry Up, We're Dreaming [2011])
“Graveyard Girl” (from Saturdays = Youth [2008])
“You, Appearing” (from Saturdays = Youth [2008])
“Intro” (from Hurry Up, We're Dreaming [2011])
“Lower Your Eyelids to Die With the Sun” (from Before the Dawn Heals Us [2005])

Download the full 15-minute episode here!

M83 on Wikipedia

M83's Official Website

Anthony Gonzalez's Official Facebook Page

M83's Official Facebook Page

M83's Official Twitter Page

M83's Official Myspace Page

M83's Official Instagram Page

M83's Official YouTube Channel

M83's Official Soundcloud Channel

M83 on iTunes

M83 on Amazon

M83 on eBay

^^ Back to Music, Bands, and Other Creations of Sound

]]><![CDATA[Autotune in Azure: Eiffel 65]]>Sun, 31 Mar 2019 01:40:42 GMThttps://www.elatales.com/music/autotune-in-azure-eiffel-65

1998–2005, 2010–Present, Ages 10 and Up
Gather round and I’ll tell you the tale of an Italian pop group whose most famous song was named after a color.
(11/3/17)

Sometime last year, I was on the phone with my father, who lives in Illinois. At one point our conversation turned to the ring tones he has on his phone for different callers. It was fun hearing what kind of tunes would ring out whenever family members like my sister, my brother, and my stepmother called him. But I felt very flattered when he told me that, upon hearing my Amethystium episode—I send him CDs of my episodes every few months—he had programmed a song by that artist as a ring tone for general callers. When I asked him what song he had for whenever I called him, the answer he gave me brought back a lot of memories. The carefree days of Radio Disney, with their top 30 countdown every Sunday night. The boy in middle school who shared a mutual interest in them—and who was the first to ask if I’d be his girlfriend. And—on a mall trip with my dad, no less—the sheer elation I felt coming upon their second album completely by chance. (These were the days when my access to the internet was far more limited.) When I visited him again later, the subject came up again, and I asked him why he chose that song. He replied that he just as fondly remembered, when I was a kid, how excited I was about their music, and how I’d go on and on about them. Hopefully I didn’t totally talk his ear off back then—at least, no more than usual ;) Though I have still listened to these guys on and off again over the years, hearing them again with this conversation in mind really made me feel a sense of nostalgia that I haven’t had in a good while. Thanks, Dad.

Consisting of three members--Jeffrey Jey, Maurizio Lobina and Gabry Ponte--Eiffel 65 hails from Turin, Italy. If you grew up during the 90’s like I did, even if you don’t know them by name, you’ll more than likely know their best-known song, “Blue (Da Ba Dee)”. Upon first hearing them, I mistakenly assumed that they were from France due to their band name, thinking that they had for some reason named themselves after the Eiffel Tower in Paris. (I wonder if I’m the only one who thought that.) And I couldn’t even begin to guess the reasoning behind “65”. But the name’s true conception is actually kind of a funny story: having been unable to decide on a name amongst themselves, the three guys simply gathered together words that they liked and put them into an Excel database; the program randomly chose the word “Eiffel”. The “65” part, however, was even more random. Their producer had been writing a phone number on a piece of paper at the exact time the label copy of “Blue” was on his desk; without thinking, we wrote two of those digits, 6 and 5, on the label copy. And then when the graphic artist got it, he assumed the number 65 was part of the name and put it at the end of “Eiffel”. And the rest, as they say, is history.

The more I listened to the Europop/Eurodance of Eiffel 65 during my early teen years, the more I realized there was something about their voices that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. They didn’t sound thoroughly computerized, but they didn’t sound quite natural either. I enjoyed the music for many years more, albeit feeling a bit puzzled each time, before I finally learned the source: Auto-Tune. Heavily influenced by Electronic artists like Daft Punk, the extensive use of this tool is the most prominent feature of Eiffel 65’s vocal sound. Released in 1999, “Blue” was in fact one of the earliest songs to use and popularize it. For those unfamiliar, Auto-Tune is an audio processor used to alter vocal and instrumental pitches in music, sometimes resulting in a more digitalized or “robotic” sound, whether for creative effect, or to simply disguise or correct any off-key inaccuracies. This latter function, unfortunately, is the underlying reason behind the negative reputation the tool has garnered over the years, as it is accused of making it easier for “bad” singers to make more music with less skill. However, Eiffel 65 has used it in a way that I think meshes very well with their instrumental style. Accompanying the rave-like synthesizers, the rapid tempo and precise beats of the percussion gives much of their music, especially the songs tailor-made for the dance floor, a very machine-like feel—clock-work, if you will—whether its lightens the step or pounds the pulse.

And speaking of technology, among the most common themes in their songs, especially in their earlier ones, is science, whether real science or science fiction. I can honestly think of no adjective more appropriate here than “nerdy”: sometimes in fun ways, sometimes in abstract ways, but seldom without a sense of rumination. And as a self-proclaimed nerd, I am ever all for that. :) The song, “My Console”, is a love letter to video games and the loyal fans who play them, a fond recollection of the original PlayStation and some of its most iconic titles:

P. L. A. Y. S. T. A. T. I. O. N.
P. L. A. Y. S. T. A. T. I. O. N.
P. L. A. Y. S. T. A. T. I. O. N.
P. L. A. Y. S. T. A. T. I. O. N.

We're gonna play the game the Playstation all day
With Metal Gear Solid to Tekken 3
And from Omega Boost to Resident Evil
Just play for the fun
Cos we got it going on

Ridge Racer
Odd World
Winning Eleven
The game on the Playstation

“Another Race” talks about—what else?—aliens, and how they are said to live invisibly among humans in a manner reminiscent of films like They Live or Invasion of the Body Snatchers; and I have to say, the weird little notes that pop up in between the chorus lyrics are a really nice touch, as if the creatures of the song are being “shown” to the listener through the music itself rather than told only through the words:

They seem to walk on air
And they act pretty strange
They live around us
But you can't recognize them
We can't communicate
With their one way brain
No matter how you try
You just won't understand them

It's another race from outer space
It's another race
It's another race from outer space
It's another race away, away

“Back in Time” explores the more surreal experiences of time travel, reminding me a bit of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, with the recklessly ambitious Time Traveler and his adventures in temporal Limbo:

Here in the open space where nothing
Seems to move at all
I can run this race back in time
From the world I can hide
Here in the open space where something
Seems to float and not fall
I can feel the madness slow down
I'm the master of time

Back in time
In my time, all the time
Up and down
Every time I'm flying
Back in time
In my time, one more time
Always up and down
All the time I'm flying (high)

And “People of Tomorrow” feels like a call to action of sorts, both encouraging the progress of the younger generations and prophesizing how they will change the world with the strengths and wonders of the technology they are sure to create:

Today, you're walkin' off to school
With your Game Boy
But tomorrow, you will lead the way
Computer kid
Born in the world of PC
Communications
And the world is what you are and to become

People of tomorrow
Na-na-na, na-na-na, na-na-na-na-na
CPU Generation
You are the nation
You are the future world

Now, these songs may certainly be less straightforward than I give credit for, with other meanings that I simply don’t see. More to the point, this isn’t to say these guys’ music is superficial, nor is it incapable of making one think. While the lyrics themselves may not always be as poetic or uncanny as, say, those of Owl City, whatever the songs may lack in profound topics or creative lines, they make up for in fresh metaphors—and by fresh metaphors, I mean those that are not utilized either often, if at all, in this particular genre, or in ways that just boil down to parties and sex. In fact, I’m glad that many Eiffel 65 songs don’t feature romantic love as a subject, choosing instead more than once to focus on the emotions and ideas of the individual mind, some more interpretable than others (and again these are my own thoughts). “Living in a Bubble” warns of the dangers of indulging too much in dreams, as otherwise, real life will eventually come crashing down on the dreamer:

We live in a bubble, baby
A bubble's no reality
You've got to have a look outside
Nothing in the bubble is the way it's supposed to be
And when it blows, you'll hit the ground

Live in a bubble, baby
But it's not the place to be
'Cause it's a place of lies and hype
Don't believe the bubble 'cause it's nothin' but a dream
And when it blows, you'll be alone
Oh yeah

and “Morning Time” speaks to me of how death might feel like a new adventure to one dying of natural causes:

Morning time
I sit and watch the sun arise
And everything seems so different now
Than it was just before
Dawning sun
As you go down, my soul will run
I feel it all slip away
Slip out of my hands

I realize as I see all the people holdin' tight
As I leave the world tonight, yeah
Meetin' the light
I realize as I see all the people holdin' tight
As I leave the world tonight, yeah
Meetin' the light

But the messages of “Johnny Grey” and “Elephants in Amsterdam”, if they exist, are beyond me. (To make another Owl City comparison, the latter’s particularly weird lyrics do sound like the kind Adam Young would conjure up, don’t you think?)

My name is Johnny Grey
It's just a name
For you, it's the same
The world I know seems not to know me
Here's my number, I need a call
Excuse me, it's Johnny Grey
Not Tommy Day
My name's Johnny Grey
I can't remember my phone number
All the calls I get are mistakes
And I holler and make no noise
As I said before
My name is Johnny Grey
______________

I'm so close
But yet far
I feel tonight
From outside

I'm leaving, I'm gone
I need to know myself once again
Sadly from the phone

I feel I should be dancing with the elephants
I'm dancing with the elephants in Amsterdam
I'm dancing like the elephants in Amsterdam
I'm looking for the elephants in Amsterdam

Dancing with the elephants
I'm dancing with the elephants in Amsterdam
I'm dancing like an elephant in Amsterdam
I'm looking for my elephant in Amsterdam

This group has long since been deemed a one-hit wonder. (And the incredibly dated-looking CGI in their hit song’s music video hasn’t helped to change that.) But in my opinion, a one-hit wonder just means that people simply best remember that one song they made, that doesn’t mean that every other song of theirs is bad. If nothing else, Eiffel 65 is an Electronic nostalgia trip for both fans of dance and those who just like to dance. Heck, maybe in another few decades or so my generation will recognize their timelessness and be reminiscing about them—and artists like them—the way our parents and grandparents do now about Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, and the like. Who knows? ;)

CREDITS:
Special thanks to KTWH 99.5 Two Harbors Community Radio. All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

MAIN THEME:
“The Call” - Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

https://www.briandmorrison.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BriandMorrisonGuitar/
https://www.youtube.com/user/briandmorrison

All other tracks are by Eiffel 65:

“Blue (Da Ba Dee)” (from Europop [1999])
“80s Stars” (bonus track from Contact! [2001])
“Europop” (from Europop [1999])
“My Console” (from Europop [1999])
“Another Race” (from Europop [1999])
“Back in Time” (from Contact! [2001])
“People of Tomorrow” (from Contact! [2001])
“Living in a Bubble” (from Europop [1999])
“Morning Time” (from Contact! [2001])
“Johnny Grey” (from Contact! [2001])
“Elephants in Amsterdam” (Non-album single [2002])
“Journey” (from Contact! [2001])

Download the full 15-minute episode here!

Eiffel 65 on Wikipedia

Eiffel 65's Official Website

Eiffel 65's Official YouTube Channel

Eiffel 65's Facebook Page

Eiffel 65's Twitter Page

Eiffel 65 on Tv Tropes

Eiffel 65 on Billboard

Eiffel 65 on Discogs

Eiffel 65 on Apple Music

Eiffel 65 on Amazon

Eiffel 65 on eBay

^^ Back to Music, Bands, and Other Creations of Sound

]]><![CDATA[Songs of Deliverance and Damnation: Enigma]]>Sat, 30 Mar 2019 22:12:51 GMThttps://www.elatales.com/music/songs-of-deliverance-and-damnation-enigma

1990-Present, Ages 16 and Up
Gather round and I’ll tell you the tale of a composer whose music borders on the heavenly and the hellish—in both the biblical and the physical sense.
(5/5/17)

Throughout the mid-90’s, there was a series of commercials for a New Age compilation series of CD’s known as Pure Moods. Not counting the various spin-offs, there were four in total, all of which I used to own. I have this series to thank for providing my introduction to New Age, which, as I’ve mentioned, is among my favorite genres of music. In fact, between all of them, I learned of many artists whose works I still collect and listen to today. But unlike all the other artists who have provided a song for Pure Moods, this one has the honor of providing at least one song for every volume in the main collection. I remember when I had decided that I wanted to start buying his albums. I figured I’d begin with his Greatest Hits collection in order to get a more comprehensive taste of his work. I am a bit embarrassed to admit that I almost ended up not buying it due to the suggestive acronym of the album’s title: LSD. But this refers not to the drug but to the words Love, Sensuality, Devotion. I learned later as I matured that this has a highly symbolic and profound double meaning, as do many of this artist’s works.

Michael Cretu had a passion for music from a very early age; it was when he first heard The Beatles’ “Golden Slumbers” that he was inspired to pursue a career in Pop music. After his more formal musical studies, first in his native Bucharest, Romania, and then in Paris, France and Frankfurt, Germany, Cretu went on to be creator, producer, and performer, of numerous projects and songs, both solo and for other prevalent European Pop artists of the era. One of these artists, Sandra, would go on to be his music partner and his wife for twenty years.

Now, one might not think that a musician with that sort of background could successfully make a transition into a genre like New Age, but it was from Cretu’s past experience that the distinctive style of Enigma was born: the careful blending of beats of more modern genres, like Dance, Hip-Hop, Rock, and Dubstep, with elements and samples of older, more traditional pieces and sounds. The conception for Enigma came from Cretu’s desire to do away with the common rules and habits of music and create something entirely different. His influence is such that future New Age artists would follow his lead and use the term “Project” as opposed to “Band” to differentiate their own music as such.

Though he faced two copyright lawsuits in ’94 and ’98, unfortunately forever losing his intended anonymity, this wouldn’t stop his practice of sampling other music to enrich his songs, and at least now I can pay him the proper respect I feel he deserves. His first album, MCMXC a.D., makes heavy use of Gregorian chants—part of which is what made “Sadeness (Part I)” one of Enigma’s best-known songs; The Cross of Changes has a strong ethnic vibe due to its inclusion of Mongolian and Native American tribal chants, like in another massive hit, “Return to Innocence”; and some songs from The Screen Behind the Mirror feature samples from one of the most famous pieces in classical music: “O Fortuna” from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, as heard in “Gravity of Love”.

His first album, MCMXC a.D., makes heavy use of Gregorian chants—part of which is what made “Sadeness (Part I)” one of Enigma’s best-known songs; The Cross of Changes has a strong ethnic vibe due to its inclusion of Mongolian and Native American tribal chants, like in another massive hit, “Return to Innocence”; and some songs from The Screen Behind the Mirror feature samples from one of the most famous pieces in classical music: “O Fortuna” from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, as heard in “Gravity of Love”.

This unique style of mixing genres has led Cretu to be called an “alchemist in sound”. Similarly to words like “wizard”, “alchemist” always brought to me connotations of magic and wisdom, but not necessarily the kind that is out of the reach of man. I’m sure it’s not just nostalgia that drives us to preserve music that is centuries old; sometimes there is a depth and a soul within it that today can be near impossible to imitate, let alone recreate. Moreover, the music in question may speak of subjects that for some may be hard to comprehend if not completely taboo, whether in the past or even now. The fact that the term “enigma” is synonymous with words like “mystery”, “riddle”, “puzzle”, or “conundrum”, ties in brilliantly with this idea.

I think this is also why Enigma has such a vibe of intimacy to it as well. Some of Enigma’s songs are intimate in the more erotic sense—not in the deliberately controversial way of, say, Nine Inch Nails' “Closer”, mind you--but some titles alone, like “Principles of Lust”, “Smell of Desire”, and “Hell’s Heaven," suggest music that I could understand adult listeners actually making love to. Another kind of intimacy that I see and hear comes from the representation of anything and everything that we as a sentient species have ever felt or achieved. Just like the music, much of the cover and booklet art for Enigma’s albums has sampled, reworked, or has taken inspiration from significant artistic or scholarly works. For instance, on the cover of The Platinum Collection is Da Vinci’s famous 1489 painting, “Lady with an Ermine”; human bodies overlaid with detailed textbook sketches of both pieces of machinery and numbered anatomical parts make up the cover of Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!; A Posteriori, inspired by the documented future Andromeda–Milky Way galaxy collision, is presented with the calculated symmetry of a cartographer’s map; and The Fall of a Rebel Angel—a literal and metaphorical spiritual successor to MCMXC a.D. and containing elements from Dante’s Inferno, The Old Testament, and other religious and philosophical works—was painted by famed German artist and art forger, Wolfgang Beltracchi: an agonizing depiction of a man plummeting as if to his death, his screaming face a mixture of grief and torment, his body rigid with pain, his wings shredded and broken.

If 2002 is dreamlike in the sense of fairy tales and lullabies, and Amethystium is dreamlike in the sense of nature and darkness, then Enigma is so in the sense of humanity in all its physical and emotional extremes—and therein lays the true strength of Cretu’s musical vision. It’s almost as if, through Enigma, he is implying that there is little difference between what separates us from animals and what makes us animals: our greatest noble and intellectual achievements—art, religion, science, politics, philosophy—intertwined with our most primitive drives and instincts—hunger, fear, lust, hate, ecstasy.

CREDITS:
Special thanks to KTWH 99.5 Two Harbors Community Radio. All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

MAIN THEME:
“The Call” – Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

https://www.briandmorrison.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BriandMorrisonGuitar/
https://www.youtube.com/user/briandmorrison

All other tracks are by Enigma:

“The Landing” (from LSD: Love, Sensuality, Devotion [2001])
“Sadness (Part I)” (from MCMXC a.D. [1990])
“Return To Innocence” (from The Cross of Changes [1993])
“Gravity of Love” (from The Screen Behind the Mirror [2000])
“Principles of Lust” (from MCMXC a.D. [1990])
“Smell of Desire” (from The Screen Behind the Mirror [2000])
“Hell’s Heaven” (from Seven Lives Many Faces [2008])
“Lost One” (from The Platinum Collection [2009])
“Beyond the Invisible” (from Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi! [1996])
“20,000 Miles Over the Sea” (from A Posteriori [2006])
“The Omega Point” (from The Fall of a Rebel Angel [2016])
“The Cross of Changes” (from The Cross of Changes [1993])

Download the full 15-minute episode here!

Enigma on Wikipedia

Michael Cretu on Wikipedia

Michael Cretu's Official Website

Enigma's Facebook Page

Enigma on Allmusic

Enigma's Official YouTube Channel

Enigma on Amazon

Enigma at Barnes & Noble

Enigma on eBay

^^ Back to Music, Bands, and Other Creations of Sound

]]><![CDATA[The Dragonfly's Song: Amethystium]]>Thu, 28 Mar 2019 16:13:19 GMThttps://www.elatales.com/music/the-dragonflys-song-amethystium

1999-Present, Ages 14 and Up
Gather round and I’ll tell you the tale of a New Age artist whose symbol is a dragonfly.
(9/2/16)

NOTE: As of 2017, I had officially retired “Mono No Aware (Opening)” as the opening theme of The Tale Collector. As of 2021, every episode in my entire catalogue, including this one, will be re-edited to feature “The Call” by Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund as my main theme.

When I was first developing my blog for radio, I was hard-pressed to find a suitable theme song. Among others, some options I had considered included “Never-ending Story” by Within Temptation (no relation to the 1984 movie version by Limahl, by the way), and “The Storyteller” by Fairyland. But they didn’t quite match the mood I was going for. Truth be told, I didn’t really know what that mood was at the time. I think I subconsciously had a sort of Masterpiece Theater vibe in mind in the sense of a dignified representation of mankind’s ability to create marvels with only words and thoughts. But I didn’t want it to be as formal as all that. What I wanted was a sound that would create the feeling of coming together by a warm fire to hear a story before bed on a dark, cold night. I eventually chose a song called “Mono No Aware (Opening).” I have since retired it as my Tale Collector theme, but whenever I hear it now, I always remember the qualities that made me choose it: spiritual, exhilarating, and nostalgic, like the art of storytelling itself. This holds just as true for the man who wrote it.

The Ambient/Electronica/Neoclassical music project known as Amethystium is the creation of musician and composer, Øystein Ramfjord, of Trondheim, Norway. At the age of 14, using an internal sequencer, a guitar, and a stereo tape recorder, Ramfjord began to compose his own music. It was from this combination of musical experimentation and steady listening to electronic based music, in order to refine and establish his own individual sound, that Amethystium was born. After his project achieved recognition through underground exposure and word of mouth, Ramfjord signed up with Neurodisc Records in 1999. Under this name, Ramfjord has to date released five albums, a greatest hits collection, and two EPS. In a March 2005 interview with Bert Strolenberg of Sonicimmersion.org, upon being asked about his project name, Ramfjord explains:

“I think of Amethystium as a studio-project/solo-project of mine, occasionally involving other people. I don't consider it my personal artist-name, as I'd rather not personalize it much. In a way it serves partly as a way of musical expression without putting myself in the limelight.”

The first three albums-- Odonata (2001), Aphelion (2003), and Evermind (2004)—form what is now known as the “Dragonfly Trilogy”, so-named because each album’s cover art contains images of silvery dragonflies, whether as centerpieces or within backdrops of scenery ranging from natural to ornate to surreal. According to Ramfjord in the aforementioned interview, the symbol of the dragonfly was “inspired by an early childhood memory”. He calls this trilogy his “musical childhood” and as such feels that they belong together as their own collection. I think this is a wonderful idea as dragonflies have been used constantly in art due to their vibrant colors and the near-perfect symmetry of their shape.

Amthystium has often compared to New Age groups and artists such as Delirium, Deep Forest, Enigma, and Vangelis. While it makes extensive use of electronic instruments and sounds reminiscent of genres like trance and pop, there is a distinct air of ancientness to it, much of which is due to the majestic voice work of Gregorian chants and Middle Eastern vocals, among others, as well as some more natural and traditional instruments like flute, guitar, and violin, as heard, for example, in “Unbounded”.

Whenever I listen to Amethystium, my mind goes dark. By that I mean I am reminded of darkness, though not in the way one might think. The darkness I mean is the kind reminiscent of falling into a deep sleep and conjuring up strange and fantastic dreams. In particular, this blend of melancholy and ecstasy, with a hint of danger added for good measure, puts me in the mind of the faeries of old: neither good nor evil; regal, yet wild; child-like, yet wise; heedless and free of the shackles of time as they dance in an eternal “Reverie”.

What’s more, to me, this aesthetic of Ramfjord’s project isn’t achieved solely through its sound. Each title of his main albums has a very specific meaning which I believe reflects and, in turn, is meant to inspire, the limitless qualities of man’s imagination:

- Going back to a prior topic, Odonata (2001) is the name of the scientific classification of carnivorous insects—including the dragonfly, which symbolizes, among other things, self-realization, mental and emotional maturity, and a deeper understanding of life, as mirrored within the metaphorically well-named twelfth track, “Ascension”.

- Aphelion (2003) describes the point of a celestial body, like a planet or asteroid, which is furthest from the sun. Its fourth track, “Ad Astra”, likewise, is a Latin phrase meaning “to the stars”.

- Evermind (2004), according to the Lord of the Rings mythos of J.R.R. Tolkein, is a flower that typically grows upon the tombs of the dead; it is also called “everlasting memory” and, interestingly, is said to resemble the “forget-me-not”. This sentiment is echoed with beautifully forlorn reverence in its third track, “Shadowlands.”

- Isabliss (2008) is a word I’m not familiar with. But if the brighter and less intense vibe in comparison to his earlier albums is anything to go by, the “bliss” part would certainly make sense. The word’s even in one of the song titles: “Frosty Morning Bliss.”

- And Transience (2014), the title of which describes the quality of being temporary or of lasting only a short time. This is represented perhaps no better than in its final track, “Epilogue”.

Amethystium is a prime example of why New Age is one of my all-time favorite genres of music. Through his sounds, Ramfjord shows listeners a light that acknowledges the dark without abolishing it, rejoicing in the glory of running free into the warm embrace of the night, a time of wild joy and intimate mystery.

CREDITS:
Special thanks to KTWH 99.5 Two Harbors Community Radio. All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

MAIN THEME:
"The Call" " Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

https://www.briandmorrison.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BriandMorrisonGuitar/
https://www.youtube.com/user/briandmorrison

All other tracks are by Amethystium:

“Shadow to Light” (from Aphelion [2003])
“Withdrawl” (from Aphelion [2003])
“Enchantment” (from Odonata [2001])
“Unbounded” (from Isabliss [2008])
“Reverie” (from Evermind [2004])
“Ascension” (from Odonata [2001])
“Ad Astra” (from Aphelion [2003])
“Shadowlands” (from Evermind [2004])
“Frosty Morning Bliss” (from Isabliss [2008])
“Epilogue” (from Transience [2014])
“Transience” (from Transience [2014])

Download the full 15-minute episode here!

Amethystium on Wikipedia

Amethystium's Official Website

Amethystium's Official YouTube Channel

Amethystium's Facebook Page

Amethystium's Twitter Page

Sonic Immersion's Interview with Amethystium

Amethystium on Discography

Amethystium on Apple Music

Amethystium on Amazon

Amethystium on eBay

^^ Back to Music, Bands, and Other Creations of Sound

]]><![CDATA[Starry-Eyed Firefly: Owl City]]>Wed, 27 Mar 2019 16:04:50 GMThttps://www.elatales.com/music/starry-eyed-firefly-owl-city

2007-Present, Ages 10 and Up
Gather round and I’ll tell you the tale of a Minnesotan musician whose beautifully eccentric lyrics and catchy sounds come together to create all around positivity.
(7/1/16)

One morning a few years back, I was listening to the radio while driving to school. I usually prefer one of my own CDs over the pop and rock of today, especially first thing in the morning, but truth be told, I was feeling kind of lazy and just wanted to occupy my mind with something else for the fifteen-minute drive, even if what I heard was totally forgettable in the end. It was around the time I was parking that a song came on, one which I had never heard before. When it was finished, I slowly turned off the car . . . and just sat in my driver’s seat for several minutes, the parts of the song I could remember playing over and over in my head. “What in the world did I just hear?” I kept asking myself. I’m serious, it was one of those moments: my mind had been completely and utterly blown. Not only was the tune pleasantly fresh and upbeat, but the lyrics seemed to describe, of all things, what sounded like someone, unable to sleep, dancing to the flickering lights and dreamlike flight . . . of fireflies. Memorizing as many of the lyrics as I could, I vowed to look up the artist after my morning classes . . . and the rest is history. J (By the way, Owl City’s creator shares the same birthday, July 5th, as my little sister. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMANDA!)

Owl City is an “indietronica”/synthpop music project created by Adam Young, a singer and songwriter hailing from Owatonna, Minnesota. It was conceived during a time when Young was suffering from insomnia. (I wonder if this is what helped to inspire the project’s name: owls are nocturnal animals, after all.) In order to cope, he recorded music in his parents’ basement. He began uploading his songs to Myspace and then later to iTunes, along with continually maintaining a strong presence online with regular blogs. This gave him the listener attention he needed to eventually make a label deal with Universal Republic in 2009. While by no means his only project, it is easily Young’s best known, under the name of which he has, to date, released five albums and performed for soundtracks for such feature films as Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, Wreck-It Ralph, The Croods, and The Smurfs 2, not to mention singing a certain “Wonderfilled” jingle for a charming little Oreo commercial back in 2013.

Owl City borrows heavily in style from genres like disco, drone, ambient, and post-rock. The combination of the various sounds of the synthesizer—from popping to flowing to spiraling—and more traditional instruments such as guitar and piano, allows for a wide range of musical moods for its songs, from light, bubbly, and fun, to otherworldly, romantic, and pensive.

If I had to choose one word to describe Young’s emotional sound, I think it would be “sincere”. Many songs of similar genres today—not all of them, I know, but as I’m sure at least some people will attest to, a LOT of them—tend to focus on topics like money, sex, drugs, partying, or cheesy, superficial “love”. But Owl City goes off in another direction entirely. One of Young’s greatest strengths as a lyricist is the ability to evoke feelings of youthful nostalgia, often for comedic effect. In the song, “Peppermint Winter”, for example, rather than simply sing the typical elaborate praises of the beauties of Christmas, he takes time to reminisce about some of the more earthbound—and sometimes less pleasant—experiences of the holiday season, like slipping and falling on icy pavement, getting attacked with freezing snow by an older sibling, and—horror of horrors!—getting nothing but clothing—i.e. “45 new pairs of socks”—on Christmas morning.

Similarly, he is a master at taking the most ordinary of subjects—like hair and wigs in “Rugs From Me to You”, or visiting the dentist in “Dental Care”—and turning it into something that’s amusingly memorable, but not so far-fetched or pretentious that listeners, no matter what their walk of life, wouldn’t be able to identify with it—sometimes whether they wanted to or not:

"Dental Care"

I've been to the dentist a thousand times so I know the drill
I smooth my hair, sit back in the chair
But somehow I still get the chills
“Have a seat” he says pleasantly
As he shakes my hand, and practically laughs at me
“Open up nice and wide” he says peering in
And with a smirk he says, “Don't have a fit, this'll just pinch a bit”
As he tries not to grin

There are some songs, however, that seem to take pride in their apparent nonsense—and these are among Owl City’s best. The lighter-hearted ones, such as “The Yacht Club”, “Hot Air Balloon”, or “Strawberry Avalanche”—now there is a song title that stands out—are the kind that could come only from the dreams of someone with a very active and childlike imagination, something that Young definitely has in spades and is not at all afraid to use:

"Strawberry Avalanche"

A grass blade flashed with a gleam as it slashed open a moonbeam
And I stared back breathlessly
As mountains of fruit tumbled out I barely had the chance to shout
Oh strawberry avalanche, crash over me

Quite often, straight-forward if poetic meanings, if there are any, don’t make themselves known; this is, sometimes especially, true of Young’s slower, more intense pieces, like my personal all-time favorite Owl City song, “How I Became the Sea”. One theme Young uses constantly in his music is nature, especially if it is related to the ocean. Such an image may evoke ideas and symbols as vast and deep as the image itself. Of course, there have been numerous ideas brought forward as to the meaning of this particular song, and that is certainly okay. But as for someone like me, this exemplifies how it’s sometimes better to simply allow oneself to be swept away by the tide of the music and its words for their own sake:

"How I Became the Sea"

The wide windy waves washed in
But I stayed dry
The great breakers broke again
As I nodded off inside

And then
When the Empress ran aground
And my eyes turned blue and green
I heard a gorgeous sound
And that's when it became a dream

When the sky fell in
When the hurricanes came for me
I could finally crash again
And that's how I became the sea

A different but no less powerful side of Young’s creativity shows itself in his more faith-based music. A devout Christian, Young naturally speaks of his love for God in many of his songs. Some of these are traditional—by which I mean the message, quite plainly, is the loving and worshiping of Christ. These include his covers of well-known Christian songs such as “In Christ Alone”, “How Deep the Father's Love for Us”, and “If I Stand”. His original Christian pieces include “The Christmas Song”, “You’re Not Alone,” and “My Everything”:

"My Everything"

When I can't get up and I can't go on
I run to you and you alone

'Cause you're my light in the dark
And I sing with all of my heart

Hallelujah
My almighty God divine
Hallelujah
I am yours and you are mine
This is all I know how to say
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
You're my everything

While these are most certainly enjoyable to listen to, there are other songs, like “Angels”, that stand out for more than just the inventive quality that Young is famous for. Here, the lyrics themselves seem to focus less on religious worship and more on the broad but comforting idea that we are not alone in this world or in this life. Thus, we can allow ourselves, despite hardship and without fear, to be immersed in the miracle of living, and doing so in a world with so much wonder to offer. This is most likely due in part to my being agnostic, but I prefer this particular approach in Young’s religious music, and not only because the words feel much more open to interpretation—much the way faith is by definition. It brings the appreciation of a higher power—sentient being or otherwise—to a fundamentally more human level. More to the point, it does so in a way that paints humanity as much more than just creatures of sin and weakness; it reminds us that we are also spirits of dreams, expression, creation, and love, both ready and willing to bring as much good unto the rest of the world as we are unto ourselves.

"Angels"

In the dust on my cellar staircase
A pair of footprints followed me
I saw a flicker in the fake fireplace
Blinked again but there was nothing to see

I've been leaving all the windows unlocked
With a basket by the oak tree
'Cause I'll be pickin' up the acorns that fall off
If you'll be climbing up to meet me

Living close to the ground
Is seventh Heaven 'cause there are angels all around
Among my frivolous thoughts
I believe there are beautiful things seen by the astronauts

To me, the music of Owl City mirrors the mind of one who has clearly thought a great deal of his life and his experiences, both good and bad. And yet Young maintains a childlike optimism and whimsy throughout, not taking himself too seriously or pretending to be something he isn’t just in order to impress others. His shy and sensitive demeanor, along with his clear and almost boyish voice, belies a mind both brilliantly inventive and vividly profound, and a solid belief of humanity and the universe having been brought into existence out of love and with a purpose. A beautiful blend of surreal joy and down-to-earth wisdom, Owl City is an artist that encourages its listeners to dance to life . . . and to smile at whatever it brings.

CREDITS:
Special thanks to KTWH 99.5 Two Harbors Community Radio. All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

MAIN THEME:
“The Call” – Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

https://www.briandmorrison.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BriandMorrisonGuitar/
https://www.youtube.com/user/briandmorrison

All other tracks are by Owl City:

“Fireflies” (from Ocean Eyes)
“Wonderfilled Anthem” (Oreo jingle, 2013)
“Peppermint Winter” (Christmas single, 2010)
“Dental Care” (from Ocean Eyes [2009])
“Strawberry Avalanche” (from Ocean Eyes [Deluxe Edition Bonus Track] [2009]) (Edit)
“How I Became the Sea” (from All Things Bright and Beautiful [Bonus Track] [2011])
“My Everything” (from Mobile Orchestra [2015])
“Angels” (from All Things Bright and Beautiful [2011])
“This is the Future” (from Maybe I’m Dreaming [2008])

Download the full 15-minute episode here!

Owl City on Wikipedia

Owl City's Official Website

Owl City's Official YouTube Channel

Owl City's Facebook Page

Owl City's Twitter Page

Owl City on Myspace

Owl City on Apple Music

Owl City on Amazon

Owl City on Barnes & Noble

Owl City on eBay

^^ Back to Music, Bands, and Other Creations of Sound

]]><![CDATA[Transcendence For Two: 2002]]>Mon, 25 Mar 2019 21:01:18 GMThttps://www.elatales.com/music/transcendence-for-two-2002

1992-Present; Safe For All Ages
Gather round and I’ll tell you the tale of a couple whose love for each other is expressed through their very name as well as their music.
(2/14/16)

This first of my musical entries on this blog is for all the lovers of both stories and their significant others. I believe, as I’m sure many of you do, that love is meant to be nothing less than sacred, not only an emotion but a vow that bonds two souls together and transcends both time and death. At the same time, however, I realize how absurd and difficult, if not impossible, this idea is for others in this increasingly digitalized and cynical world of ours. Nevertheless, perhaps this entry will help make it seem a little less so, even if only for a short time.

2002 (pronounced “Two Thousand Two”) is a Neo-Classical New-age band composed first of husband-and-wife duo, Pamela and Randy Copus, and recently joined by their now teenaged daughter, Sarah. Their name is unique in that it signifies the sacred bonds of love: according to their website, “the zeros in the middle were originally an infinity sign and the ‘twos’ on either side represented them on either side of infinity.” In other words, it symbolizes how two souls deeply enough in love are said to be joined together for all eternity.

I was first exposed to 2002 when the New Age music channel on my cable T.V. played their song, “Stella Maris,” from the 2000 album, “River of Stars.” I was instantly hooked. Their albums have been on the Billboard charts numerous times alongside other famed New Age and classical artists such as Enya, Yanni, and George Winston. The duo uses a wide variety of both classical and modern electronic instruments, such as piano, acoustic guitar, flute, keyboard, cello, and harp, as well as a “virtual choir” comprised of the two’s voices digitally recorded and layered on top of each other. All this together gives their songs an ambient, angelic quality, sometimes slow and soft enough to relax to, other times quick and light-hearted enough to dance to.

But while love is the driving force of 2002’s sound, it is not exclusively the love between two people that is centered on. As many of their albums will remind listeners, the power of love can apply to virtually anything: family, nature, creation, life itself. This leads me to what I think is one of the best aspects about 2002 and their presentation. Each of their albums is based on a specific story, setting, or idea. Inside the CD booklet of a given album, a song title may often be paired with a brief poetic piece.

For some, each song is an episode within a larger chronicle, such as:

- Savitri (1995) tells the famous ancient Indian legend of the titular princess and how she rescues her husband and true love, the noble Prince Satyavan, from death itself.

"Satyavan"

Savitri’s search leads her to a hermitage
in a forest where she sees Satyavan for
the first time. He is gently caring for his
blind father, who was once a powerful
king. The crude setting does not
diminish the nobility and wisdom in
Satyavan’s face. The humble attire
cannot conceal his perfect form.

- Wings (1992) is based on the Greek myth of Daedelus, as he and his ill-fated son, Icarus, escape the tyranny of King Minos by creating wings of feathers and wax in order to fly across the sea to safety. In spite of this myth’s tragic ending, its message of freedom and the finding of inner peace is apparent throughout, but especially in its final song.

"Temple of Apollo"

Daedalus builds a beautiful temple in Sicily
after his escape from Crete. The temple is
in honor of Apollo, who represents life,
healing, music and youth.

In others, each song may have its own tale set within the same universe, as it were. For example:

- Land of Forever (1998) (my personal favorite) transports the listener to Tir Na Noc, the fabled faery island where time stands still, and a traveler, upon visiting the island even for only a day, may find that centuries have passed by in the real world.

"Falling Through Time"

Oisin, a famed warrior, went
hunting one day and saw the
beautiful Niam of the Golden
Hair, daughter of the King of
Tir Na Noc. She sang a song of
enchantment to him and, deeply in
love, he left with her. Her white
horse ran lightly atop the waves of
the ocean and into a golden haze in
which Oisin lost all knowledge of
where he was, and for how long.

In others still, there may be no overlaying plot; instead, the music paints a general but no less symbolic picture:

- Across an Ocean of Dreams (2002) is dedicated to the element of water, the way it has comforted and healed our bodies and inspired man’s imagination for centuries.

"The Ocean Dreams"

There are those of us who dream
of the sea, who long to feel the crisp
salt air filling our lungs and to
hear the symphony of the waves
and the singing of the gulls. Of what
does the ocean dream? A cerulean
sky? Snow-laced mountains? Or
perhaps that we return for a visit?

- Chrysalis (1997) focuses on the mysterious and magical phenomenon of the caterpillar’s eventual transformation into a butterfly.

"Dream Come True"

Emerging from the warm
security of its cocoon, the
once earth-bound creature
stretches its new wings. The
wind breathes gently upon
them, assisting in its first
flight.

Here is a family whose music is intended to bring people together and soothe those whose lives may be lonely or less than peaceful. The music of 2002 is nothing short of dream-like, perfect to both lift the spirits and ignite the imagination while putting the mind and heart at ease.

CREDITS:
Special thanks to KTWH 99.5 Two Harbors Community Radio. All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

MAIN THEME:
“The Call” – Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

https://www.briandmorrison.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BriandMorrisonGuitar/
https://www.youtube.com/user/briandmorrison

All other songs are by 2002:

“River of Stars” (from River of Stars [2000])
“Stella Maris” (from River of Stars [2000])
“City of Peace” (from The Sacred Well: The Best of 2002 [2002])
“Secret Shores” (from The Emerald Way [2006])
“Satyavan” (from Savitri [1995])
“Temple of Apollo” (from Wings [1992])
“Falling Through Time” (from Land of Forever [1998])
“The Ocean Dreams” (from Across an Ocean of Dreams [2002])
“Dream Come True” (from Chrysalis [1997])
“Moment of Love” (from This Moment Now [2003])

Download the full 15-minute episode here!

2002 on Wikipedia

2002's Official Website

2002's Facebook Page

2002's Twitter Page

2002's Blog

2002's Official YouTube Channel

2002 on New Age Music World

2002 on Amazon

^^ Back to Music, Bands, and Other Creations of Sound

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