The opening prog rock track from Thirteen Eight, featuring lots of majestic themes and odd time signatures.

I almost always do my best to compose something accessible, but end up with weird chord progressions and time signatures anyway! I just don’t want my music to be too normal. :) So here it is, the opening track for the album. Mostly in the time signature 13/8 (hence the album title), with lyrics written by Otto Olivera and drums played by David Schlein.

I hope you give it a few tries, because it might just grow on you. :)

(Oh, and next week I will post the animated music video for The Star Song. That one will be great, so I hope I don’t scare anyone away with this one, haha.)

Lyrics:
A thunderhead of doom enshrouds
The faraway land they left behind
On ships, prepared and set
To roam, unknowing what they’ll find

Through currents of mystery
Hegira to relieve their plight
Every span they travel
Holding hands with lonely starlight

The youthful and seasoned émigrés
In vessels constructed with great skill
Geometric rigor to secure
A promise and purpose which they all would fulfill

In three fleets of seven, while
Tethered to each other tight
Any turn they travel
Guided on by lonely starlight

Home was laid to waste
Dissension and decay
Looking to survive
They chose to sail away

Scoping panoramic visual field
Hoping beneficial clues will be revealed
Seeking destination suitably fit
To accommodate them, and, as luck would have it,

A pathway to navigate
Coordinates: thirteen-eight

Doubtful and unsure
What more can they endure?
Will the choice they make
Prove to be a big mistake?

Time is now at hand
With tension at a peak
Does this course provide
The harbor that they seek?

Then, obstacles cleared reveal
A welcome and heavenly sight
Full of hope they travel
Led to it by lonely starlight

A sphere bathed in blue and green
With water and air so clean
Extending a hand in glee
They reach for their destiny

A softer piano ballad from Thirteen Eight, including a pretty cool instrumental section at the end.

Alright, so this is track number 2 on the album, called Solace Distant. I usually don’t write lyrics, but I actually wrote this one all on my own, except for a little help from my friend Otto Olivera. I was sort of thinking about a girl one day, and felt I wanted to try to compose a traditional piano ballad about my thoughts. It’s a bit cheesy, but this is what came out.

The video was made by my brother Robin. He has complained for a while about how I should make a GOOD video for once, so this was how he felt that music videos should be like.

I really hope you’ll like it. My favorite part is the proggy instrumental middle section!

Just a short video of me tuning and recording glasses for a track on the album.

I actually put this one on my second YouTube channel a month ago or so, but I figured that it’s good/interesting enough to put on my main channel after all! Just as an extra “hey, remember that I have a website and that an album is coming soon!” thing.

Have you noticed that there’s a playable “guitar” on google.com today? It’s there to celebrate Les Paul’s 96th birthday, but I didn’t notice that you could play on it until just now! So I wrote a song with it. Quite difficult because of the lag, but it worked out decently in the end. :)

(Oh, and people in the chat room even said that I should post it on my main channel, so I did. Not entirely sure if it’s a smart move or not, but now it’s done.)

A short and catchy little theme song, made for a friend’s vlog thing.

It’s always fun making songs for friends! I let them write some lyrics, and then I just compose, record and let them hear. This one was supposed to be a bit more well made though, so I just sent her a demo to hear if she even liked the idea, and if she did, I would make a proper version. But she loved it, so I didn’t have to. :)

It’s funny how people sometimes love things that I don’t put any effort in, but don’t care for things I’ve spent months on.. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s sort of strange.

A short little composition, based on the popular video “Best Cry Ever”.

I found it really interesting when the crying father started to cry in key with the piano in the background, so I made a song of it. I really did it for my own sake, to experiment, but I showed it to a friend who thought it was brilliant (“both sad and funny at the same time”), and she told me that I should make a video for it.
I didn’t really like the idea at first, because I only wanted to upload “masterpieces”, and this was definitely not a masterpiece. But, pushing myself to always do better and better was tiresome, so I put it on my channel anyway. It got mixed reactions, but some people liked it, so I’m happy with it! It shows a different side of me.

(By the way, this composition will be featured in one of the songs on my debut album, released on 13th of August 2011!)

My first attempt at making a traditional music video.

This one was an interesting experience. It was the first time I collaborated when making a video (director, camera man, actress), and it was really frustrating. Nothing went as planned, and everything got delayed over and over because we weren’t able to do the things I had planned. But it was fun at some points!

The song itself was an attempt to make something commercial and popular. Vampires were super popular, and I had noticed that lots of my fans liked “Twilight”, so I figured that I might as well try to make them really happy.
The problem with my song-writing is that I always come up with weird melodies and unusual song/chord progressions, stuff that I personally like, but that most don’t. So I composed lots of different versions of the lyrics I got from Audrianna Cole, and sent to friends to hear what they thought. And then I tried to make everyone happy, resulting in no one getting completely satisfied. Some people wanted it to be rock/metal, and some wanted it to be soft.

So yeah. I guess you could call it a complete failure, because it’s my least popular video, hehe. But some people really love the song, and as long as someone appreciates it, it’s all worth it.

Buy the song on my website or on iTunes!

My first completed original progressive rock song, with drums by Louis Abramson.

This was a risky move, because I had not been uploading anything since “32 songs in 8 minutes”, half a year ago, and followed it up with an original prog rock song, that was complex and not very commercial at all. It was the first original song I ever finished composing and recording (got help with lyrics by Diana Nissan), but I just felt that I wanted to show people what I actually wanted to do, what kind of music I like.

The reactions were kind of mixed. I was pleasantly surprised when non-prog fans said they loved it, but there were also lots of people who thought the song was just all over the place, and hard to grasp. But all in all, I got a lot of positive feed-back (and to date, it’s my most viewed original song), so it encouraged me to revisit the genre some day.

But first I wanted to try out more new things..

Update: A re-recorded version of this song is on my album, Thirteen Eight! Get it now on iTunes, Bandcamp or my own shop!

A short and soft guitar ballad, composed by me. Lyrics are written by Beth Brandon.

This is just a short and simple song I composed and recorded because my big project “Vampire Bride” got delayed all the time. I didn’t expect much, and it didn’t get that many views either. But, I’ve gotten many positive comments about it, and it was really nice to know that people enjoyed my original music!

A longer version of this song can be find on my album Thirteen Eight!

Lyrics:
The wayfarer travels there
Through the night and day he finds his way
Always searches for an answer
Never ends this searching endeavor

In the dark of the night
Only I hear his plight
And only as the rain plunges down
will he rest his tired feet
‘Cause he’s the wayfarer
Always looking for her