This is SO Oldfield that I'm getting all misty-eyed and nostalgic!

This was excellent the first time I listened and the second third and fourth time 🙌🙌🔥🔥👏

Quite a dynamic journey. Nice flow to the arrangement and great sound and mix

Another spin today, relaxing with a splendid mood here.

To the beauty of simple things, like that of this beautiful Spanish Sparrow

SPARROW

This song appears on an album called Synthastic alongside those some other amazing musicians with whom my Swiss friend, the very talented and gracious Karin-Maria Brunner collaborated. It's an album centered around the synthesizer, whatever sounds one can get from it, based on her ideas. I cannot properly express my depth of honor and gratitude to her for including me with musicians I admire, like Frans Beelaard, and for sharing her creative seeds with me. Karin-Maria is a truly exquisite musician, with a very disciplined style and mind for musical precision, as well as beautiful melody. You can find her on here under her name. She actually shared two songs with me for this project, and this is the first of those. I tried to come up with an interesting, modal melody for both, in hopes of impressing her. I hope it has the same effect on you. I also provided the beat and bass line for this song. You can find the entire album on your favorite streaming service. We appreciate your listens! 

Magic Hour (with Karin-Maria Brunner from her album Synthastic)

Explicaciones Ignacio Labarca

Although quite simple to record, it took me a few weeks to write down a text and sing it over this beautiful guitar piece from Neno J. I used the original title as an inspiration for the text.

Circle of Circles 

Planets move in the dome of stars in surprising ways.
Sometimes forward, sometimes backward  in the celestial orb.

Since perfect circles are the only way of gods,
Ptolemy used circles within circles 
to explain those planetary retrogressions.
That was such a powerful idea 
that Fourier would later use.
Indeed, any periodic smooth motion
can be described by a large enough set of epicycles.

And yet, it all became history, 
thanks to Copernic, Kepler and Newton.
The epicycles were cast out from heaven
by the Occam's razor curse.
And I'm trying to learn the sobering lesson:
Everything gets simpler 
when we don't place ourselves in the center.

Your perfect circles, woman, are the chosen shape of gods.
But will the Fast Fourier Transform ever explain your beauty?

I watch you move in this world of scars in surprising ways.
But what is forward and what is backward in this oblivious maze?

Circle Of Circles JFC (Over Neno J. Guitar Piece)

Uncovering the Wall That Is the Mathematical Structure of This Universe

YOU ARE THE ONE THAT MADE ME

Copyright 2022 Watson/O'Brien/Henry
All Rights Reserved
Music by Bobby Watson and Tom Henry
Lyrics by Alex O’Brien, SOCAN

Bobby Watson: Piano, Synth, Strings
Tom Henry: Vocals, Background Vocals, lead guitar
Alex Zulaika: Drums
Philippe Pansard: Bass
Tom Hellsten: Mixing/Mastering
Alex O'Brien: Production

You are the one that saved me
Opened me up like a book
You are the one that forgave me
Thank you for the second look
You are the one that took me
Into your heart and soul
You’re the angel who shook me
Gave me your honey and gold

You are the one that made me
Everything I am
You are the one that made me
You’re my lover and my best friend

You are the one who believed 
When no one else seemed to care
You are the one who needed me
When no one else was there
Your voice sounds so soothing
It calms my battered heart
Your words they are so moving
You gave me a fresh start

You are the one that made me
Everything I am
You are the song that made me
You’re my lover and my best friend

You are the one that took me
Into your heart and soul
You’re the angel who shook me
Gave me your honey and gold

You are the one who made me

You Are the One That Made Me

This is a song that was written by the very talented Artur (Surfers Like Us), who is a surf rock master, and delivered to us in the form of a guitar track. Josh (Entheogenic Psychonaught) enjoyed adding the psychedelic, yet foundational four string fretless bass. Ken (K2 and the Three and K2 and the Four) boosted the energy level of the song when he blew our minds with his driving drums. JJ (J.J. Terrell) added the wild, dynamic organ you hear throughout. Tez (Llanpsych) brought lightning down from the sky in the solo over the third section. And last, but certainly not least, Stephen (TexMex Shaman) laid down the mind-bending guitar solos over the first two sections. He also produced and mixed it, with a little help from Ken. We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as our Eclectic Collective enjoyed making it.

Home's Album

A Time Race (Surfers Like Us, EP Josh Clary, K2 and the Three, Llanpsych, TexMex Shaman, JJ Terrell)

Another Chance

Inspired by Amarok! Global Presence! Riffs of the 70s!

This recording is the result of my most ’guitar-intensive’ period ever. It came as a reaction to what came before it, a period where I focused very much on the classical guitar but a moment came when I was fed up with polishing small details in my repetoar. One day, I felt an incredible hunger for riffs, for steel string guitars, and for going back to (progressive) rock music! I always loved the rock of the 70s, considering it as ’Mount Everest of the music history’ (classical music excluded here). An era where everyone was incredibly ambitious, when everything had to be handplayed, and when the broader audience had some considerable attention span ;)

I started to explore some riffs on my CORT steel string guitar, which had been collecting dust in a corner for a long time. It soon gave me the opening riffs and some additional riffs (e.g., around 5 minutes into the track). I quickly worked up the bulk of the track and got maybe half of the track done in just a few weeks (not counting later polishing, when I re-recorded some bits to get the sound I wanted). I got a vision of the completed track, a long progressive one - yes, for sure inspired by Oldfield and YES (favorites from this era!), but it was easier said than done to complete the track. Considerable work remained, as I was about to learn….

It was incredibly hard to finalize the composition and I almost gave up on it. I arrived at a moment where I seemed to have promised too much and where the Ear demanded some serious further action; many permutations tested, but nothing seemed to work. In the end, due to all this, I lost some control of the files (e.g., a key solo guitar is badly panned but I seem to be unable to find the raw data needed to fix it).

Extremely much work went into the last months, on a mission to crack it! Late nights, tinnitus, frustration! :) Finally I think I found what I needed (but who am I to know).. I had to accept some slightly less than perfect audio at some places: does it matter? Not to me, but the listener is the jury. I decided to go for attitude and energy rather than anything else… I hope you will enjoy what I discovered!

I doubt that cold-blooded perfect ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ever will replicate what a desperate Dave J. Svensson sounds like, late at nights with all controls turned to 11 on a scale from 0 to 10 …. ;)

The SHAMBOLIC GUITARS were:
- two 6s steel: CORT (rythms!) and OVATION (main recurrent theme!)
- a 12s FENDER (colour!)
- three electric guitars: IBANEZ (now sold), PRS & SCHECTER (dirt!)
- two classical guitars: CORT, KREMONA (clarity!)
Plus, a ROLAND keyboard (for some pads), and various hardware effect boxes.

Artcover by DS, featuring the guitars listed above.

//Dave, 6th October 2023

SHAMBOLIC GUITARS

The title of this track is a reference to the wartime term "no quarter", which also means "take no prisoners". The 'blood' red flag is often used as a symbol of this horrible practice and, in fact, it is considered a war crime to refuse to spare the life of anybody - i.e. to refuse quarter. The term "No Quarter" prompted me to research the meaning, which is where the concept for the song title came from.

In the original 1999 version of this tune, the only instrument was the echo-y electric piano sound, which was influenced heavily by the song "No Quarter" by Led Zeppelin. This is another tune I'd recommend listening to with headphones because of the heavy panning movement throughout. 

(special thanks to Chris [cgmaness] for the thoughtful perspective that reminded me of this incredible video, which speaks for itself. more like screams!  www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x7FGbW3IVc) 

Make music not war.

All comments welcome, and don't be shy to be critical or suggest ideas to help me improve.

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here's some pictures I took: www.flickr.com/photos/mark_boucher/
my best photos on 500px (safe site): 500px.com/p/mrmark?view=photos

Mark's Album (post-2020)

Red Flag

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."   Lamentations 3:22-23 (ESV)

Grateful for every new morning, every new year, and the chance to begin again.  Best wishes to all in 2024!

Morning Praise

Composer of multi-instrumental music, with a preference for longer, progressive and complexly arranged pieces.   

Have played guitar for many years, but I am probably a slightly odd type of guitarist. Not particularily interested in the guitar genre, not too keen on listening to long solos, etc. I don't enjoy playing for people - a party-killer, in short. However, leave me alone with this wonderful tool (or the keyboard, which I play too), and I will start experimenting with it, searching for something to develop. 

Strongly interested in classical music and anything remotely related to that. I want to construct music with a similar structure and complexity, although with other instruments, and in my own way...  
___________________________________________________________

During 2010-2013, I worked on a suite of related pieces, GUITARS PLAYED BY DS, with every sound played on the electric guitar. A major undertaking, and (all-in-all) 45+ minutes long, all complexly related and released in five segments.

During 2014-2015, the main focus was on the full-format 'LONG INSTRUMENTAL', a progressive work with lots of different instruments and sounds, restless and complex. Some sections stand on their own feet: MYSTERY, and FANFARE. 

The 2014-2015 recordings also resulted in two shorter pieces: CAMBRIAN EXPLOSION and CLUSTER OF WARNINGS.

During 2015 I initiated a suite played on classical guitars - GUITAR STRUCTURES. It is a series of slowly changing ideas, a weave of melodies and harmony, the first section out in April 2015 (the 2nd came 2 years later).  

I played guitars on Tolubai's wonderful ambient piece 'MEMORIES' (August 2015).

EARTHSHINE came out in January 2016; a darker and slightly dissonant progressive piece, and one of my personal favorites. So is SILENCE, out 1st July 2016. September 2016: IGNITION  with TOLUBAI and LET THERE BE LIGHT 22th Sept 2016 with PuppyWolf. 

20/11-2016: The OORT CLOUD PROJECT I-IX. An 18+ minutes long progressive synth-based instrumental, with lots of short guitar phrases integrated. Also, the spin-off PASSAGE was released. 

GROTESQUE released too in the end of 2016. The 19th January 2017, I released the sketch OMMA CONTRAPUNCTUS PROJECT. The 4th February 2017, the track '3 WORLDS COLLIDE' was released.

'Guitar Structure No. 2' out in March 2017, took 2 years to complete.

BEST OF 2 WORLDS was released in November 2017, another personal favorite composition.

APPROACHING: an unfinished sketch released 1st April 2018. TAURUS IV released 8th April 2018.

New Years evening 2019, quickly improvising a track: DECADE. Uploaded 23:58 local time. It was a very fun way of ending the year and I used a symbolic art cover with red sweeping in, but I wouldn't have dreamed of what was to come soon.

One main project this year is the SNOWFLAKES VARIATIONS suite; the Prelude was released in January 2020.

8th April 2020: CREATURES RISING was released. CREATURES OF THE RAINFOREST also a spinoff track (released 2021).

In the Lockdown March-April 2020, I recorded 'Era', out of frustration...

5th June 2020: REPORT FROM PLANET THREE, which was initiated 31st May 2019. 

31st July 2020: FORECAST was released. April 2021: ZUMMER ZNOWFLAKES, a 25 minute long track and one of my most ambitious ever. 

OCTOBER 22, 2021: OUTPOST. 

APRIL 28, 2022: The Disclosure (Part I).
SEPTEMBER 23, 2022: PEACE GUITARS.

OCTOBER 6, 2023: SHAMBOLIC GUITARS, possibly my best track ever.  

 ___________________________________________________________
Many thanks for visiting here, and for the comments, 'Likes' & reposts.

D.Svensson Sept. 2022

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All rights to the audio/tracks, and album photography are reserved, and respectfully belong to the owner. 

© DavidSvensson.

SHAMBOLIC GUITARS

DavidSvensson

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