Decided to go with something a bit more recent for my latest live cover. I'd like to point out that I'm a complete amateur on piano so please try not to mind how bad my playing is, and let me know how you like this style of song!

Unmade (Thom Yorke Cover Live)

It's been a while since my last upload so I thought it was about time I covered another song! This is really a complete re-working and stripping back of the original track, but I hope it's enjoyable regardless and as always, feedback and suggestions are always appreciated :)

Thanks to my dad, Nigel Mackenzie, for suggesting this one.

Hounds Of Love (Kate Bush Cover)

For the past four years around this time of year I've found myself thinking about Grampa, Robin Mackenzie, and how strange that it still is that he's no longer around. One of my defining memories of him is that Coldplay would always be playing in his house, and in particular, The Scientist is the song that sticks in my head. So, I decided to cover it as a tribute to him, and wanted to try something a little different to practice vocal harmonies, so there's no instrumental to this track - every sound heard on it is my voice. Hopefully it's enjoyable and does him justice. Miss you Grampa.

The Scientist (Coldplay Cover)

Going back to the mid-2000s classics for this one and reworking a great song that I always loved as a teen (and still as an adult, come to think of it). I decided to try and be a bit more ambitious than usual with the instrumentation so as a result the editing process took a bit longer than I'm used to, but in the end I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. As always, any feedback and suggestions for other songs I should cover are much appreciated!

When You Were Young (The Killers Cover)

It's that time again! For my cover this month I decided to be ambitious and tried rolling three of my favourite John Lennon/Beatles tunes into one (A Day in the Life, Jealous Guy and Across the Universe). By the way, in case anyone isn't aware at this point, I not only sing on these tracks, but I also arrange the backing track and play all of the instruments. This time I think it was the most complex arrangement I've had to put together, and it was a real pain to mix. Hopefully the effort was worth it - please let me know if you enjoyed the song (or if you didn't). The awesome feedback I've had on these covers so far has really kept me going and makes me want to do more :)

A Day in the Life of a Jealous Guy Across the Universe (John Lennon/Beatles Medley)

So, some people might have noticed I haven't posted any new song covers lately. The main reason for this was that I got pretty ill around about the time I posted my last cover, and my singing voice took probably a good 6 weeks to get fully back to normal, at which point I then got sick again. 

That was a bit of a frustrating time, but during that break I've been able to reflect on what I've been doing musically throughout this year and consider what I want to do going into 2022. Initially, the song covers were intended as quick, one-take things just to get me back into the habit of picking up instruments and singing regularly again. 

That goal was definitely achieved, but the one-take thing quickly disappeared and instead my covers started becoming increasingly complex and intricate, both from a musical and production standpoint, and took much longer to produce every time. As a result, I found that this year I've had almost no time or motivation to work on my own music, and that's something I'll need to change going into 2022.

I don't regret spending the time I have on the covers this year - it served its purpose of getting me back into making music regularly, and got me a lot better acquainted with my editing program, so I'm able to take my own music in a more ambitious direction as a result of that experience I've gained.

I will still most likely post an occasional cover, but my goal for the future is to try and move away from that, and more into creating music for myself again.

However, here is one last cover for this year, done in the spirit I originally intended, with me singing and playing in one take (the first take I got all the way through), into one microphone, on a children's starter guitar.

Merry Christmas everyone! ❤

White Christmas (Bing Crosby Cover)

I recently watched a video by one of my favourite YouTube creators, where he set himself the challenge of writing a song every day for a month. Predictably, not every song was good, but the outcome was that by the end of the challenge he felt he had become a more confident songwriter, purely through getting lots of practice during that month, and being forced to not be precious about his work, since the deadline forced him to just release what he had at the end of each day. 

Now I'm not planning anything as crazy as that, but one of the points I did recognise is that I do tend to be precious about music I'm working on and I usually don't feel comfortable sharing it unless I'm 100% behind the finished product and feel it's as polished as it possibly can be (which is rare). 

So, one of the resolutions I've set myself for 2022 is to aim to put out a different piece of music (on Soundcloud, Youtube, Instagram or Facebook directly) at least once every two weeks for the whole year. It doesn't have to be finished - I'm just aiming to put something out there every two weeks. By the end of the year I should have close to 30 pieces of music released, and my hope is that over the course of this, I'll be able to see progress and improve as a songwriter.

This first piece is something I've had kicking around for a while and have messed around with again over the past week or so. It's a re-recording of a song I wrote back in 2011. At the time it was a very ambitious song recorded on terrible equipment, but I always felt like it had promise. So far, I've gotten about halfway in. Not all of the tracks are final takes so there are some mistakes, and there are no vocals recorded yet. It feels intimidating releasing something that's still so unfinished, but that's the point of the challenge so here we go!

As always, I really appreciate any feedback I'm given (in fact, it would be especially helpful for me going forward with this one, so I can hopefully finish it someday). 

(PS. If anyone is interested in the video I was watching, it's this one by WheezyWaiter - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k_DkpPRWhA)

A Lonely Road (2022 Mix - Work in Progress)

This past week, a video upload site and community I've been a part of since 2008 finally went offline for good. For anyone who doesn't know, TMUnderground was a site dedicated to sharing and collaborating on machinima/animated movies made using The Movies, iClone, Moviestorm and many other tools. We were a close knit community comprised of amateur filmmakers, musicians, modders, voice actors, writers and more. I made many lifelong friends from all over the world and had some of my happiest memories during my time on TMU, and I feel that given I was only 16 when I joined, the community has undoubtedly played a fundamental role in shaping me into the person I am today.

Of course, we all knew this day was coming. Much of the activity from the old forums had shifted onto Facebook groups and Skype, and these days not as many people are making films anymore. There was also the devastating news last year that Ken White, the man who ran the site, had sadly passed away. Ken was one of the kindest and most generous people I've ever had the honour of knowing, and I know that anyone else who knew him would say the same. It makes me happy to know that there are so many people across the world who will remember what a great person he was, and as long as we continue to carry those memories then he'll never be completely gone.

With all that in mind, I decided to go a different direction with my music this time. I've always wanted to dabble with orchestral music and movie scores, but never really felt like I had the tools and expertise until now. With a year of practice with virtual instruments in my music software behind me, I finally felt confident enough to go ahead and try to capture in music my feelings from this past week. 

Because you can't really separate one from the other, I guess this is my tribute and a farewell to not only the place that gave me so many joyful moments over the years, but also to Ken himself as a thank you for making it all possible.

The song itself isn't totally finished, and I will most likely go back and tweak some things, but that's the beauty of the fortnightly song challenge I've set myself this year. It's been two weeks since the last one so I just need to stop being precious and publish what I have! I hope it's enjoyable and thanks to anyone who's read the wall of text this far :)

A Fond Farewell

Another track posted just before the 2 week deadline, another big challenge taken on. Maren jokingly pointed out once that despite us being together for close to 7 years now, I had never written a song for her. So with Valentine's Day coming up, I figured I should probably get on that... 

This was a really tough one. I've written love songs before, but never in such a direct way, and especially not about someone I am still in a relationship with, and whose reaction I would be able to see first hand as she heard it.

The one thing I really didn't want to do was cop out and write something sickly sweet, as that tends to ring hollow with me and relationships are generally more complicated than that. Instead, this is an honest love song, complete with lyrics that lay bare some of my deepest insecurities, that hopefully shows that while a relationship may not always be easy or take you to places you expected, it is a beautiful thing nonetheless and the hardships of the journey are all part of what will make us grow stronger together.

Sorry if that's a little deep or personal for a Friday night - I promise I'll put out something a little lighter in two weeks! I feel like writing out these lyrics has helped scratch an itch in my brain that really needed the attention, and I hope that besides being a good therapy exercise for me, the song is also enjoyable to listen to.

On to the next one then!

Horizon

A little earlier than usual, it's been 2 weeks and I'm back with another track to share. As promised, this I went with something significantly lighter than last time.

I've been playing a bit of Pokemon Yellow again recently and it inspired me to try and write something that might fit in one of the original Pokemon games on the Game Boy.

It was more of a challenge than I thought to work with only a limited library of  glitchy sounds, trying to produce something that might ultimately sound pleasing. After a couple of failed attempts, I stopped using the 4-bit instruments temporarily and wrote something I liked using standard instrument sounds instead. I then worked backwards and transposed the song into something that hopefully sounds as if it might fit somewhere in an old 90s video game.

My favourite tracks in Pokemon generally tend to be the themes for the home town, so naturally I found myself thinking of my old home town in East Wemyss where I grew up, the place where I played these games for the first time all those years ago. As East Wemyss is a small village situated on the coast, I used a slow, back and forth chord pattern with a bit of vibrato in an attempt to evoke a lazy seaside town vibe.

Hopefully I succeeded, and this managed to conjure up a bit of nostalgia (the good kind that makes you feel nice and warm, not the bad kind that makes you ugly cry and eat a whole tub of Ben and Jerry's).

In true Pokemon style, the song can loop forever if you want it to. When listening on Soundcloud, just click the little loop button next to Play, Skip etc, and you can do just that (and then maybe it'll get stuck in your head like the Pallet Town theme).

P.S. Yes, I made the thumbnail myself using a variety of Pokemon game assets. And yes, I know that I've used a Gen 5 character model on a Gen 4 background to accompany a song that sounds like it's from Gen 1 or 2. I know there's someone out there thinking it so please, no need to point it out :P

P.P.S. If anyone is interested in hearing the original version of the song I wrote before I GameBoy-ified it, you can listen to that here!

https://soundcloud.com/edan-mackenzie/east-wemyss-orchestral-version

East Wemyss (4-bit Game Boy Version)

The orchestral arrangement of my Pokemon game inspired soundtrack. This one loops too, just not quite as cleanly. You can listen to the 4-bit version here: https://soundcloud.com/edan-mackenzie/east-wemyss-4bit-version

East Wemyss (Orchestral Version)

So... as much to my own surprise as anyone else's, I have so far managed to get 2 months into my fortnightly song upload challenge without missing a deadline yet. It has felt a lot more intense than just posting a cover once a month like last year, but I feel like I'm starting to get used to the routine and look forward to working on new songs on a regular basis.

For the fifth song this year, I decided it was time to go back and post another cover, after two months of only posting original material. Maren requested this one aaaaages ago and me being typical me, I agreed very quickly, and then proceeded to drag my heels about actually getting in and doing it.

What I usually do with these covers is take a song with lots of production and instrumentation, strip all that away and recreate it in a more minimal style. However, the original version of this song is already about as minimal as it's possible to be... so it only made sense that I instead turn it into an epic Psychedelic Rock song with a guitar solo.

My main struggle with this one was getting all the levels balanced, with so many instruments getting involved. I had loads of fun just going nuts with it, but hopefully it's nice to listen to as well. Let me know if you did enjoy it - my ego needs feeding ;)

As The World Turns (Jessica Pratt Cover)

A work in progress, using a riff I've had kicking around for ages. Art created by Midjourney AI.

Pyramids (work in progress)

Did a quick cover of a few of the verses from Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold, just a one take thing, nothing fancy.

Edan Mackenzie

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