MMC December 2021. Electronic action ambient. Made in FL Studio.

MMC December

Once Upon a Spearhead

MMC February 2023. Electronic with some Tron-like vibes. Made with FL Studio.

MMC February

Data Chase

Malmen - Heartbleed

I found an old sketch I made several years ago, and thought this needed some further polishing. A very happy chord progression with a four on the floor stomping beat, that grew into a solid song. As usual I have some nice accoustic strumming guitars and a searing guitar solo from Håvard, but this time can proudly present some real brass from Bullseye Horns. Børge-Are did a quick arrangement of the original synth brass section and went to work with Mats and Kristoffer.

The Way You Make Me Feel

Now you're flickering away, at the Chestnut Tree Cafe.

The Ghost You Choose to Be

About 11 years late to the party, I found this insanely beautiful rendition from Melissa Hollick. Originally a Chris Isaak song from his Forever Blue album. Melissa did a touching and tender, slow piano ballad which sucker punched everyone who played through this epic game in the Wolfenstein-saga. I never had a powerful enough PC back when the Wolfenstein New Order came out, and just earlier this year, had the opportunity to play the game. The ending got me too, and hard!

So, of course I just had to do my take on this song and sprinkle it with some magic 80s power ballad dust. I took the original recording from Melissa and separated the vocals from the backing track using lalal.ai. From there, I had to find a median tempo as the original is organically swaying quite a bit. I settled on 106 BPM and time-aligned her vocals to the grid, while trying to keep as much as the original feel and flow.

I also added a few bars here and there and shortened the intro. The structure of the song is a bit different from standard A-A-B-C-A... etc. so what's normally the chorus, became a second pre-chorus, with the Ooh section ending up as the real chorus. Furthermore I changed the chords up a bit, as the normal three/four chord progression became too tiresome for five and a half minute of slow power ballad.

Not too much going on in the backing section, a mixture of Yamaha TX816 (DX7) stereo Epianos, pads, and twinkle bells etc, as well as some Fingered Bass/Amped bass guitars layered with Nexus5 guitar patches and pads. Drums are a mix of Nexus5 80s drums and Zenhiser Retro 80s Drummer samples.

Håvard Caspersen laid down a series of Michael Thompson ambient guitars, strummed accoustic and some searing lead stuff in the background. Stellar work as usual!

I Believe Remix [Feat. Melissa Hollick and Håvard Caspersen] (Instrumental)

Born from the silent pulse of the cosmos, light filters through the veils of shadow and unfolds into invisible forms. Horizons dissolve into constellations, and breath becomes the force that bends the firmament. Radiance flows like tides through the silence, cradling the last embers of distant suns. In the radiance of a dawn without beginning, time forgets its path and infinity opens its eyes.

Aether’s Lament

This track excerpts samples from 'Sarah Vaughn - Lullaby of Birdland'

No One Said Yellow

Angel (Instrumental)

A remastered extended version of the song made for the 2006 Candela demo of the same name.

For once I actually have the old project files around, albeit not usable on my current workstation. I instead set up a WinXP VM with all my old plugins and DAW:s so I could export and reference the stuff I used. The MIDI notes and Kontakt instruments were easily exportable to FL Studio, and the only casualty was the Cubase-specific filter plugin Tonic which I had to replicate as well as I could. I also added back some parts that were cut out of the demo for time, and replaced some drums to improve the mix.

A shout-out must go to the z3ta+ VSTi and its great implementation of Hermode tuning. It's what makes the signature sound of this track possible, having such aggressive distorsion without all the mud that comes from equal-tempered tuning.

Jeff

Enjoy some magic leads from Mordi and all kind of fresh baked cookies from me. Big love to Magnus for a superb master.

The Ghost You Choose to Be

GMM