Broken Sleep

One evening in December...

Studio Time and this song about the pain of saying goodbye and wishing to turn or hold back the time

Hold Back Time

I am out here on my own again, waiting by track number nine
See the last train go into the night
There is nobody left to see my pain, only the first moonshine
Feel the cold wind freezes my sight

Come let the train slow down
Let you step on down
Into these arms of mine
Let me hold back time

Every day I can see the stars, most of the times it makes me weep
Cuz I see your ways slip into mine
Every night I must fight my wars, the scars and pain cut to deep
While your last goodbye echoes my mind

Come let the train slow down
Let you step on down
Into these arms of mine
Let me hold back time

Out on this lost railway, I’ll wait each and every day
Till you come home to stay, Into these arms of mine
Let me hold back time

Come let the train slow down
Let you step on down
Into these arms of mine
Let me hold back time

I am out here on my own again, older than ever before
Take the last train off into the night

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There's a story behind this song. Long ago I came back from a concert in Brussels and got off the train. It was a cold and winter night so before I continued my walk, I decided to button up my vest. By the time I finished I looked up and the train platform was empty, except for me and an old man watching sadly at the train leaving the station.
With that idea in mind I wrote this song about saying goodbye

December Sessions

Hold Back Time

Play on Spotify

Time For De-Stress (Earthshine Part I)

Gbogbo.mp3

This is the first entry to EXCURSIONS - Volume I, my new endeavour to produce as many pieces of music as fast as possible. 
I want to see how much I can do in a (at least for my standards) very short period of time, mainly to increase my overall efficiency when it comes to making music but also to get more experience in the process of actually finishing projects, which I lack.

This one is a simple progression that doesn't evolve much in terms of harmonic content but builds more upon the idea of: emotions first, complexity later. Since I tend to dislike things I make that are too "unoriginal" (as if that ship hasn't already sailed) and discard usable ideas that can easily be turned into something pretty good, I figured this would be the perfect way of trying to break this useless notion of reinventing the bloody wheel every time (not that I do that, but I hold myself to that stupidly impossible standard regardless).
I hope I succeed and I think with this piece I am on a good way towards getting better at that.

Hope you enjoy this little Richter-esque excursion. 
More (probably short) pieces will follow - they might be totally different to this one, they might be similar - I shall take what I can get :)

Cheerio,
Cedric

[ amazing photo by Vadim Sadovski that I used for this cover found here: https://unsplash.com/photos/rVk7NXidQFY ]

EXCURSIONS Vol. I

The End Is Never The End Is Never...

EXCURSIONS - The End Is Never The End Is Never...

It always winds up this way.  The royalty get the Palace and the people fight over scraps in the street.  Simple song here from the perspective of a broken man standing on a cold hungry street outside of a Palace and wondering what life is like inside.

Palace Walls

In this piece the newly invented string instruments are playing in combination with flute, soprano voice and piano. The strings are being stretched between the beams of the mezzanine of the building and also hanging from the ceiling beams with heavy weights on them. The hanging strings surround the audience and musicians. A very special building HET VEEM (Van Diemenstraat 410, 1013 CR Amsterdam) - former warehouse, where the piece was premiered, inspired us to create these instruments and this composition. The concert was performed as a part of Toetsdestijds Concerten Series.

http://www.veem.nl/nl/p482c37cf9528d/het-veem.html

MUSICIANS

String players:
Julie Stalder
Frank Diamand
Linda Paulino
Jan van der Sangen
Noam Staal

Reciters:
Frank Diamand
Lara Diamand

Ensemble TRIODUO: 
Lara Diamand - soprano/reciter
Erica van den Berg - ( alto ) flute.
Georgina Collington - piano
http://www.laradiamand.nl/Lara_Diamand/TRIODUO.html

INSTRUMENTS created by: 
Hans van Koolwijk 
http://www.hansvankoolwijk.nl/index.html 
Jan van der Sangen 
http://www.toetsdestijds.nl/werk.html 

Lyrics by Omar Khayyam
Music by Igor Iofe 
http://igor-iofe.com/

Recording - Bart van Hasselt
Mixing/ Mastering  - Igor Iofe

I Came Like Water and Like Wind I Go Mov VII

Voices From A Shell

Driven Away

SAtFive - NewWorld
Pop
Goods Vibes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9EufMNimLM

NewWorld

Igor Iofe is a
composer whose musical
paths lead to diverse stylistic destinations. Currently Igor's focus in music is Armenian traditional duduk repertoire which he performs on trumpet. He brings the beauty and warmth of the duduk into his trumpet playing.

At the Conservatorium van Amsterdam he studied with  Wim Hendrickx,Richard Ayres,  Fabio Nieder,Willem Jeths and Jorrit Tamminga. Igor attended masterclasses with Misato Mochizuki, Dmitry Kourliandski, Tristan Murail andTan Dun. His music was performed at the Composers’ Festival Amsterdam (2012 and 2013), Atlas Academy (2010-12),  Looptail XXX and at such venues as De Link, De Duif, Het Bethaniënklooster, Het Veem, STEIM, Muziekgebouw aan 't Ij and CvA in Amsterdam and other cities of the Netherlands. His piece Y+Ywas performed by the Joint Venture Percussion Duo at several venues in the USA and Europe.

Parallel to his Classical Composition studies Igor studied Composing Music for Film with Jurre Haanstra and graduated as a Master in Composing for FIlm at the CvA. During his studies he wrote music for several movies which were shown at the Beeldbuis Filmfestival, Keep an Eye Film Festival, VERS Awards, Cinekid Filmfestival, M2M Filmfestival and Pleinbioscoop Rotterdam.

Igor is one of the organisers of the Toets des Tijds Concert Series