What a wonderful splash!

Dedicated to Chicago Great Ramsey Lewis.
All Music written, recorded, and produced by Jeffrey Lasky 2023;
All rights reserved to Jeffrey Lasky

Ramsey's Mood

This is a song that Computart came up with and passed on to me. It was just some ambient synth and a very simple beat when I got a hold of it, but it did have a really cool feel. I took it, and added five string fretless bass, electric guitar, piano, and organ. I then asked Tez (Llanpsych) to work his mix magic on it, which he did very expertly, as always. We hope you like it.

The Shining (with Computart [Phill Chris] and Llanpsych)

Kamień / Stone

Lyrics:-
What matters to you
Doesn't matter to me
What matters to me
Doesn't matter to you

All we hope for is that one day
We'll bridge the gap and we'll live in harmony
That's how you know it should be
Agree to disagree

From the girl in her room
To the man on the street
From the man in the moon
To Police on the beat

All we hope for is that one day
We'll bridge the gap and we'll live in harmony
That's how you know it should be
Agree to disagree

From the Farmers who toil
To the City bank boys
From the kettles that boil
To the kids with their toys

All we hope for is that one day
We'll bridge the gap and we'll live in harmony
That's how you know it should be
Agree to disagree

From the media pundits
To the teachers at school
From alternative trumpets
To the stubborn old mule

All we hope for is that one day
We'll bridge the gap and we'll live in harmony
That's how you know it should be
Agree to disagree

winkandwoo 2023

Agree To Disagree

MON GRAND-PÈRE EST AU GRAND AIR
LÀ-HAUT SUR SON ROCKING-CHAIR
POUR L’ÉTERNITÉ PÉPÈRE
DANS LA STRATOSPHÈRE

ANTIQUE PIERROT LUNAIRE
IL A JAMAIS TOUCHÉ TERRE
TOUTE UNE VIE LE NEZ EN L’AIR
DANS SA TROPOSPHÈRE

ET NOUS À FAIRE DES AFFAIRES
ON FOUT NOTRE VIE EN L’AIR   
ET CE QU’ON GAGNE ON LE PERD
JUSQU'À MORDRE LA POUSSIÈRE

RIEN À FOUTRE MON GRAND-PÈRE 
NOS VIES IL EN A RIEN À FAIRE
IL A POUR LUI TOUT L’ÉTHER
L’ÉTERNITÉ PÉPÈRE

NOUS AVEC LE FEU MON FRÈRE
ON JOUE À SE FAIRE LA GUERRE
ET DES NICHES ET DES MISÈRES
THERMONUCLÉAIRES

MON GRAND-PÈRE EST AU GRAND AIR
LÀ-HAUT SUR SON ROCKING-CHAIR
POUR L’ÉTERNITÉ PÉPÈRE
DANS LA STRATOSPHÈRE

NOUS AVEC NOS MOTS EN L’AIR
DANS CE MONDE DÉLÉTÈRE
NOS AMOURS EN COURANTS D’AIR
OUI MAIS LAISSE FAIRE

BIENTÔT LE FUNICULAIRE
JE PRENDRAI POUR PRENDRE L’AIR
ET ALLER VOIR MON GRAND-PÈRE
DANS SON EXOSPHÈRE

MON GRAND-PÈRE (Lyrics)

This is the second in the Departure series of experimental soundscapes that are inspired by a set of 13 poems (or 'cantos') written by Jo Richter a.k.a. Sonic Structures and Silent Stretches @sonic-structures. I was honored thatJo invited me to collaborate with him on this project, it has really helped to push me in some new creative directions.

This second track in the series, features field recordings from Zuunzug. He offers them up for download on this page: @zuunzug-field-recording under the Creative Commons license (CC BY 3.0) ... The ones I used are Save Beograd, Novi Sad, and Waves Over Seashells.  I think they add a lot of great atmospheric texture!

The poetry is copyright Jo Richter. I have only extracted a small sample of the original poem, so please read the full text below if you are interested in the original context for the spoken word, also read by Jo Richter.

And you can follow along with this project here. This playlist so far includes one other song (2 different versions) from me and Stonerjazz, based on Canto VI, but we intend to add more in the coming months:
https://soundcloud.com/sonic-textures/sets/departure-a-long-poem-in?si=670a7a3afd304067a20ddf0801653bd7&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Here is the full text of Departure - Canto II, the inspiration for this track:
(Copyright Jo Richter)

To allow for rest, you need to make sure
that you do not fall asleep right in
harm‘s way. You need to put your trust
in crude projections of the path and thrust
of entities and processes that do not cease
activity when your awareness takes its leave.
There are no guardian spirits to protect
you when consciousness bows out.

When – as a growing child who learns to use
his wits to regulate the forces that en-
compass him – he had to learn to abdicate
his mental skills, his reason and his
social prowess, just to give in to sleep,
he felt the force of dread that did
not hesitate to bring forth monsters from
the cracks that rooms and psyches offer.

Out foraging for all the goods that people,
parks and pastures proffer, he‘d often felt
assailed by sudden drowsiness that swept him
from the inside out into the open street
and very nearly drowned him in the gutter.
The force that urged him cannily to sidestep
reason, did not protect him from approaching cars,
as though it were an arbitrary arbiter of life.

It had been then, in dire need of shelter,
that he had stepped into the cool, comforting
splendour of the spire that reached into
what lays beyond. To master words, he
had been warned, will never do,
if you aspire to tame the threat of
letting go. I‘m here, he‘d said, to enter
a frame of mind, a larger self, a sphere of

actuality that never passes out, even in the
deepest state of slumber, trance or trauma,
even when the archetypes invade
my daily reasoning with brutal presence, as
they do. To master words, his muse replied
with her bemused DaVinci-grin, is quite
amusing, once you find the time to ponder
and to muse about the situation you are in.

Splendor Of The Spire (Departure Mix 2): inspired by Jo Richter's Canto II poem - full text in desc.

for no reason

lost in time

"Dino Steps" (edit: Mastered with iZotope Ozone on 25 September, 2023)

Here is a song which - despite it being played in minor key - was originally meant to tell a story of a celebration! You see, I recently got a chance to get a new electric piano sound library and especially a new lovely Dyno Rhodes sound which I so dearly love and which I believe to have been listening to all my life on countless of records and songs. So, I sat down, started to play and here is the end result. The sound, beauty and expressiveness of Dyno-My-Piano modification of Rhodes electric piano never ceazes to amaze me. You can play almost anything with it. The name of the song "Dino Steps" was partly related to that "Dyno" sound but also came to be as a reminder of the known fact that sometimes in life a step that seems small can be or mean a giant step. Finally, the name also came to be as a wish from a certain private party (that is, a certain natural person:) who happens to love dinosaurs.

The song was played by me using my old Korg SGProX digital stage piano as a midi keyboard and the Yamaha Montage 8 as a audio interface. The main electric piano sound here is the lovely Dyno Rhodes sound from the wonderful Dyno Expansion of the Neo-Soul Keys Studio 2 by Gospel Musicians (cf. Dyno-My-Piano), added with some MKS-20 type of keyboard sounds (UVI Key Suite Digital) and the Scarbee EP-88S. Then there is the iconic Marcato Strings sound from the UVI Emulation II+ (cf. Emu Emulator). The drums are the Native Instruments Abbey Road 1980s Drummer (with a layered Linndrum snare and a layered 808 type of kick). Then I have a Moog type of bass sound (UVI Ultramini, Arturia Mini-V) and the pad/horns from the UVI "PX memories" (cf. Memorymoog). 

The wonderful lead sound is a lead sound from the DX7 (Syn-Lead1h, converted to Yamaha Montage by Hideo Harada, Kamoda Music).

Dino Steps

DANCING ON THE TABLE

LESLYE ALEXANDER IS HER GIVEN NAME
SOIXANTE PIGES AU COMPTEUR
I’VE BEEN THROUGH THE SAME
BUT GENEROSITY IS HER SECOND NAME
C’EST LA DAME DE CŒUR
IF LIFE IS A GAME

GIVING FORGIVING, AND IN NAPA VALLEY
DANCING ON THE TABLE JUST FOR BEING HAPPY

IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE GO ASK MAGGI
ET JE SUIS SÛR QUE GRIFF SERA BIEN D’ACCORD
ASHLYE CHLOE YOU CAN EVEN ASK ME
THERE’S SOMETHING WITH LESLYE QUI FAIT QU’ON L’ADORE

COOKING TEACHING AND IN NAPA VALLEY
DANCING ON THE TABLE JUST FOR BEING HAPPY

BEING BORN THE DAY OF THE REVOLUTION
PROFESSEUR D’HISTOIRE SERAIT-CE UN HASARD?
BUT TODAY IS THE DAY OF YOUR CELEBRATION
A CHILLED MARTINI C’EST CE QUE JE VAIS BOIRE CE SOIR

DRINKING LOVING AND IN NAPA VALLEY
DANCING ON THE TABLE TOP  JUST FOR BEING HAPPY
DRINKING LOVING AND IN NAPA VALLEY
DANCING ON THE TABLE JUST FOR BEING HAPPY

DANCING ON THE TABLE (Lyrics) song for Leslye

IMRE LODBROG