Collected Lapidaries

Built around moving fourths, Pythagoras was inspired by the piano playing of the great McCoy Tyner, one of the most important jazz pianists of the 20th century.  McCoy's modal style included a very strong left hand that used fourths and fifths to create harmony and rhythm for John Coltrane, in addition to his pioneering use of fourths in his soloing.

BUY JAMIE'S MUSIC

Pythagoras

This track is from the album One True Thing and is available for purchase on CD Baby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/BrianKahanek

Bottle Rocket

The title pretty much sums up what I was aiming for. I recorded this one with my mini setup sitting outside in the sun. Oh bliss!
My influences here are pretty diverse: from Vicente Amigo to Al Di Meola to Return to Forever to Paul Gilbert to Steve Vai to Animals as Leaders... I hope one can hear a shimmer of that in this track...

Guitars and music by DanarchX, 2014

Exuberant Electric Exaltations

This was something special! This track is a collaboration between Daniel van den Berg aka Danarchx on guitars and Jamie Rhind on Organ, strings synth and bass Synth. We aimed for a kind of Deep Durple meets Al Di Meola meets Yngwie kind of thing. It was cool and courageous of Jamie trying on a loud rock/metal piece but the result is... Well you judge! 
Music and instrumentalists: Jamie Rhind and Danarchx, 2014

Drag Racers on the Spanish Highway - Part 1 - Featuring Jamie Rhind

This fusion track is conceived as a series of wild flurries with melancholic and fast harmonic changes, it tries to charter different moods and feeling in a franticly romantic way. 
The title points to my heroes of Return to Forever, it's a tribute however in my own humble way and style, in which I might have picked up a thing or two from other musical influences... Without giving it away there is a quote somewhere in this track from the super guitar trio: Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia, who all come from the same group of marvelous 70-ties musicians.

I hope you can appreciate my musical excursions here.

Daniel

All guitars and music by Dan van den Berg, 2014
Artwork by Dan van den Berg, 2014




Frantic Romantic Warriors - Dan van den Berg

The title hints upon the dangerously seductive dance of Salome. Beauty and unease... The track's harmonies and melodic intents seem to flow from eerie to melancholy, tension and resolve. 
I have been working on this track for quite some time in the shape of a very loud rock tune, yet in that form still to be released. Recently I asked Mirko Borach, aka Stringburner, if he would add his bass ideas to this. His musical intention, virtuosity and his singing tone made me try an acoustic version with more room to shine for his playing. In the reworking I changed it into an exotic wild oriental or eastern dance with the, for me at least, obvious hints of Jazz Rock, Flamenco and Fusion. I hope you can enjoy it!

And! Do visit Mirko's splendid work on his SoundCloud profile:
https://soundcloud.com/stringburner

Music, arrangements and guitars by Daniel van den Berg.
Fretless bass and bass arrangements by Mirko Borach.
Drum samples from Amplitube.
February 2015

Guitars:
Paulino Bernabe, Taller de Guitarras, modelo-50, 2001
Ibanez JS100




Veils in the Serpent Wind, Part I - by Dan van den Berg, featuring Mirko Borach

The brilliant Dan van den Berg https://soundcloud.com/danarchx and I are thrilled to share a tribute to two of our favorite bands, The Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever.  These seminal bands and their musicians were so important to the merging of rock and jazz, many having come out of Miles Davis' fusion band, and featured virtuoso soloists and creativity that had not been seen before with electric music.  Dan here plays both electric and acoustic guitars, and has added so very much of himself to this modal tune.  The tune features a repeating simple lick, with dueling aggressive synth and guitar solos that these bands pioneered and took to a very high level, with John McLaughlin and Al DiMiola on guitars and Jan Hammer and Chick Corea on keyboards.     Please check out more of Dan's extraordinary music at https://soundcloud.com/danarchx .  

As always, we thank you for your time listening, your comments and your shares.  Enjoy Mahafusionu....

Mahafusionu - with Dan van den Berg / guitars

This one is quite a crazy funky fusion track! A great bass player Mirko Borach aka Stringburner(https://soundcloud.com/stringburner )came up with the idea to cover this track by Los Lobotomys, a fusion group that was formed by Steve Lukather in 1989 with some of his friends and talented players, like David Garfield.
Mirko asked Jamie Rhind (https://soundcloud.com/jamie-rhind) and me to join on this one to complete the blend. Jamie brought his Miles' oriented synths, I brought my loud and funk rhythm guitars. We reworked the original, added different sounds and flavours to it, turning it into "Entanglement".  All of us have one solo spot around the main theme. Quite interesting is the turn of events with a more quiet interlude after the guitar solo, something we just had to keep in from the original.

Anyways! We hope to entertain you with this cover of a great fusion track and band. Do check them out if you don't know them already! Los Lobotomys...

Bass and bass arrangements, initial drum programming by Mirko Borach https://soundcloud.com/stringburner

Keyboards, synths and synth arrangements by Jamie Rhind https://soundcloud.com/jamie-rhind

Guitars and guitar arrangements, drum programming, mixing and mastering by Dan van den Berg

Drum samples from Amplitube
April 2015




Entanglement (cover) - feat. Mirko Borach | Jamie Rhind | Dan van den Berg

This one came about from a request by Mirko Borach, soundcloud.com/stringburner , a great virtuoso and extremely versatile bass player I have come to know here on SoundCloud. We have already done quite a few tracks together. I was honored when Mirko suggested to do the bass parts on a tune of mine I wrote quite a while back: Anticipating Intermediacy. https://soundcloud.com/danarchx/anticipating-intermediacy

In essence this track came from an idea I had of a repeating unchanging melody line that would change in feel an character by a modulating chord progression that is constantly changing. As describing a person's state going through changes and accepting that the only constant is change.
Anyways!

Mirko's work made me change the track into a more smooth and clearer version with more of a prog rock or jazz rock feel to it, compared to the original which is louder and very dense in texture.

We hope you like our collaboration on this one as well as the new version!

All guitars, music, arrangements and production by Dan van den Berg, DanArchX
All bass parts and arrangements by Mirko Borach, Stringburner, soundcloud.com/stringburner

Guitar: Ibanez JS100
Recorded with Amplitube
Drum programming by using drum samples from Amplitube
Additional synths by using Sampletank

22 April 2015

A.I. - New Version | Dan van den Berg with Mirko Borach on bass

Bass and Voice cover of this Slipknot track, from 'The New Standard' - the Edinburgh Fringe show that Julie and I performed for a week or so the festival in 2006. 

The arrangements on this project are some of the trickiest I've ever done, this one was particularly satisfying. 

(also of note is that I still had flatwound strings on my fretted bass at this point, hence that gorgeous warm jazz guitar-ish tone :) ) 

for more about Julie and what she's doing now, see http://www.juliemckee.com/ - lots of lovely music there! 

Steve Lawson and Julie McKee - Vermilion (Slipknot Cover - 2006)

Dan van den Berg - lead and rhythm guitar
Mirko Borach - bass
Vivek Patel - trumpet, synths, keyboards, drum programming 

Composed August 2011, Recorded September 2015.

Download

Birth of a Revanchist | Vivek Patel, trumpet, feat. Dan van den Berg, guitar & Mirko Borach, bass

This is my first ever guitar duet collaboration so who better to do it with than the immensely talented Dan Van Den Berg @danarchx
I know, I was a bit skeptical of multiple guitarists too. It probably doesn't occur to guitarists to collab with other guitarists and when we do we stick into comfort zones e.g. Larry Carlton teams up with Robben Ford.
So I wanted to do something with a player who is so different it is obvious which of us is playing at any time. I'm pleased to say that I think the contrast of our styles really works. To avoid confusion, I'm the slow/blusey one playing an Ovation electric and Dan is the fast/fusion technical one playing the Ibanez.
Dan really thought about this one. He went for a rounded tone and used a setting kind of similar to that of Al Di Meola in his early solo work, where he uses a Phaser with light gain and fast muted lines causing the typical tic toc sound of the guitar.
Man I love it, hope you do too!

other credits
Written by Freddie Hubbard
arranged by Devian
Vibraphone by Iman Tjahjono

[video]

Little Sunflower GUITAR DUET with Dan van den Berg (downloadable)

This track was set up by Jamie Rhind https://soundcloud.com/jamie-rhind for a collaboration with me, as a high energy, wild funk infused jazz rock track. A duel between synth and guitar. A chase that resembles some typical action movie soundtracks from the seventies. So here goes! The Groovin' Gearhead Getaway!

This one is part of a series of Jazz Rock tracks that I was fortunate to write and record with Jamie Rhind through the last year or more. Together they will soon add up to a full album of typical seventies instrumentals honoring our love for the era and it's wild genres.

Thanks as always for your most generous time listening, for your comments and for your shares.

All original music, synths, original drum and bass programming by Jamie Rhind https://soundcloud.com/jamie-rhind
Rearrangement, additional drum programming, bass guitar, rhythm and lead guitars, mixing and mastering by Dan van den Berg.
October 2015


The Groovin' Gearhead Getaway | Jamie Rhind & Dan van den Berg

Proudly presenting you  "Roads" 
with the tasty bliss of New Canaan's 
most appealing and prolific musician
Jamie Rhind ( https://soundcloud.com/jamie-rhind )
on his splendid keys.

It's the first track - of hopefully many works in the future - Jamie and I created together on a tune of Calaminus. So this is a special pleasure and honour as well for me.
Previously we had some attractive collabs on tunes of Jamie and a few other great tracks, that I can warmly recommend to you...
I'm more than pleased & thankful, that Jamie joined ... with Rhodes ;-)

We headed with Jamie, then going into some call & response over the tasty bass line - Jamies rhodes first on the left, my rhodes on the right after. Following to the hymnic theme (with some wonderful accompaniments of Jamie using a choir/french horn-layered pad), we both solo on our "Roads" with our rhodes. The finish is like cruising into the warm sunset...

We hope, you'll enjoy cruisin' with us on these "Roads" :-)
As we enjoyed playing together for you...

If you do, spread the word, like, repost, downlaod, comment the track and give Jamie all your ears & appreciation...
And don't hesitate to explore more of his jazzy goodness at 
https://soundcloud.com/jamie-rhind  

Have fun(k) :-))

--------
"Roads"

Jamie Rhind - Rhodes (head left & 2nd solo), 
                       additional Theme-Pad
Calaminus - Rhodes (head right & 1st solo), 
                    all other instruments, music, mix, production.

Cover Artwork by Calaminus, based on the original image of Jamie Rhind, kindly provided by himself.
More great original photos of Jamie can be found at http://instagram.com/herbiejazz

Jamies music

Roads - feat. Jamie Rhind

Bass, fretless bass, music and composition: Mirko Borach @stringburner 
Rhythm and lead guitars, co-production: Daniel van den Berg @DanArchX 
Synthesizer, co-production: Jamie Rhind @jamie-rhind  
Drums: A man called Martin @amancalledmartin  
Electric piano, synthesizer, mixing and production: Julien Apelian @jules-keys-1

A message from Mirko:

"The journey continues!

After releasing "Redemption" on SoundCloud which was a full success, we were thinking of a part II to continue the journey into great spheres of fusion and progressive rock. 
This time it should be more intense, more heavy and more mind-blowing than the first part. 
Like a spaceship flight through other dimensions.

With the same line-up as on “Redemption” but now supported by Martin of the British metal band Winterfire on drums we want to enter some parallel worlds of sound.

The title Parallel Worlds should explain our hopes and feelings when we fall asleep.
Falling into a dream our mind is drifting into a parallel universe of different moods and atmospheres.

This track takes us back to instrumental prog rock bands like Planet X with such great musicians like Derek Sherinian, Tony MacAlpine, Virgil Donati and Tom Kennedy.

Again Julien Apelian gives us outstanding key and piano lines and a magic synth solo from outer space.
Dan van den Berg’s splendid rhythm and lead guitar work took us beyond the bounds of universe. 
Jamie Rhind discovers new space at the speed of light with an awesome synth solo.
A man called Martin’s great drums are pure gravity holding it all perfectly together and finally Mirko Borach’s deep bass grooves took us to undiscovered planets and back.

As always we really appreciate your comments, likes and shares!"

December 2015

Parallel Worlds - Mirko Borach, Dan van den Berg, Jamie Rhind, A man called Martin & Julien Apelian

Rain

Now here's an electric part II of Veils in the Serpent Wind, featuring the extra-ordinaire, brilliant keyboards player and composer Jason Rubenstein soundcloud.com/jasonrubenstein AND Mirko Borach again. 
Jason worked throughout the track on several instruments, ranging from Moogs, Synths and piano, did the co-production, and mixing and mastering. 
Mirko added his warm singing fretless bass tone again and some super virtuoso bass playing.
And! Very special guest here is a great drummer I have gotten to know though Jason's invite here: Tom Hipskind. Do check out his great drumming and versatility.

Eleven months ago I released this track called "Veils in the Serpent Wind", which features the great bass player Mirko Borach, aka Stringburner soundcloud.com/stringburner, who joined on an experimental fusion track hinting on Salome's seductive Dance. An acoustic version: https://soundcloud.com/danarchx/veils-in-the-serpent-wind. Now this has turned into a pair and a little "suite". In musical appreciation and upbringing I am a seventies guy. I love epic music and thinking up these long tracks in different modes, movements and parts. 

It is indeed my great joy and pleasure to release this exiting, wild and unusual piece of music, that brings a whole new light to the material of "Veils in the Serpent Wind". This is part II.

We hope you will enjoy our journey into a new territory for this track and as always appreciate your comments, likes and shares.

Dan van den Berg, January 14th, 2016

Initial music, guitars, drum programming, co-production by Dan van den Berg
All keyboards, arrangements, production, mixing and mastering by Jason Rubenstein soundcloud.com/jasonrubenstein
Fretless Bass and bass arrangements by Mirko Borach soundcloud.com/stringburner
released January 14th, 2016


Veils in the Serpent Wind, Part II - Quartet with Jason Rubenstein, Tom Hipskind & Mirko Borach

Due to popular demand, here is Lone Digger from our last album I

Official Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbQgXeY_zi4

Enjoy ! 

Lone Digger - Single

Lone Digger

This is the full version of a suite from my band, Psycles.  I hope you listen and enjoy.

Onsra - I Fall in Love (Full Version)

This is a cool, old Little Richard cover.  Great solos from Howard Levy and B.J. Cord.  I think the guitar solo has some great moments, though I wish I would've chilled out a bit at the end.  That's me singing.  Fun listen.  From the album: Chris Siebold & Psycles Live At Martyrs' CSM 2011 Available on CD, vinyl, and all digital formats.

Directly From My Heart To You

If you like loud pianos, heavy rock and massive drums, you've come to the right place. These are full tracks, tests, works-in-progress, and experiments.  Heavy rock, progressive instrumental, progressive metal, fusion-rock live here. And some ambient-groove for the late-night my-ears-need-a-break moments.