Beautiful. Ethereal. Soothing and relaxing. Wonderful vocals and lyrics. An excellent collaboration. Hats off !

oh - this is wonderful... great insteumental and vocals.)

love the vocals very much in this/ writing is so impressive/ this song is breathing

excellent song...so intense..beautiful vocal:)

Wow completely blown away by this one Mark. I love the melody - so meloncholic and works perfectly with the lyrics. So deep and intense.

Crystal clear guitar sound. Fine singing too. Love the sparseness of the music.

Great lyrics, love to read the story how you came up with the song. In our family the mother of my sister in law died of alzheimer, too two weeks ago. Thank you so much for coming up with that important topic

A couple of weeks ago my good friend Graham Lavallin (https://soundcloud.com/lavallin) asked me if I would consider writing some lyrics and maybe doing the vocals, to some original pieces of music he had put together, all of which were dealing with human consciousness and metaphysical themes. One of these, ‘Lost Lake of Souls’ suggested to me a kind of Irish Folk meets Peter Gabriel feel, I was instantly smitten and my head filled with the ideas contained here almost before the song finished playing that first time. The next day I had most of the lyrics. Graham gave me some more suggestions, which I incorporated into the final song.

My instinct said that a powerful, passionate arrangement needed to carry an equally important subject. Graham had briefly mentioned to me his 97 year old mother who is in a care home and suffers the condition of dementia and I asked him if he felt alright about Alzheimer’s Disease (a form of dementia) as the theme of the song and if I changed the title to ‘Lake Of Lost Souls’. Sadly nowadays, almost everyone, including myself, knows or has known someone who has lost something of their identity and so much of their dignity to this terrible disease. I hope this song strikes a chord and it is intended with respect to be cathartic and therapeutic. 

As always I’m very grateful to Graham for his imagination, skill and patience but on this collaboration he enabled me to write something of a very personal nature. If you have time please show your appreciation on Graham's cloud, https://soundcloud.com/lavallin/lake-of-lost-souls-lavallin-mark-j-bennett 
We are both aware that this song demands much of the listener and we just hope that it may touch others in the same way that this song has moved both of us and hopefully draw attention to the plight of those affected.

Here are some links if you need more information.
http://www.alzscot.org/
http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/
http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Alzheimers-disease/Pages/Introduction.aspx

Vocal, Lyrics and Artwork – Me
All Music and Instrumentation - https://soundcloud.com/lavallin
Instrumentation: Fender Strat through Apogee Gio pedal board interface to access the onboard GarageBand amps & FX pedals for all electric guitars. Korg Kronos and Roland Jupiter 50 synths EWQL ‘Voices Of Passion’ layered backing vocals/choirs  Atmosphere loop
All recorded and mixed in GarageBand.
“Lake Of Lost Souls" ( © Lavallin/Bennett 2014 )
 
I mourned you this morning,
Though you’re not yet gone,
This hand I am holding,
Used to belong,
To the one closest to my heart,
Distant now, forever drifting
On the lake of lost souls

Comfort and peace,
Sweet release.

Between two worlds 
Now is time to let go
Is but a fleeting domain,
Your spirit will always be free.
Now is time to let go
Between two worlds

Comfort and peace…
Distant now, forever drifting
Comfort and peace…
On the lake of lost souls

Distant now, forever drifting
Comfort and peace…
On the lake of lost souls
Comfort and peace…

I mourned you this morning,
Though you’re not yet gone,
This hand I am holding,
Used to belong,
To the one closest to my heart


Lake Of Lost Souls (with Lavallin) Click for Info

Dear listener, Feel free to leave comments and I'll try to reply.

I've been making music for around 16 years now but because of the wonderfully generous community that is SC, I have learned so much in a short time. I look forward to learning even more by collaborating. 
I suppose my strengths are in lyric-writing and singing. I feel fortunate to have been able to work with some stunning compositions by some very talented SCers.

My very best to you, Mark

Some links to recent Continental Collision streaming sites, etc are available below:

Comments

Andreas Noll

Oorlab

Nick Nolan.

Paploviante2

Lillithe

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