Short clip of a work-in-progress from the upcoming Philosophonic album, Sombra Púrpura

Harp Song Intro

I am not a cellist! Just checking the sound from the electric cello I made.

Silviolin 3/4 Electric Cello--Test 1short

This is a crude MIDI rendering of the first 2 movements of a piece I started writing many moons ago in conservatory (1999ish); I was trying to keep things deliberately concise as my tendency is to become very rambly formwise. I intended it to be a Brass Quintet but the 2nd movement seemed like it would work better for strings; oops. I never really went through and polished any of it up but listening back I think there is some solid material in there, and probably hearing these movements played by real instruments they might suddenly sound quite good just as they are. Inunno.

String Quintet- Fast

Quintet For Brass I

[This is a nearly done work-in-progress]
I'm very excited and honored to have the privilege of playing the role of engineer/producer/arranger/session-player for this very talented, emotion-laden local singer-songwriter Barry Stepp. He came to me with a bare-bones but beautiful, emotive song (which you can hear here for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkjmkJ1xlq0)and I've done my best to tap into that strong emotion within it and help draw it out even further with all the instrumentation I've built around it. The powerful vocal melody/lyrics and fundamental chord progression are his, all the specific guitar and other instrument parts are my work. I'm proud of what I've been able to connect with and draw out in this stirring song and wanted to share. 

Let's Not Act This Way-- Barry Stepp

Setting of 2 Poe and 2 Frost poems, written many moons ago when i was a student at conservatory, majoring in the composition of Fancy Music. Originally for soprano and piano, here crudely adapted for phony violin and phony piano. I could probably gussy up the violin part a bit to make it a bit more "violinistic" (and tweak the piano part a bit) and maybe it could be something. Overall I was extremely pleased with the relatively complex harmonic language I was able to develop and express within this piece.

i. Alone: Very ominous and forboding. Tasty harmonic language. Kind of slow for my current tastes. But I like to think there's an emotive melodic thread that holds it together and shapes some peaks and valleys.
ii: To Earthward: I think the main figure/melody has a sexy, dark lilt to it. This one is more accessible than the first track
iii. To One In Paradise: This one definitely has a nice lyrical, romantic melancholy to it. Very melodic. 
iv. Desert Places: This one is sort of dark and spacey. I like a lot of the sounds, but if you're thinking "this is awfully slow and sort of goes on for too long", I think I agreed when I wrote it; I had a couple verses or so done and liked the song as it was but i still had 2 or 3 more verses to set; whoops! I like the tonal language in it a lot though, and feel it does set an extremely evocative, haunting mood.

iii. To One In Paradise (Poe)

i. Alone (Poe)

ii. To Earthward (Frost)

iv. Desert Places (Frost)

Just some ideas of what to do with a random little nugget that popped out of my fingers.

Plinkly Bit

Philosophonic is an emotionally evocative, instrospective songwriter with a background in the composition of Fancy Music, which he went to a fancy school for and everything. (Philosophonic feels strange talking about himself in the 3rd person, but feels like these little descriptive sections are usually presented in said ternary vantage-point). 
This background is reflected in the thoughtful configuration of musical lines within the arrangements; imitative/canonic countermelodies give the ear a bevy of engaging aspects to focus on, while serving to support and enhance the clear and direct expressiveness in the songwriting, rather than obscure it. 
And there's a lot of strings/cello and piano and pretty acoustic guitar parts and awesome textural electric guitar figures and stuff. So it really sounds top drawer. The bee's knees, even. Oh and there's a bowed tam-tam. And one time where a vibraphone is being played back through an organ's rotating speaker cabinet thingy. See if you can spot those (hint: they're in the same song). 
Thanks for listening! 

--j. wall (philosophonic)