In The Dark

Br.Gt.riff.7

Fast Road

RE’s new hard rock/alt metal single is out now! This energetic guitar riffing single - with a hint of synths - has been recorded, mixed and mastered in October 2023 at Rare Elements’ studio in Tampere, Finland.

Fates Worse Than Death

The blinds are drawn
The waiters have gone
The bar is now empty
And we’re here alone 

There’s no one on the dance floor
There’s no one drinking wine
So hold me like you did before
Let's dance just one more time

For this club is closing
This is the last night
The bouncer he’s not bouncing
He’s fought his last fight

And so maybe one last kiss
Just one last embrace
Tell me all the things you’ll miss
When they’ve closed this place
 
There’s no one at the hat check
The turnstile, it wont turn
This candle lit at both ends
Has nothing left to burn 

Do you remember
How the floor was bouncing
And the crowd was shouting
As you sang your songs

Do you remember how
The band played on and on and on and on
And oh, under those lights
How I’m going to miss those crazy nights
 
The van is packed
The cases stacked
This is a one way road
I’m not turning back

I’m driving down to Paris
And then across to Spain
But maybe when I get to Rome
We can dance again


Single (C)2023
Music - Andrew Pickles and Sreyashi Mukherjee
Lyrics, Instruments and Arrangement - Andrew Pickles
Vocals - Sumi (Sreyashi Mukherjee)

Those Crazy Nights (with Andrew Pickles)

Here comes a candle to light you to bed.
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.
Here comes a white coat to whisk you away.
Here comes a friend who will lead you astray. 

And the sun doesn't ride in the Sky. 
And the wandering Earth did swing blind.
And moon rise brings forth not one day.
And the men forget all of their ways. 
And the palaces of the great Kings.
We're burned for the light they might bring. 

It's hard to relax. 
Till your work is through. 
It's easy to take. 
Nothing from what you do.
The stars only give off the faintest of lights. 
For us to gaze on in the night.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed.
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.
Here comes a spark to ignite the old flame.
Here come the judges apportioning blame.

And wars that are fought over light.
When there is no respite from the night.
And the men search for beacons of home.
As they wander the wastelands alone.
All the palaces of the great Kings.
Are ashes and pillars of winds.

It's hard to relax. 
Till your work is through. 
It's easy to take. 
Nothing from what you do.
The stars only give off the faintest of lights. 
For us to gaze on in the night.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed.
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.
Here comes a white coat to whisk you away.
Here comes a friend who will lead you astray. 

And the sun doesn't ride in the Sky. 
And the wandering Earth did swing blind.
And moon rise brings forth not one day.
And the men forget all of their ways. 
And the palaces of the great Kings.
We're burned for the light they might bring. 

It's hard to relax. 
Till your work is through. 
It's easy to take. 
Nothing from what you do.
The stars only give off the faintest of lights. 
For us to gaze on in the night

Dog Days

Vocal Engineer: Sam
Mixed and mastered by B Steele. 
Lighter: Psychedelic Revolution
Mouth Trumpet: Psychedelic Revolution
 

There’s some polyrhythm with the lighter in triple meter and the rest in simple meter. Then polyrhythm again at the bridge with the bongos paired with a Latin bass line. There’s a backdoor cadence for the verses and a Picardi cadence at the end. Lead playing has a whole tone scale and diminished scale in there. I also superimposed the organ to play F pretty much the whole way through. For key changes, I used the subdom and then dom of the following key instead of my more abrupt ‘common chords or ‘Dom of following key’ approach. Initially, the first phrase of the chorus was just ‘Holding on’ but I came up with the 4 lines she sings at the very end. ‘Blip piano’ effect functions as the sound of keys, phone calls, and ICU at the end. Piano voicing, now cover both vocal melody and easy bass lines so I ended up singing a 7#9 chord if I combined the notes which was cool.  The debut of my mouth trumpet at 3:00. I have also switched to neck pick ups for the rhythm guitar to give it a more Fendery and warmer tone.



Lyrically, I once asked a teacher in high school about ‘Another Brick in the Wall.’ “How do you feel about being a teacher and hearing that song?” He replied, “Well, its’ actually about teachers who abuse their power.”
So this isn’t an anti drug song but an anti drug abuse song.   I think a lot of teachers would say their personal lives are not exactly smooth sailing.  It  is similar to the film Half Nelson except that the drug of choice is weed. Teachers are able to deliver good classes while having a drug habit.  “黄猫、黑猫，只要捉住老鼠就是好猫.”  I was hanging out with the ‘bad kids’ from WAB a few years back for a smoke break and one of them said, “B is such a dumbass. He posted pics of weed on his WeChat.”
Song is based on my fictional character roommate. The junkie joke is that he once was at a McDonald’s and asked, “Do you have some coke?…to drink” in seriousness. I love McDonalds! “They got that burger I like. Starts with a Q” 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAtvxFFsoeg

Then, oxycodone became popular in the States in 2011-12.  He did say, “I want to Turkish slap and then river dance on her corpse.” Unfortunately, the professor he was talking about overheard. It would be amusing if people danced to this song. In the end, I think he never graduated but that is OK because he is high up there and is now working in finance. I was talking to an old friend about another guy who did nothing all day and he said, “Hey, if it was me in his shoes, I’d do a lot worse.” So, that’s my view. He was into ‘Red Baron’ by Billy Cobham, the Stones, ‘Hard Times’ by Ray Charles,’Sitting…’ by Otis Redding, ‘Can’t Be Touched’ by Roy Jones Jr (cos’ he was a talented/hard working boxer when he was younger) and ‘What a Waster’ by The Libertines. I think with a royal weight on your shoulder that can be tough as there are no lands left to conquer for him. But, if I can name 3 people with bigger shoes to fill off the top of my head than the kids at int’l schools shouldn’t worry. 

Oh your dad’s a king? See: Alexander (The Macedonian one)
Oh your dad’s an actor? See RDJ.
Oh your dad’s a  footballer? See Frank Lampard.

Angels Fall

Rare Elements’ first single of the year offers synth-infused distorted guitar alt hard rock. The single was recorded, mixed, and mastered in December 2023 at Rare Elements’ studio on Tampere, Finland. Harri Sarpavaara is responsible for the composition, arrangement, lyrics, and production of the song. He also plays all instruments and sings on the track.

Waves of Time

Waves Of Time

Stand Before Me

I regret (slowed down remix)

Heart That You Own (Dwight Yoakam cover)

From the live houses of the Jing to busking in tunnels (Granted, the 33.3% donation rate was based on the fact that he had removed his stifling white collar shirt and was dancing bare chested) in Singapore, Psychedelic Revolution (aka Psyche Rev) is a one man project that likes most things such as alt r&b and alt rock. Made it as a semi finalist in the 'Song of the Year' competition in 2022 with his song 'Cassius' and a finalist in 2023 with his song 'We'll Go Down'. Tastes like Kung Pao Chicken. Looks like a cross between Brag Pitt and Heath Leather. Smells like team spirit. Feels like baby powder. Oh the music. Yeah, it sounds good. 


Don't respond to DM's on here so if you would like to get touched pls contact  via some other avenue. He does have a sun fetish though.

Daily Musing:
Thank you all so much for listening to my music this year.
Next year we will be working on some genres that didn't score so high on repostexchange (what we use to rate songs on here)
Jan: Trip hop (Actually double checking repost exchange after latest batch, it did well. A good improvement over the last trip hop song) This current trip hop song has been finished. I was eager to get back into songwriting so I started on the 15th. Production has started and it should be the sexiest thing I've written so far. I'm using 'How Can I Be Sure' by Anomie Bell as a reference. I like it so much that I originally wanted to collaborate with a different bassist but I will handle all duties on it.
Feb: Folk or pop
March: Folk or pop
April: Do something challenging like electro swing but with mostly real instruments
May: Abi's bday so it's that time of the year again.
Then, I do have some things like the Bond theme which I might do an alt rnb version cos' retro soul has been done and orchestral pop has been done. For pop, we'll probably do an orchestral pop song. Other subgenres for I'd like to do are electrofunk. I also want to venture out to dance and do an electro swing song. I really dig Mojo Radio Gang by Parov Stelar. Very danceable. We will have Tommodrums back again for another retro soul song as I think it would be a waste of him to drum on alt rnb or EDM. I still have the trap soul song and I think the new mixer will do a wonderful job on it. I do want to rewrite the song though but it's done in terms of production. I will be taking a brief break from songwriting and commence writing the trip hop song on the 18th of Dec and I will aim for a release date before Jan 18th.
It's been an honour to play for you all this year and have an early Merry Christmas and I'll see you in the new year. Have a good one :)
If you are completely bored over the holidays which some of you might be, here is a brand new interview I did. I met this cool guy on Reddit and he runs a small company. This is the first draft:
https://www.kelsonmusicgroup.com/post/rediscovering-the-self-through-sound-my-conversation-with-psychedelic-revolution
2 Bits of good news:
So someone has decided to try me out and release 2 of my songs on Spotify and help me with marketing. So I sent them 5 and they liked Angels Fall and Harder, Better, Faster. Then, the final mix of the latter song was not to their liking so I sent them Southern Catharsis so it will be those 2 songs. And, they have a lot of other songs from other artists they are releasing before me so it will be released on Spotify on the whopping date of...early next year. They said I could release singles before that. Unfortunately everything else I have is in demo form. Oh well, if the next few songs go well I'll release them on Spotify.
Met a travelogue guy on the flight and he wants to feature my music in his vlogs. He's from Taiwan and he seems really sweet.