scarletjinn.com

Brief update…

Wow, some very cool new energies with the tunes ~ some new musicians and fresh ideas.  There’s a couple of tunes we wrote last year that have gotten an entirely new energy to ‘em.  I’m really liking some of the new directions, even though it may make some of the recordings obsolete.  I love letting the songs just evolve.

“Arriving” is getting (probably) a new name because the hook is different now.    And “Riding the Wheel” got entirely changed, with a new feel that’s just really fun ~ you won’t recognize it from the live show version or the old recordings you’ve heard.  It’s like a new song.

And I’ve overdubbed some very dynamic vocal parts that you can’t normally hear in the live rock shows.  Really pleased with the contrasting bits… can’t wait to hear what you all think!

  more later~

We’ve finished the remix of Gravity Well.  You can find it here in the sidebar, and also at Psychanaut music page.  Or if you’re a friend of mine on Facebook, look for the tab called “tracks” on my facebook page. 

I wrote the lyrics for this one specifically for the Labyrinth project, and it’s about unconsciousness so it is a bit darker than most of our songs.  And yes, I did get the inspiration for it from a musician friend of mine

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In working/playing in the studio,  It’s easy to forget the actual moment of the song’s original beginning.  The writing and performing flow together into the production, and it feels as though the song always existed…we just give it a form in which to express itself.

DaVinci said his sculpting was to free the form from the stone, rather than to create it.  Music is the same way.  The creative process is often one of discovering rather than invention.

And there’s a cycle to any creative process – if you’re an artist, writer, musician, or whatever your creative path, you pretty much have no choice but to go with the cycles.  You can’t force it.

Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.
- Anais Nin

Several of our older songs and almost all of the new ones fall into the Labyrinth Collection that will be featured on Psychanaut.com.  It’s a musical story (although any song can stand on its own too) of Universal Consciousness taking physical form, and having a myriad of life these experiences on the way to remembering itself.  These last days in the studio working on the songs for this collection have been super productive.

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Yes, I’m getting all your emails and messages on myspace and facebook asking “when is the next show?”  Some of you are worried, some of you are a bit annoyed, and some of you are just really wanting the music and miss us.  We miss you too.   I love hearing from you, it really touches me that so many of you care enough to write…

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The newest song we’ve completed writing and recording is Gravity Well, and it’s almost ready to mix.  Once that’s done, we’ll post it and I’ll announce that it’s available.  We had a lot of fun recording the harmonies for this one, it required projection of a certain attitude that could only be achieved by singing the harmony parts in a unusual voice.  We should have videoed that session, it would’ve made you laugh.

My favorite part of this song is the chorus, “The game is hide and seek till I find myself, hidden in illusion at the bottom of – the gravity well.”  the music is played a bit heavier to portray the gravity. 

And of course there’s nowhere to go from the bottom of the Gravity Well but up.

It’s part of the Labyrinth collection that will be featured in a new section on the Psychanaut website.  Many of the songs in the Labyrinth you’ve already heard at Rock Scarlet shows…such as Wayside, Egypt Eyes, Oracle & Alchemy Waits.  What’s been missing is a format to present them and let them tell a story. 

So adding this piece is going to help bring it all together.  Of course, if you don’t want to venture into the Labyrinth or play with ideas, and you just wanna rock — you can still get the songs directly from the download page… but eventually, the Labyrinth will be a cool way to preview the tunes while visiting some cool imagery within the Labyrinth.

PS)I’m looking for artistic people to help with creation of  the Labyrinth artwork.  If you’re interested or  want to help out, contact me either from ScarletJinn.com Psychanut.com or Rock Scarlet.com.

I’ve begun updating the lyrics page at scarletjinn.com/lyrics.html – having added some songs such as Circus that we don’t do often enough at the live shows.  I have been quite remiss in adding to that page and I’m attempting to correct that.  There are probably 5-6 songs that weren’t posted there before, and more to  come.

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Some of you have been asking about new songs, and YES! – we are writing/arranging a bunch of new tunes – some of which we’ve started tossing into live shows, such as Seven Wonders.  As we play the clubs/bars, we realize that some people want to hear some familiar tunes to dance to, and we’ve added a few more remakes to meet these requests.  (It also keeps the bars happy, since dancers buy a lot of beer!)  But it’s a delicate line that we tread, and our balancing act is not without stumbles.

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If you’ve seen my entries on Facebook and Twitter, you know that I recently spent a bunch of hours re-working our digital backdrop for tomorrow night’s Rock Scarlet show.  While working on it, I realized that it’s really a Psychanaut backdrop: cool space scenes and psychedelic morphing colors and swirls – so I was pretty inspired to work with it. 

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Working on a few new tunes that are going to be a bit more dynamic and airy than our usual fair, but definitely still rock.   Finally, it feels like we’re creating the musical energy that goes with the lyrics. 

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