JUNE 2004

BACKGROUND ON TORN BETWEEN DIMENSIONS - FROM CONCEPTION TO COMPLETION

The recording of Torn Between Dimensions is almost completed. All of the compositions are done, and now it's a matter of putting final touches on the songs and mixing. Looking back on how this project originated back in 2001, and the events that have occurred since then never cease to amaze me. I believe in the idea that if you are true to your instincts that things will work out in ways that would seem highly unlikely if reason alone was followed.

I don't intend on providing a detailed description of what each song on the upcoming CD means to me. I would like to provide some background related to how this project was started and what led me to pursue it.

After releasing a demo tape called Reflections in 1994, my involvement with recording projects was limited to my contributions to Sean Malone's Gordian Knot CD, which was released in 1999. Even before this, I found it difficult (or I let myself believe that it was difficult) to get heavily into writing and recording. I was at a point in my life where I was pursuing a career as a chemist, and going to school to continue my education in the sciences.

I like to look back on this time and think that my attention being diverted to academic endeavors necessitated the self-imposed abstinence from music. Finally after completing my education and relocating to the Midwest to change jobs, I gave in to the incessant desire to continue composing. In March 2002, a good friend, studio engineer and bass player, Damon Trotta, who I played with in a trio many years ago sent me a disc containing a drum loop with some interesting samples and keyboard parts. I had been sent these sort of discs from him before and always found some time to have fun with them by adding guitar parts to see what I could do. This particular disc changed everything for me though.

In the past, I would use a 4-track cassette recorder to generate as many ideas as I could without reducing the sound quality to mush after bouncing tracks way past the limitations of a 4-track cassette recorder. There was no way this was going to satisfy me for this particular song (this song as it turns out, will be on the upcoming CD, and is called Hope). I quickly became frustrated as I ran out of room to bounce tracks and add more guitar parts to create what I heard in my head. The same 4-track I used to write Reflections wasn't going to cut it anymore. I had so many guitar parts, keyboard parts and orchestral arrangements running through my head I thought I was going to go crazy with no way to express it.

I went out and bought a Roland VS1824CD so that I could be able to come up with as many tracks as I wanted without the limitations I had gotten used to. At the time, I also felt that using a DAW would be easier than delving into the then unknown realm (for me) of PC-based recording (my opinion on this has changed dramatically since then). After learning how to get around on the Roland, the gear acquisition phase accelerated. I decided that if I were to get even somewhat serious with recoding my ideas, I needed some reasonable gear to do it. A Shure SM57 and a 10-year old pre-amp and power amp weren't going to suffice. So without listing all of the gear and completely losing your interest, I ventured into alternatives to just recording guitars - I bought a keyboard, a mandolin and ACID software to program my string sections. I had a Fender Precision bass that I used to lay down rough bass ideas. Things started coming together in a crude way, and over time as I got more proficient with my new software and instruments, the ideas started coming faster. Much, much faster.

What I'm leading up to here is the end result of trusting my intuition on just knowing that I couldn't resist getting my ideas onto "tape" anymore. I had resisted it for a long time, and after purchasing the gear everything just sort of fell into place (thanks to affordable gear and innovation - to be able to be as creative as possible without many limitations!)

Most of the material on the upcoming CD was written between the end of 2002 and mid-2003. Some of the songs have their original ideas dating back years - for instance, the original versions of The God Interface and Torn Between Dimensions were to be released on a second demo tape after the 1994 Reflections demo. Guess what! I allowed myself to get too preoccupied with school and that never happened. It just wasn't "rational" for me to spend so much time writing music I thought I only could really appreciate. So much for shelving intuition...

The song Run is a revised version of the final song on the 1994 Reflections demo. Coming Home is an acoustic song that I started writing in 1990, as I was beginning classical guitar studies. At War With Self carries the same melody from the song Reflections, with an entirely different rhythm section underneath, giving it a completely different feel. The revisions of these songs have been modified extensively, but the general ideas that I originally came up with years ago still are the main focus. The rest of the material is new, and written during an incredibly productive time period between 2002 and 2003.

A summary of more recent events and my take on the CD as a whole:

In early 2003 I was busy writing and recording versions of the songs to be released independently. I was programming a drum machine with the intention of writing the material on the CD for my own satisfaction with no preconceptions about what I would do with it after it was done regarding selling or distributing it. It was purely for myself.

I wasn't looking to sign a record contract, or end up collaborating with two incredibly talented and creative musicians. But that's what happened. And it happened without paying any attention to those desires that could have overshadowed the creative process had I focused on them.

I really do feel that everything happens for a reason. This time period of 2002 to 2003 was also a period of deep turmoil for me personally, and I let out my emotions through composing. When I listen to these compositions today, and as I still refine them to make them as dynamic as possible, I hear this conflict of emotions. I hear beauty and anger, sadness and elation, strife and solace. This is the purpose of the the title for this project, At War With Self, and the CD title Torn Between Dimensions. These are fitting titles that work on many levels, and that describe as best I can the energy that went into this music.

What I'm really hoping for is that when people listen to this music they are able to feel the intensity of the emotions that went into the writing. I hope that other people can relate to the emotions I'm trying to express with instrumentals. To some this desire may seem vague and a generalization, a way any genuine musician's aspirations can be described to one degree or another. But I feel that this is an apt description, and I'd much rather leave it to the listener to experience it than analyze every chord progression that I'm playing. That's not what I  think about when I write, and I hope that's not the first thing people think of when they hear the music. Yes, this music is at times incredibly complicated and is rhythmically technical to the point of exhaustion. But I want the listener to become exhausted from the feelings they get by listening, not from a mental exhaustion from an exercise in counting time signatures.

And most importantly, I am hoping to share my ideas that heavy music can be a beautiful, emotive force and classical guitars can sound horribly evil. These ideas are not novel - I am just trying to incorporate ideas from many brilliant minds that have experimented with unorthodox ideas. And I think it would be most fitting to have a list of some inspirations of mine here, as I owe them a great deal of respect as I have enjoyed their take on music as communication. I'm sure that at times my music sounds similar to some or all of the artists listed below -at times a combination of many - but that's the beauty of making music. I hope that I may have an affect on someone the way they've had one on me.

A handful of the many, many bands and composers I've enjoyed:

Voivod

Kansas

Alberto Ginastera

Faith No More

Leo Brouwer

Nickel Creek

Bill Frisell

John Adams

Clockhammer

Anekdoten

Living Colour

King Crimson

Univers Zero

King's X

Meshuggah

Peter Gabriel

Bela Bartok

Soundgarden

Fishbone

Slayer

Yes