Notes on Dream Spells EP

January 10, 2013

Today, I released a new 5 song EP titled Dream Spells on my Anonymous Collective label. Last year, I chose not to release a full-length follow up to Soul Love. I definitely had enough material but felt that the songs lacked a certain continuity. Many of the songs ended up being working versions for my band Circles and Squares to learn. Anyway, these five songs were the most representative works of the new era. Here is a little bit of information on each song:

Technicolor Daydream - Originally started out as a track for my project with Frank G called Winter In  June. He ended up not using the song and so I worked a vocal melody around the keyboard part. The chorus was already intact when I gave the song to Frank. The song was inspired by my young friends who are hip enough to be into cool, old music. It is also a vignette about a young girl trapped in the wrong era of time.

Anti-Hero - This was the last song written for the EP. The song is about the responsibilities of being a parent. It is the best thing in the world yet leaves one often at their most vulnerable. I have three daughters that I absolutely adore and encourage them to follow their dreams. They all have tremendous artistic talent. My oldest daughter is studying dance at college and all three of my kids play music and sing. This is a song I will be introducing to the band because I think it will be a real rocker.

Sleep Tight MBV - This song is a twisted sort of song about a child falling asleep at night. The strange element is brought out by the My Bloody Valentine chorus lyric which is just an homage to the band. The song was inspired by one of my favorite bands called Shudder To Think. My bandmates Mandy Christensen, Anthony Davis and my daughter Fiona Rose all guest on the track. We captured the mood for this song quite well.

Blind Superstition - The one and only instrumental on the album. I love instrumentals on albums, especially little interludes like the ones Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi did. This piece kind of has the movie action scene thing going on. The coda of the song is my favorite part of the song with the weird guitar sounds I had going on and the driving drums/bass. Circles and Squares will probably try this one out as well.

The Hidden Veil - I feel this song is link between Soul Love and the EP. First, it is one of the first times I utilized a bossa nova feel with the rhythm track. It is a piano driven work that features a lot of major seventh chords to give it a loungy-type groove. The words were originally written as a poem but something was missing when I went to record it. I was a line short and needed something to really express the essence of the song. Later, I was reading over a friend's poem that she given me a copy of. There was a line that just jumped off the page and it worked wonders for the end of the chorus of the song. It is a whimsical type of song about longing for a certain type of love. Rarely do I feel so compelled to write a ballad of this nature.