The day is almost here: at the beginning of April, I will be releasing my fourth Jamendo album, Points of Departure.

Yes, I’ve been sparse on WordPress for a while, but I’m about to roll out a big one, so brace yourself.

Cover Art (test 1)

I’ve developed a concept for the cover art, and have an early release. Here’s the first try:

The image is a sort of play on the Pioneer Plaque, the golden plaque that went into space with the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft. (Yes, that’s me on the cover — probably the only time that will happen!) Here’s the basic idea behind the graphics:

The music on this album is all about moments of transition — endings, beginnings, voyages, new discoveries. In a way, that’s been my path through the musical universe. Let me give you a brief preview of some of the songs, and the concepts behind them.

1. Falling Into the Dream — The transition into sleep (something of a battle for me in the old days).
2. Vale Avis Tenebrica — A rather obscure reference. But it’s about my choice not to have children.
3. Let it Burn — A song about Surtr, the Fire Giant who waits in Muspelheim, waiting for the day he can travel north and end the world in fire.
4. Love and War / World on Fire — Believe it or not, this has to do with my wife’s fascination with the TV series Band of Brothers. (And more or less ties into the above tune.)
5. In Memory of Dorothy Blair — Dedicated to my first grade teacher. Hey, she let me move ahead to the sixth grade books that year. By second grade I was reading regular adult novels. She gave me a great start.
6. Casualty of the Battle of the Bands — The explanation: part 1, part 2.
7. The Wind of Distant Planets — I wrote this song for FAWM 2007, but the bass line stayed in my head. Now it finally has meaning: it’s Voyager 1 and 2 passing by the four outer planets — and what it meant to me.
8. Points of Departure –The title track, about the loss of our home in Gainesville as we move to Virginia this summer.
9. Organometallic — Another song from FAWM 2007. It’s part metal. When I was a chemist, organometallic compounds were one of my research interests.

Secret Origins (part 1)

In a way, this album owes a lot to Jamendo artist umbriel rising, and his album extraterrestres.

His concept got me thinking about space exploration, and the dream we were promised after the moon landings, but denied. No cities in space, no bases on the moon: just the 1970’s over again, but with .mp3 players, cell phones, and the internet.

His music also inspired me to investigate a number of synth sounds, which I’ve used for texture throughout the album. In a way, my current projects that involve Csound and Renoise owe their beginnings to this album.

The Future?

Did I mention that the future’s uncertain, and the end is always near? See, that’s why they call me a teacher. Now you know.

If only someone could set that line to music . . . it’d probably open “the doors” to success.

Anyway, I am already planning, believe it or not, the fifth album. I’m going to try some conga jazz again. My second album, handmade, got mediocre reviews — yet has almost gotten more downloads than the other two albums! I guess you can either listen to music or write about music, but not both

But as I said — who knows where I will be. My wife and I are moving to one of the priciest places to live in the country. A year from now I could be living in a cardboard box — and paying $1500 a month rent to do so. Will my conga drums even make the trip? How can I play them, practice them, not to mention record them if I’m jammed into the D.C. area (literally) wall-to-wall with other people?

The odds of the fifth album happening as planned don’t look very good right now.

But four? Four is on the way. Watch for it.