If you’re new to my life or didn’t know me when I was 18 you may not know that I was hired to write a musical in college. It was a pretty cool project that was developed around verbatim text from patients with HIV & AIDS across Ontario. While the monologues were fully verbatim, it was my job to translate those texts into songs for the transitions between monologues and now almost 7 years later I want to record those songs with some help of my friends.
Deficiency Syndrome included 8 of my original songs including Silent Whispers, The Vatican Song, Serenity (which was recorded for my first album Distant Star), I Am More (which was later repurposed for my show Oasis Love), Distant Star (do I need to tell you that was obviously on the album too?), Feel Like Letting Go, The Final Track (which was recorded for Distant Star) and The Author Wrote the End (which was also a track on Distant Star.)
So, with almost half the songs already being recorded, why would I want to record this album? Well, for a few reasons. I want to have others sing these songs the way that they were originally intended to be performed. A number of these songs weren’t written for my voice in mind and I actually didn’t think I would ever record them. So, that being the case, these songs are going to sound a lot different!
If you’ve heard the songs on Distant Star you’ll also notice a change in the instrumentation as I’ve fully stripped them down back into the original acoustic/cabaret style that they were just so things don’t get too repetitive for you. It’s also fun for me to relisten to my music without the extra instruments/sounds I threw in on Distant Star. Getting back to the original 18-year old me who didn’t realize the potential of his music.
Back to the album though, I’ve already banded a group of good friends who are interested in recreating the songs for the album, but I’m not super sure how much you’re going to be hearing my voice on this one since we’ve “mock casted” all the characters. Each person will be singing the songs that were developed for their character so the songs don’t feel out of place. I’ll probably be singing a song or two with the ensemble, but we’ll see.
Either way, until I decide I’ve been recording demos of all eight songs. I spent the whole day recording them today, which excited me and I’m happy to say that my voice isn’t in as rough of a shape as I thought it was. Currently, there’s no ETA for the album (since one of the people I’m working with is going to be extremely busy for the next few months( but I’ll make sure to give you teasers!
Other than that, I’m still writing lots of new music and recording demos for those songs, so maybe there will be 2 albums out by the end of this year… or 3 if I actually whoop myself into gear and get Oasis Love recorded. But that’s a very short album since I think it only includes 4 original songs. (How can I not remember, I just performed it last month!)
I’m excited friends. I really am! I hope you are all too! I’m glad I took to learning how to self-produce my own music instead of relying on a producer. There are some cool sounds coming your way!
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