Daniel Bautista - Symphony No. 1 in A minor, Op. 12

Hey, remember me?  It's been an awfully long time since I've posted here - more than a year, it seems, and even longer since I've posted regularly.  I think I just got overwhelmed with a lot of things in 2010, and blogging was something that had to go, despite a few attempts to get back into it.  However,  I had a wonderful time posting about Christmas music on my other blog last month, so I think I'm finally ready to start posting here again too.

The first album I want to share is Daniel Bautista's Symphony No. 1 in A minor, Op. 12.  If you're a longtime reader of this blog, you might recognize the name from a post I did about three years ago.  This new album has as its centerpiece an original symphony for guitars, drums, and bass.  It sounds like an extremely ambitious undertaking, but I think he pretty much nailed it.  Even though I was already familiar with his work, I still found myself pleasantly surprised by this album.  It's very heavy, complex, and melodic.  It's also very memorable - I have caught myself humming and whistling some of the themes from it on many occasions.  I really hope that the "No. 1" in the title is a sign of things to come - I would love to hear more symphonies from this amazingly talented musician.

After the four movements of the symphony have concluded, there are a few bonus tracks to round out the album, including a beautiful version of Satie's  "Gymnopedie No. 1" and a cool progressive metal track called "Free Guitars Forever".  All in all, I would highly recommend this album to any fans of classical or progressive metal music.

Happy listening!

URL:

http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/104855

Album Spotlight: Chris Tenz - Forlorn Memories

I download far more music than I would ever have the time to write about here.  It all gets placed into a foobar2000 playlist called "Blog".  The size of this playlist is ever fluctuating, with things getting removed from it after I have either written about it or decided that I don't like it enough to write about (when I say "the best free, legally available music on the Internet", I mean it - if I don't like it, I won't post about it); currently, it contains just under 24 hours of music.  I try to listen to at least some of this music every day.  Sometimes I know what I want to write about, so I focus on that music; other times I set it to shuffle, and when I find something that really catches my interest, I begin taking notes on it in preparation for a future post.  Tonight I was listening to a few tracks from an artist that I hope to post about soon, but then the shuffle kicked in and served up something totally unexpected in the form of Chris Tenz's Forlorn Memories.

 

I initially downloaded this album two weeks ago after reading about it on the Internet Archive, but it wasn't until tonight that it actually made its way to my ears.  The album's page at the Internet Archive seems to have been taken down [update: it's back up - I guess I caught it at the wrong time], but I was able to locate it on the Soft Phase website, which seems to be working fine.  The description of the album by Tenz was what drew me to the album in the first place:

 

“Forlorn Memories is designed to be just that, the re-capturing of memories
and associated moods through wordless sound. The album is designed to tell
a story through emotion, in chronological order. Using old tastes, smells,
sounds, and sights, I would attempt to bring myself into the mindset of
various key moments that influenced me in some way, and attempt to
create those feelings again with the use of audio.”

 

The very idea of memories is something that has always fascinated me, so the subject matter immediately caught my interest.  I also like the fact that he doesn't attempt to explain the story at all, and with songs only titled as chapters (with the first track being a foreword), the interpretation of the album is left entirely up to the listener (for the record, interpretation of songs - let alone instrumentals - is not one of my strong points, so I will go no further along this line of discussion).  The album's nine tracks are all very mellow, beautiful, and dreamy sounding - in fact, I decided to leave it playing while I was putting my baby back to sleep tonight, and it worked very nicely as lullabye music.  The soothing sound is achieved mainly through a delicate interplay between acoustic guitar and piano, although other instruments and sounds play important roles as well.  There are no sudden changes in tempo or mood - each song evolves and unfolds gradually, taking as much time as it needs to tell its own part of the story.

 

The individual songs from Forlorn Memories can be downloaded as separate MP3 files, and the entire album can be downloaded either in MP3 format, as a 56 MB zip file, or FLAC format, as a 105 MB zip file.  As a debut album, it holds a lot of promise, and I am really looking forward to hearing where Tenz decides to go in the future.  Happy listening!

 

URLs:

http://www.archive.org/details/sfp05

http://softphase.org/netlabel/releases/sfp05

Artist Spotlight: Daniel Bautista

I discovered Daniel Bautista last month via the free MP3s recommended in my last.fm account. A look at his last.fm artist page showed songs with titles like "Moonlight Sonata", "Symphony No. 5", and "Symphony No. 9" among his top tracks. Even without being on a classical music kick, I would have easily recognized these song titles; given the fact that I've been listening to little but classical music for a while now, this seemed like something that would be right up my alley. Another thing I noticed on this page is the "jamendo" tag. I've covered Jamendo here before, and it is still a site that I use regularly for discovering new music. A quick search on Jamendo brought me to Daniel's artist page, where the two albums that jumped out at me right away were Beethoven and Classics and Soundtracks.

Beethoven is a collection of six of Ludwig van Beethoven's compositions arranged for guitar. There are three instrumental styles on the album, each represented by two tracks. The first style is guitar and drums, in which multiple guitars are overdubbed to achieve an orchestral effect with the drums providing accents rather than a beat; the overall sound lies somewhere between classical music and heavy metal. "Symphony No. 5" opens the album in this style, and is actually a guitar-based version of the entire first movement of that piece. The other song in this style is "Symphony No. 9"; this time Daniel summarizes the various movements of the piece. The slow, ominous feel of the first movement soon gives way to the more technical second movement, allowing him to really showcase his mastery of the instrument. About midway through this 10-minute song, the fourth movement begins, which includes a beautiful rendering of the famous "Ode to Joy". Here Daniel's skill as an arranger is on full display; what begins as a solitary guitar playing the melody gradually builds into a small orchestra of guitars and drums, bringing the piece to a rousing and rocking finish.

The second style is similar to the first, in that it consists of layers upon layers of electric guitars, but without any drums. "Symphony No. 7" is the first such track, consisting of just over 3 minutes from the second movement of the titular symphony. This track is very beautiful, and has given me new appreciation for the original. I actually had trouble figuring out where in the symphony this brief excerpt was from, and even thought it might have been mislabelled. After a few more listens to the original, I finally heard it at the beginning the second movement, and this is now my favourite part of the symphony. The second such song is "Grosse Fuge", which is actually a complete performance of "Große Fuge in B flat major", a string quartet. The interplay between the various guitar tracks is amazing in this song, and I think it also showcases an enormous amount of respect for Beethoven's music.

The third style of tracks employs classical guitar for a much more traditional sound. "Moonlight Sonata" is the complete first movement of "Piano Sonata No. 14 'Moonlight'". The guitars are still layered in this song, and there are some very nice stereo effects in it - listen to the song on headphones to hear the rhythm travelling from left to center to right throughout the piece. "Para Elisa", a brief, single guitar version of "Für Elise", closes the album, almost feeling like a tease after the five longer pieces that preceded it. I would certainly love to hear another album like this in the future, based either on Beethoven or another composer (Mozart, pretty please?).

The album description for Classics and Soundtracks states "This is the Jamendo edition of the album, there are plenty more classics in www.danielbautista.com". I guess this has something to do with the Creative Commons licenses used on Jamendo; in this case, what it basically amounts to is that the "Soundtracks" part of the album is not available from Jamendo. Should you choose to download the album from Jamendo, you will be treated to some excellent reinterpretations of some classical pieces. "The Four Seasons - Spring Allegro", for example, is a version of Vivaldi's famous piece arranged for classical guitar, while "The Four Seasons - Summer Presto" is an electric guitar version of its titular piece. There are a few songs based on works by Mozart, including "Symphony No. 25 (1st Movement)", a cool electric guitar version of that piece, and "Turkish March", which features a rock arrangement led by piano. A couple of my other favourites are Tchaikovsky's "Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy" and Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee".

As good as all that is, I would highly recommend downloading the album from Daniel's own site. You get everything from the Jamendo version of the album plus 8 movie and television soundtrack selections. My favourites of these are "Superman" and "Lord of the Rings"; the soaring melodies in the "Superman" theme translate very well to the electric guitar, and "Lord of the Rings" is an excellent medley of the major themes from those films. If you're into torrents, you may notice that there is a link to a torrent for this album - that's how I downloaded it, and I'll be seeding it for a while, so if you don't feel like downloading all 22 files separately, this might be a good option for you.

If you do head to Daniel's site, you will notice that there is an incredible amount of music available for download - both solo material and from a variety of bands Daniel has played with over the years. I think it would be easy to spend weeks downloading and listening to all this music, and I think it is very likely that I may end up doing just that. Before I sign off here, I just want to briefly mention one more album, Madera Y Bronce, an album that showcases Daniel's skills on the acoustic guitar across a wide variety of genres. Some of the songs are acoustic versions of songs from Daniel's other albums, such as "In the Desert", which features a great chord progression, and "Difícil", a short progressive metal piece which translates amazingly well to the acoustic guitar; some are original songs, like the high speed country-tinged "Judge Holden"; and some are classical songs, including "Para Elisa" (the full version this time!) and a piece called "Bach Auf Der Gitarre", a medley of Bach's music featuring, among other things, his "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" (thanks to Mike G. for identifying that piece for me; if anyone knows any of the other pieces referenced in this song, would they kindly leave a comment here about it?).  

I am sure that this will not be the last time I blog about this amazingly talented and prolific young artist. At the rate he seems to put out new music, it probably won't be long before he has something else that I'll want to write about. I hope that this post will help to raise his profile a little as well, because artists as talented as Daniel Bautista deserve to be heard by lots of people. Happy listening!

URLs:
http://www.last.fm/music/Daniel+Bautista
http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/daniel.bautista
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/27602 (Beethoven)
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/24585 (Classics and Soundtracks)
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/39593 (Madera Y Bronce)
http://www.danielbautista.com/discography.php

Artist Spotlight: JT Bruce

Happy New Year! This spotlight is one that's long overdue, as I began listening to this artist about a year ago (in fact, he was one of the first artists I came across when I began searching for free music) before getting sidetracked with other things. He recently released a new album, though, so that makes the timing of this post at least somewhat appropriate.

JT Bruce is a solo musician who makes primarily instrumental progressive rock/metal music. Think an instrumental version of Dream Theater (so, basically Liquid Tension Experiment) and you'll have a pretty good idea of what to expect. Ever since I discovered him on Jamendo, his albums have been among the most popular on that site, and with good reason. His songs are lengthy, technical, extremely well-written, and expertly produced. Listening to one of his albums is like being taken on an epic journey, whether it is through the mind of a dreamer in The Dreamer's Paradox or through the cosmos in Universica.

I have spent more time listening to The Dreamer's Paradox than any of his other albums. It is a true concept album, complete with an overture and recurring themes, and it ends with a spoken explanation of the entire concept. I have also really been enjoying his latest album, Universica, which features 9 tracks each named after a star and shows a continuing evolution of his sound.

You can download JT Bruce's music directly from his website, although he recommends getting it from either last.fm or Jamendo, as that will save him some bandwidth. Whichever option you choose, you're in for a great experience. Happy listening!

URLs:
http://www.subjectruin.net/MUSIC.htm
http://www.last.fm/music/JT+Bruce
http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/jtbruce

Album Spotlight: Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I

From what I can see, this has been all over the Internet since being announced on Sunday evening. In case you haven't heard about it elsewhere, though, I'll let you know here: Nine Inch Nails have released a new album entitled Ghosts I-IV. It is a double album, basically consisting of 4 EPs of instrumental music that was recorded over a 10 week period last fall. The entire album can be purchased directly from its website in a variety of formats, each with its own price. Most relevant to this blog, however, is the fact that Ghosts I can be downloaded for free.

So far, Ghosts I is the only part of the album I have heard, but I have been very impressed with it, and if the other three parts are anywhere near this good, then Ghosts could end up being a classic. After a couple of listens, what it reminds me of the most is The Fragile, Nine Inch Nails' last double album from 1999. There are lots of pianos and guitars, and overall it sounds much more organic than the last couple of Nine Inch Nails albums. Appropriately, much of the music sounds very atmospheric and haunting, but also absolutely beautiful.

As a bonus, the download also comes with an Extras folder, which includes a 40-page PDF booklet and a variety of beautiful images that can be used as desktop wallpaper, website banners, and forum avatars. It is clear that a lot of care has been put into this release.

So, whether you are a long time Nine Inch Nails fan, someone who has never heard of Nine Inch Nails, or anyone in between, I would highly recommend that you experience Ghosts for yourself. To order the album in any format (including the free download of Ghosts I), all you need to do is go to the Order page and follow the instructions.

Happy listening!

URLs:

http://ghosts.nin.com/main/home

http://ghosts.nin.com/main/order_options

Artist Spotlight: Steve ALLEN (Robert Pieculewicz)

I have a treat for fans of instrumental guitar rock today. Robert Pieculewicz, a guitarist from Poland, has recently made a couple of his albums available for free from Jamendo (where he is listed as Steve ALLEN (Robert Pieculewicz)). In case you are unfamiliar with the genre of instrumental guitar rock, I'll try to give a brief description of it here. It is literally an instrumental version of standard rock music; the verses, choruses, and bridges are all in the same places that they would be in a normal rock song, and all the instrumentation is the same, with one exception: lead guitar takes the place of the vocals. Often, this lead guitar is very melodic, leading to songs that can be sung or hummed along with.

Pieculewicz's music is very similar in style to that of Joe Satriani. If you like Joe Satriani, I would say that the chances that you will like Robert Pieculewicz are very high. And if you haven't heard any Joe Satriani, listening to Pieculewicz will give you a very good idea of what he sounds like. He has managed to emulate Satriani's style very closely, and yet still come up with material that is completely original and beautiful, especially in the case of songs like "Fly Free" and "Rain Ballad".

The albums that are available from Jamendo are Fly Free and Speed Limit, which were originally released in 1996 and 1998, respectively. A quick check of Pieculewicz's website shows that these are not the full versions of either album, but what they lack in quantity they more than make up for in quality. This man really knows his way around a fretboard, and seems equally at home playing blazing fast licks in songs like "Running with the Wind", and slower ballads like "Rain Ballad" and "Desert Rose".

I'm going to try something new with this post: Jamendo has the option to include a little album player widget so that an album can be listened to on any web page. At the bottom of this post are players for both of Robert Pieculewicz's albums. They should work if you have Flash installed; if for any reason they don't work, or if you really like or dislike this idea, please let me know by leaving a comment. I hope you enjoy this music, and I'll be back with more soon. Happy listening!

URLs:
http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/Steve_ALLEN_(Robert_Pieculewicz)
http://www.pieculewicz.com/
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/17541 (Speed Limit)
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/17151 (Fly Free)