[Music] From The Lake - AVAILABLE NOW

https://bobbyricheson.bandcamp.com/album/from-the-lake

As some of you already know, I've been working on a project that I'm going to have performed and recorded. If you didn't, then now you do. This is an independent project, funded entirely by myself, but will be performed entirely by actual musicians. It's entirely instrumental, though it started out as a sort of rock opera a few years ago, consisting of rock band and expanded chamber orchestra. The style is widely varied, but is modern orchestral music in an accessible form.

Spoiler for Tracklist:

1. Pinkerton Overture: A Presentiment
2. Dearly Beloved
3. Graveyard
4. A Deal With Mephistopheles
5. Arise in Bended Light
6. Where There's Tigers
7. Last House On Peachtree Street
8. Persephone At The Pier
9. Defiance's Dance, "Pleated Lux"
10. Sun Reverie
11. The Fat Man's Dance, "Subversion"
12. Coventry
13. Catastrophe's Dance, "Desperation"
14. Under the Red Moonlight
15. As the Cacophony Grows
16. The Color of Space, the Color of Dread
17. I've Missed You
18. Finale and Reprise

Spoiler for Musicians:

A bunch of people you don't know, plus me and Irock! However, they should be mentioned because they are talented individuals, and as I said:

• Ròs Clark - Sound Design, Bass, Additional Instruments
• Daryl Faulkner - Electric Bass
• Ed Hauser - Alto Saxophone, Tuba
• Katie Hauser - Trombone
• Zach Henry - French Horn
• Nathan Howard - Piano, Electric Organ, Synthesizer
• Kyle Landry - Piano
• Ryan Leber - Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar
• Kent McCarthy - Drums
• Kimberly O'Brien - Celesta
• Ashley Richeson - Flute, Alto Flute
• Bobby Richeson - Percussion, Piano, Electric Organ, Synthesizer
• Andrew Shoemaker - Violin, Viola

Story

Because this started out as a rock opera, much of the music written up to the point where it was decided to go all instrumental told a story in a musical sense. I decided to keep the story and to try and express it through the music and track titles, but of course there's only so much you can do with that and it leaves a rather large amount to the imagination. Deciphering what the story actually is would be impossible unless it were told to you, so here it is (written almost entirely by a friend of mine):

Spoiler for A presentiment:

Years and years ago, there was a man. We don’t know his name because he doesn’t have a name anymore. The Devil owns it. See, when you make a deal with Lucifer he not only takes claim to your soul, but also your name. So we call this man The Fat Man. The Fat Man was clever, quick and convincing. Before he met Lucifer, he could talk his way into — and out of — anything. He could convince a poor man to give him money, a hungry man to give him food. He could convince any woman to adore and any man to serve him. But he was hungry for more and more and more. He ate to his content and became extremely wealthy.

He decided one day that was not enough. He wanted more. He wanted power, eternally. Who has such power? The Devil. So, he conjured The Devil and said, “Let’s make a deal. You give me a plot of land in Hell to use as I please, and in exchange I’ll gather souls for you.” What he planned to do was use that land to get into Hell and convince its tenants to mutiny and overthrow Lucifer, naming the Fat Man king of the damned. Well, Lucifer is The Devil for several reasons, one of which is that he cannot be outwitted. So Lucifer agreed to the Fat Man’s deal and granted him a patch of land. That land is actually a tiny lake located in a tiny town on Earth called Pinkerton. This lake is special because it is basically Satan’s septic tank, where all the garbage, sludge and sewage of Hell flow. The Devil had the last laugh, and The Fat Man had a debt to pay. In order to gather souls, he had to make "deals" with people, all of which he kept because he knew if he didn't keep his word, then people would know better than to make any sort of deal with him. He gave them whatever they wanted, usually in an ironic manner, and in exchange all they had to do was drink some water from The Lake. Someone drinking from The Lake after coming to The Fat Man was the same as signing a contract - their soul now belonged to him. The catch was he could not kill that person. He had to wait to collect their soul after they died naturally or at the hands of someone other than him.

So The Fat Man took his land and did his job of making deals and gathering souls for years and years on end. Until one day, he met Persephone, the image purity — a beautiful, young thing. But the problem was her sister, Defiance, who raised her and kept her safe. While Defiance was an honest and kind woman, she hoarded greedy genes inside, festering in discontent, waiting for a break. The Fat Man could smell her greed and convinced her he could giver her endless power and money. And she agreed. He handed her a cup of water from The Lake and bade her drink. She drank it eagerly and that was that - until 6 days later when she was found dead, body floating in The Lake.

Spoiler for And so it begins:

Defiance had a lover. His name was Catastrophe. He found her face down in The Lake and was stricken with grief. He had heard rumors about what The Fat Man was capable of, just like everyone else in Pinkerton. He had always thought they were just urban legends, but he was desperate. He went to The Fat Man to ask him if he could bring Defiance back to him. This was something no one had ever asked The Fat Man before. Of course, he knew he was capable - with some help from Lucifer - but this would mean giving up a valuable soul. He decided to revive her but to leave out her soul, thus bringing back a woman who was only a shell of her former self. So he gave Catastrophe a sip of water from The Lake, and it cost Catastrophe his soul as well as his name.

After being reunited, Persephone knew immediately that something was wrong with Defiance (aside from the fact that she was previously dead and buried). Deep down, Catastrophe knew as well but remained willfully in denial, just happy to have his love returned. This wasn't something he could keep up long, however. See, Defiance's body returned, but it brought something else within it, something evil. Persephone pleaded with Catastrophe to do something about Defiance, to try and make him understand that this thing wasn't really the woman he had loved. Eventually, he knew what he must do.

Catastrophe confronted The Fat Man, and, in their fight, suffered a mortal wound and then died. The Fat Man panicked, as he knew that he was forbidden to kill anyone who had made a deal with him, but regained his composure, knowing he could work his way out of this, just like anything else. He knew of Persephone, though, that she was the only one who knew where Catastrophe had been when he ultimately died, and he knew that he needed her soul as it was stronger and more pure than anyone else's in the town.

So The Fat Man went after Persephone. But what he didn’t know is true love is a seven-headed beast. When Defiance met Catastrophe at the gates of Hell, his sacrifice for love woke The Angel who burst from heaven’s mist. He reigned down fiery death, destroying the corrupt town of Pinkerton. The Fat Man turned to ash and burned eternally. Defiance and Catastrophe became one in eternity, leaving sweet Persephone to dance on the ashes of The Fat Man’s greedy gluttony.

Thanks

There are a lot of people without whom this project would not have come to fruition or who have helped to varying degrees. This is especially true of RMRK members who have been quite generous!

Dertt
LadyJ
arlen
Acolyte
Lord Stark
Irock
yuyubabe
Malson
PhoenixFire

Your support is appreciated more than I can express.

It looks like you're going for all "real" instruments, which is awesome, but I noticed "purchase sound libraries" is on that list of your. If you're looking for a way around buying sound libraries I'd be happy to bounce a few tracks (not songs, like, instrument-tracks) for you from my computer.

Either way, good luck! Can't wait to hear the finished product.

There are a few instruments I just won't be able to record analog, mostly percussion (taiko drum, anvil), so I'd just run some simple stuff through it. Also there are a few particular synths I want to use. I used to have several libraries, but my hard drive died and I figured I might as well legitimately purchase some. But I had actually considered asking you to bounce a few tracks for me in the case I don't have what I need in time lol. We'll just have to see what I need when the time comes. Thanks!

Finally confirmed my violinist. Still several musicians I need to get a hold of, but that was the big one. The rest are unnecessary at the moment anyway.

Money is a little tighter than I had expected at the moment, so things probably won't start until next month. But I'm talking to a guy about handling the recording and then we'll begin!

After a bit of negotiation, the very talented Kyle Landry is now on board for a couple of songs! I couldn't afford to book him for all the piano parts, unfortunately, but he'll be performing on 2 of the songs as of now, with potentially more later. Which is fine for me because those are the 2 most difficult and I'm already covering like 9 other instruments lol.

And now news on the recording process front! Tentatively starting next month we'll begin recording sessions, I'll edit the first post with the very loose schedule as of now.

Nifty. I somehow missed this untuill now, so thanx for the bump!

anvil

anvil is an instrument?

anvil

anvil is an instrument?

Yep! Although I've decided to just use the common substitute, a brake drum (yes, the part of a car)

I love metal sounds in orchestral music.

And this will have lots of it, though most of it is pitched percussion: glock, chimes, wind chimes, patio chimes, vibes, celesta - but there are a lot of unpitched metallic effects (brake drum, bowed gong, waterphone. I was going to do this cool thing where you put a triangle in water but I ended up cutting the song it was in.

Stress level rising - recording has officially begun! Some synth and electric bass tracks are done and we'll be starting flute very soon. There's been a last minute change with who will be handling the recording process which was slightly horrifying, but everything ended up working out even better than before.

Also I've decided to do a kickstarter donation sorta thingy. I've been very apprehensive about it because I don't feel like I'm anyone to be doing that kind of thing, and honestly it feels a lot like begging and I still feel weird about it, but several people have told me they would like to donate at least a little and finances have been a bit... lower than expected so I'm going to be launching that very soon. There will be incentives for people that donate certain amounts, and everything raised will be put towards speeding up the production process and improving the quality however there are no expectations from me of any of you to donate and this project will get done whether any money is raised or not. I'll have more details about this probably later this week.

Just dropping by to say that I'm really impressed with those demo tracks (I have Dearly Beloved in particular stuck in my head, it's awesome). You're really putting a very respectable amount of effort into this!

I wish you the best of luck, Mr. Halo.

so excited for this  

Among people who have heard the whole thing, Dearly Beloved tends to be one of the most liked. I almost didn't include it among the demo tracks - there's just so many to choose from and they all tend to be a lot different from one to the next, it's hard to choose just a couple of songs to reflect what the overall "album" is like - but I thought maybe it would be popular among new listeners as well and draw in some interest. So yay

And thanks

I really need to stop giving out dates for things because something always comes up that makes me push it back. I haven't started the donations yet because I'm working some stuff out for people in the hopes of being able to offer some pretty cool things for people that do donate. There's also been a slight hiccup in the recording process. So while I was going to post here saying the kickstarter will start next week, I'm instead going to just say it will start "soon".

Hey, it's alright. Take your time with this; delays aren't a bad thing as long as what you're working on comes out how ya want it to, y'know?

I don't really mind the delays because for the past two years and however many months I've been working on this, it's been like 80% delays. I just need to stop telling people "[x] will be done by [y]" because it almost never is. LadyJ can attest to this.

It's ok though, because what you do is so awesome.  It's worth the wait

I totally have faith that the project will be worth any wait.

After several days, we'll finally resume recording tomorrow. The first of two flute sessions, yay. Also, we'll be starting our kickstarter donation thingy tomorrow. Or Sunday. It probably won't actually be Kickstarter, but you know, the crowdfunding thing - with several goodies for people who are feeling generous.

For now, since there hasn't been much of anything happening, I thought it would be neat to share some lyrics. This started out as a rock opera and then was switched to all instrumental, so these lyrics are no longer necessary and never got polished into anything decent. I'm by no means a wordsmith, but I thought it may be entertaining to see the embarrassing scraps of ineligibility rather than just tossing them into the garbage. These are in no particular order:

Spoiler for:

I have not made friends with death
I have not made death my friend
Better to make friends with my enemy
Better to make friends with this knife


The quay fades as the fog rolls in
At least it will hide our grief
Putting on a brave face
Is much easier when no one can see it


Steps turn to walking
Words into meaning
Ingredients for dinner
All the things we're learning


I look about
The man by the lake
Stranger than strange
How is it he resists you?
Where does he find the strength to?


There are times I won't let the tears out
But this time I couldn't hold them back
They flowed all the way from Pinkerton
Back to this spot
Her grave


You link your fingers to make a step
Then we cross over the fence
Approaching uneasily
I stumbled, stumbled on a stone
Dusting off memories, memories of ghosts
Better days gone bye
When you told us we're moving I didn't believe it
Cause I was born in this house, and I thought I'd die
In it too


And I told you that I missed you
But it came out something cosmic
Inauthentic
Pruning, preening
Maybe it's because
Your melody lacks coloratura


A man never knows he's guilty
Until he's forgiven
Familiar guilt, you will be my only child
My only child


I have a strange sense of subversion
I leave my guitar unattended in bars
Only to retrieve it later
Disappointed in my relief


Bullet in the side, what's a girl to do?
Hear the anguished cry
Drink of Earth's softest skin
What's a girl to do?


Flickering like an oil lamp, a figure at the foot of the bed
The color of space, the color of dread, ohh


Sat in the boat
Starting to shiver
We keep rowing
While muscles burn
Beneath my bandage
The tendons tender
But I will manage
Across the lake
Beyond the trees
He's expecting me
The daughter of a piano
Sister to late celesta

That should totally be copied into the Librarium.

That should totally be copied into the Librarium.

Thirded.

That's some very impressive stuff right there.