Forthcoming Album
Kiss Me Verdant Green
I have finally started the process of recording my first solo album, Kiss Me Verdant Green! I’ve hired Jayme Stone to help me produce the album. He encouraged me to hire some fantastic studio musicians and I’m so glad I did. We spent three days at Mighty Fine Productions in Denver laying down all of the base tracks and then followed up with some really fun overdubbing. It was layer after layer of musical magic!
I want to give you a taste of some of what is coming up on this album!
These are some of the songs that will appear on the album. These versions should be heard as rough-drafts, in varied stages of completion. Everything on these recordings is what I’ve been able to do myself with my synthesizer, midi and drum loops. The harp is just chunking out chords so that I can hear the harmony.
This album sounds somewhat Celtic, a bit tribal in places, and like a cross between Loreena McKennit and Kate Bush. It is a mix of acoustic instruments, synthesized sound and nature sounds with lush vocal harmonies. I’m planning to create some magic here…
To listen, click on the red arrow. (You may have to click twice – sorry!)
Kiss Me Verdant Green
This is a song about a sudden awakening I had in the forest one night. I call it a “heartgasm". It happened during meditation. It was an experience of falling deeply in love with every tree, every rock, every minute detail, everything that was, everything that is. Pretty ecstatic. When I go to the forest and find myself in that place of connection, it makes me want to know every part of the forest personally, every leaf, every bud, every shimmer in the river, as if it was part of my own flesh and blood. With this song, the idea is that the forest is alive and sentient on every level, and if you let it touch you in the deepest of ways, you can experience the profound connection with all that is. Something beautiful awaits us, beckons us to come know it, to come experience it.
This recording is only a clip, fading out as it goes into a tribal drum section. If you listen to it through a real stereo system or with headphones you will hear some of my cooly effects, wind, squirrels, crickets, etc.
In Your Eyes
For me this song is a mantra. Wouldn't it be nice if all people everywhere were seeking the beauty in each other's eyes? I've also posted this recording with a sweet video on youtube.
Bless This Land
This song was born out of a desire to save our land from fracking. It started as a mantra, “Bless this land, guard this land, love this land, heal this land," and grew into this multi-voiced prayer.
Robin's Song
One day when I was outside I heard a robin sing, so I decided to sing back to him. We began a conversation, the melody of which stayed in my head for the next long while and evolved in to this song. I believe that singing the songs of nature and singing its praises helps to heal the earth.
Carry You Home
“Our existence as embodied beings is purely momentary; what are a hundred years in Eternity? But if we shatter the chains of egotism, and melt into the ocean of humanity, we share its dignity. To feel that we are something, is to set up a barrier between God and ourselves; to cease feeling that we are something is to become one with God. A drop in the ocean partakes of the greatness of its parent, although it is unconscious of it. But it is dried up as soon as it enters upon an existence independent of the ocean. We do not exaggerate when we say that life is a bubble."
– M.K. Gandhi: From Yeravda Mandir, Navajivan Press, Ahmedabad, 1935, p. 68
Budding Dreams/The Chase
My sweetest dreams hang on the vine
Like grapes ripening in the sun
Tend the soil and give them time
Sweeter still they will become
When at last my cup is full
And I can sip the nectar sweet
Buds will soon upon the vine
Appear as dreams I've yet to meet