Back to music with one of my most recent tracks: Orion. It is featured on the compilation Interstellar Engines issued by Legacy of Thought. The premise of the compilation is to showcase tracks on famous spaceships as can be found in movie and tv shows.
My choice was the Orion, the focus of the German series “Raumpatrouille – Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion” (Space patrol) from the 1960s. Seldom enough to find science fiction shows made in Germany, but this one definitely became cult. At least in Germany. Only 7 shows were filmed, where the crew of the Orion had to face fierce alien aggressors to defend the earth. Needless to mention that it was filmed in black and white, and the effects were fun but quite basic. One of the most famous and often mentioned detail of the show was the use of common utilities for its control elements, like a flat iron, pencil sharpener, and plastic cups.
With my track Orion I wanted to give an hommage to the show and to Peter Thomas, the composer of its original soundtrack, which was outstanding and unique for that time. So I incorporated fragments of the theme and tried to find a fitting overall mood.
Being into the show while composing, I also thought about creating a video for it. I found some cool 3D models of Orion and related stuff, so I delved into the latest version of Blender to render a move. Unfortunately, it would have taken several months to create 6 minutes of 3D animations. Hence, I only created several 3D images and composed the video as kind of slide show employing DaVinci Resolve. Still, I am quite proud of the result, which to me does honor to the show, the OST and the track I composed.
Something completely different for a second. Earlier this year I finished building and setting up the new Online-Shop run by Lambert at Spheric Music. His older one was based on some proprietary software that was long outdated and needed replacement. And when Lambert asked, if I could help, I said yes.
In the open source community I found PrestaShop, built and distributed by a mainly french company and community. It is quite a complex software and needed some enhancements to fit to Lambert’s wishes. So it took over a year to complete the set-up and programming, especially, as this was a side project on little time budget.
The shop now runs quite well and got several praises from customers. So not only Lambert is happy, but so am I. With developing for the shop, I learned quite some new technologies in the PHP realm, which surely fits my hobby as well.
Visit Spheric Music Online to browse Lambert’s offerings and find a decent shop that delivers electronic music world-wide.
Next up, a recap on a release of mine from November last year: Afterlife. The song is part of the compilation Chromatic City released via Legacy of Thought. All tracks on this one are in the style of Synthwave (more or less). And it was quite some fun diving into the sound of the 80s with some older or digital remakes of those synths or actually modern VST which produce a similar sound.
Overall, Chromatic City’s theme is about a town, where Cyberpunk becomes reality. All the old style habits and stories taking place in futuristic sceneries. Technology is dominant. Each track on this compilation featuring a local place in that town of glass and steel.
So, I have neglected my blog for quite a while. Therefore, putting out some news in a row.
First up is to mention two remixes of me as Talking to Ghosts, which got released in January and February, respectively. And quite some unusual genre of music it is. But I have learned that doing remixes does help getting better in working on music and arrangement and more. The background of both remixes are songs, where Steve Baltes is involved. As I do like his musical work, these were great opportunities.
One of the remixes is on the song “Augenlos, doch alles sehend” (Without eyes – but still seeing everything), a reference to Metropolis by Fritz Lang. The band on this is “Baltes & Zäyn”, who are Steve Baltes and Lucian Zäyn. Their style could be categorized as gothic rock or so. My mix wanted to become some glitchfunky inspired stuff.
The second remix is on the song “Feelings Changing Hands” by the group Arctic Sunrise, that is Steve Baltes and Torsten Verlinden in a great collaboration. This is surely a song about the volatility of relationships. The song inspired me to do some synth pop remix, surely with some reference to a famous 80s band, also consisting of two guys.
Finally, the journey continues with the next story arc of Thorgar Ironfist, as he is up to free the town of Bremen. This seond track is part of the stories on Ten Towns, where his companions and he are traveling to fight the forces of shadow in ten towns.
Ten heroes, ten towns, and each of them having their troubles and losses and wins. I#M honored to be a part of this journey with Thorgar and the Bremen-track Hammer of Light.
Hey, it’s been a while. Sorry to be so silent, as there was no lack of news. Well, today I am happy to announce a single of mine to be released right on this day, October 6th. It got published with Legacy of Thought, the fine online-label of my choice for ambient and electronic music. The track itself is part of a series of releases featuring imagined characters from the Forgotten Realms. This one is named Thorgar Ironfist, a cleric dwarf that later in life joined a party to fight against the darkness. This track is his origin story.
Thorgar Ironfist was born and raised in the dwarven city of Ironmaster, located in the eastern region of Faerun. He was the son of a well-respected blacksmith, and as such, Thorgar grew up around the forge, learning the ins and outs of crafting and working with metal. Despite his father’s wishes for him to take over the family business, Thorgar was always drawn to the ways of Moradin, the dwarven god of creation and patron of artisans and craftsmen. Thorgar spent many hours in the city’s temple, learning about the ways of the gods and developing his skills as a cleric. One day, Thorgar set out on a journey to spread the teachings of Moradin and to seek out new opportunities to craft and create.
While I am a bit lazy with reading books, joining the Legacy of Thought community helped me composing music on a quite regular basis. From what I learned, it’s important to do things often to get better. So here comes my third contribution to a compilation. Trans-Siberian Express obviously is about that famous railway route from Moscow to Vladivostok. Each track features a place on that route. Mine is the entry to Novosibirsk, where one has to cross the bridge Over the Ob.
The music is more on the chill-out side. And it also features some vocals provided by a close friend of mine, Natalie. And the video is special as well, as it features photos and videos of another friend, Gerald, who took a ride on the express recently from Moscow up to Novosibirsk. Very fitting. You will find the video at Youtube. As well as links to where to get hold of it or add it to your Spotify stream.
And here comes my second publication as Talking to Ghosts. It’s the latest compilation named Future of the Earth, again via Legacy of Thought. As before, you can find a video on the track at my Youtube channel. The track and the complete album is available via iTunes and Spotify.
So I finally made it to an official publication. Under the moniker Talking to Ghosts, a first track made it onto the compilation Seven Lucky Gods published via Legacy of Thought. And it really seams to give good luck, as the track already made it to a live bi-weekly streaming show, Some Good Music Vibes. And I am so happy that it was well received by the hosts and listeners. Well, I can only hope that this is the start of a new journey.
I am really slow in catching up on Harry Bosch. While the tv shows I enjoyed as soon as they were out, following up on books gets harder (not only with Harry). So this is the second book on him by Michael Connelly, actually published in the past millenium. And while I was already a grown up in those days, it still feels strange, missing all the modern technology like, e.g., mobile phones. So they relied on pagers in the books instead. People where harder to reach and callers even easer to ignore. Well, I am drifting off.
“The Black Ice” refers to some highly addictive and dangerous (fictional) drug invented by Mexicans to outsmart the Hawaiian drug kartell. Bosch finds about it while investigating some murders and especially the death of a detective he earlier contacted for some information. While the upper ranks, like Irving, try to put the events under cover as quick as possible, Bosch, as we know him, “can’t let go” and picks up one stone after the other to reveal the truth behind all the bodies left on the street. In contrast to the tv series, Bosch is mainly on his own in this story (although Jerry Edgar does appear and is of help). He even does a stint to Mexico to solve the crimes in cooperation with the FBI.
I love the pace of Connelly’s novels. Even with the charme of the 1990s it still makes a great crime book, story-wise as well as character-wise. Everyone on the book feels so real that you get the idea of sitting right on Harry’s should riding along. The storyline was great, with a driven Bosch hunting the truth. I got the ending wrong around and quite late by that, so it was a double surprise to me. And I hope to get on with book 3 sooner than in about a year. But the stack of unread is high.
