Hear The Colors

Details:

The songs on Rebirth are based on most of the songs from my first guitar album Soul Scenery recorded in 2010 as part of my previous project Whirltwine. The inspiration for returning to this album came from the successful reworking of the song By Empty Room on my previous album Hear The Colors. There I fully realized the potential of these songs when they were given a new form using my current experiences and fully fleshed out arrangements with percussion, bass, keyboard, solos and so on. Sometimes even more significant changes or whole new parts like in the case of the song Ragged Stripes, where I used and developed only its finale from its original form.

I had already reworked two of the songs on Soul Scenery in a similar way in 2016 on the Oneness album, namely Sea Shell and the title track Soul Scenery. I already felt that these songs had not fulfilled their potential in their original form, but I decided to include both of them on Rebirth as well. Sea Shell was very suitable for the flow of the album as a relaxing resting place in its middle, and in the case of Soul Scenery, it is a very unique song that deserves a form that I was not even physically able to achieve back in 2016 and which it only took on on this new album, where I am finally fully satisfied with it :)

Details:

The second live album recorded on December 10th 2023 at the Andersen Cafe in Bratislava captures a live performance of the debut Hear The Colors album with several changes compared to last year's live album Live In Workshop. Whether it's faster versions of Spirit Guide and Storm Horses, live recorded choirs in Realm Of Mystery and Rewilding Of The Heart or adding new guitar melodies to A Day, Migratory Birds Fly Back Home, The Great Vision and Within.

In addition to even more minor changes, the improvisations in A Day and before Realm Of Mystery are also unique therefore, despite the identical setlist of these two concerts, each one of them has its own character and merit, but judge for yourself :)

Audio version of this album is available only as download from this site (it is not available on streaming platforms). However, visual version is also available on YouTube.

Details:

This is a download only live album of full Hear The Colors debut album concert experience recorded on November 26th 2022 in a small workshop in Bratislava.

Audio version of this album is available only as download from this site (it is not available on streaming platforms). However, visual version is also available on YouTube.

Why did I choose these bonus tracks:

01 - Within

There are fifteen combinations of the six colors within my harmonic system. Very early I knew I don't want to create album with fifteen songs on it as it felt too much and I wanted it to be well digestable. So I decided to not include three most difficult combinations and create only twelve song album. Later I thought maybe I can try to create songs for all of them and use the remaining three for live playing and also bonus songs. I'm glad I did it because all of them turned out great and one of the three difficult color combinations was also the Green-Purple "Realm Of Mystery" which I liked so much I ended up including it on the album. Thirteen songs still felt as digestable amount and one more emotionally difficult song like Realm Of Mystery didn't spoil, but enhanced the flow of the album.

02 - Evening Town Walk

This is the final song I wrote for this album and I love it very much, but still I feel it fits much better here as part of the collection of three strong original bonus tracks than it would fit on the main album. However in case you would like to create full 15 song playlist for yourself here are my thoughts about the order. After I wrote the story it feels the best following Rewilding Of The Heart like it naturally does when you play the bonus tracks afterwards. Before I even knew I would write the story I was thinking where it would potentially fit in the tracklist. Back at that time I would put the previous track Within in the middle of the album between Storm Horses and The Morning Sun and either keep Evening Town Walk after Within as they both lead nicely into The Morning Sun or maybe alternatively even put Evening Town Walk between Tale Of The Phoenix and Dance Through Life for its tense, but upbeat and energetic first half.

03 - By Empty Room

This is a song originally from my first guitar album "Soul Scenery" recorded back in year 2010. One of interesting aspects about this album is the fact that it consists completely only from multilayered electric guitar. Despite this huge limitation there are many interesting songs on it and this is one of the most interesting ones. The new arrangement and acoustic treatment served it very well and finally realised the full potential of the song.

04 - The Great Vision (Main Theme Remix)

One of the final fine-tuning additions for this song were the mellow atmospheric pads beneath the main theme when it returns at the end. When I listened to the pads in isolation with only drums beneath them this inspiration to do remix of the main theme that gradually builds on top of this energetic pumping drum beat hit me hard and that was how the idea was born. I really like the result.

05 - Dance Through Life (First Day Version)

I was very inspired and enthusiastic when I started working on the album on May 4th 2020 so at that first day I worked all day and night until sun came up and wrote and recorded this early version of the first song.

06 - Migratory Birds Fly Back Home (Demo With Unused Intro)

For the second song I composed I felt it would be good idea to use the experimental improvisation with gong and indian flute I recorded on August 27th 2017. For final version I left out the flute and kept only the gong as the flute was not fitting the atmosphere of the song well enough.

07 - The Morning Sun (Minimalistic Finale)

The final chorus of this song has many layers of melody and rhythm that together create this grand finale, but natural consequence of many layers is that their individual beauty gets buried in the mix. So I created this minimalistic version of the finale with isolated glockenspiel from the middle section of the song now used as intro to this version as it also have something very pure and nice in it.

08 - Spirit Guide (Without Guitar)

This song was first song I wrote with more unusual combination of colors so I didn't expected ordinary song from it. I wanted to keep it short and take more experimental approach with it. I ended up loving the final result and therefore I include this version without guitar here as it stands on its own nicely with only these weird sounds and keyboards as an interesting alternative version.

09 - Rewilding Of The Heart (Early Version)

This is a very special song to me that still resonates on emotional level very deeply even after thousands of listens. In this early version in progress I fully realized its potential, especially of the finale and I knew immediately it's going to be the closer of the album. There is something magnetic about the finale that I can't stop listening to again and again sometimes even for hour straight and it began with this version already so that's why I put it here even though the middle section is just bare guitar idea.

10 - Deep Feel Cave (Even Deeper)

Another song with unusual combination of colors that surprised me how beautiful it ended up sounding. After it ends I wanted it to be longer, but I also felt that making it longer would take away from its magic. However I also realized that it feels very natural to listen to on repeat so at first I created the "Relax Loop" version with alternating parts with guitar and without guitar and an extended ending to make it more interesting. However after few months I clearly felt that I loose interest to continue listening after the first four minutes and then came the idea to record an improvised solo over the second repeat of guitarless part. After that I realised how bueatiful some of these improvisations sound even with the original guitar as background, so for the final repeat it is a combination of improvisation, composed solo and original guitar as well. As the "Relax Loop" subtitle didn't fit anymore I renamed it to "Deep Feel Cave (Even Deeper)" as it unleashes the full potential of the song. Even though it wouldn't fit on the main album in this form, I think it is a perfect closer to the "Bonus Tracks" second side of it. Enjoy! :)