THE COLOURS OF FOREVER

NOTE 13

2012-02-17T13:05:00.000-08:00

i have never felt such compelling feelings like i did at the start of this week.

having recorded a high number of tracks for the record already(13 to be specific) i listened to the whole piece front to back.
it struck me that i was not pleased with the work i had done.
it struck me that i wasnt pleased with the direction i had taken with the album.
at the start of recording for this album i wrote a manifesto for myself and the producer that included a promise we would stick to it.

we broke that promise.

we veered off track and started creating good music, but not GREAT music.

so i had that difficult decision of going into the studio and announcing that i am scrapping all 13 tracks and starting all over again and hoping my producer was still happy and on board.

this carried a valuable life lesson.

sometimes we go off track, sometimes we dont listen to our OWN manifesto in life.
sometimes we break our own promises and the results are sometimes not as good as they could have been if we had just stuck to our own rules and standards.

we re-started recording and mixing and we now have 5 complete new versions of the songs we had before and i couldnt be happier and more excited about the album.
i couldnt be more ''WOW'' at my own songs and how big and glorious they sound for such dark topics.

i am delighted and cheerful when i think of the album now and not worried or concerned i may be letting the audience down.

we finally found our good flow and our sound to model each track on and its the most unique direction ive taken away from the big synth heavy electro pop.

im going to put some harmonica on a track tomorrow and its going to be haunting.

lessons learnt by myself this week.
now i CAN guarantee that im putting a record out that im more than happy about.

and by happy i mean its depressing.

:D

NOTE 12

2012-01-31T10:57:00.001-08:00

as we progress through the recording process at great detail we decided to provide you with a little more info about our concept journey and a little more information on the album release itself. i can now present to you a new trailer with official release date -

NOTE 11

2012-01-26T18:01:00.000-08:00

this week has been a more jubilant week with regards to the album.
we have our instruments back and new ones too.

we have been working stupidly hard in long sessions non-stop to bring some sound out of our tracks.

by sound i mean the crazy wall of invisible noise that i am trying to pull from within the wires.

whilst our insturments where being fixed and new ones being bought from the many pastures beyond we decided to put our hands on a guitar and a microphone and record a small sample piece for the album.

this is a first for me but i am willing to share this piece of music with you.

its so simplistic but i wanted it to be hauntingly beautiful and those two dont attract each other in the acceptable world.

this is why im rarely accepted or understood.

i will resume posting more emotional and deeper NOTES for you within the next few weeks but until then i present at the link below, a little sample of vocal and guitar that we did in the studio in the past 7 days that presents this wall of emotion, using simplicity, to capture your hearts in coffins.

Studio Sample January 2012: http://soundcloud.com/daniel-angelus/daniel-angelus-3rd-album-intro/s-U8BJi

NOTE 10

2012-01-18T03:31:00.000-08:00

yesterday we hit a roadblock in our initial album recording.

our main instrument of choice(a decadent synthesiser im using to create some serious distored noise with) broke.

it gave up on on us leaving us halway through a specific track, with nothing else to give.

having spent most of our budget on sound gear to make this album SOUND greater than my previous two records, this left us in a gaping shock. so we are forking out the rest of our savings to have our beeauuty fixed and beyond that, we are buying a new one JUST incase this one we love gives up and has no more life.

i sensed irony in this event. recently ive sort of alienated my friends with my commitment to this album. we recieved a budget from the arts council and we are so keen to present a powerful and unique piece of work thats more linked, emotional and interesting to listen too.

thats not fucking easy. not at all. why?, i feel like i have to make 1,000 clinical desicions on the direction that one tiny portion of a track can go and sometimes your wayward and need to take some time off and come back to that track with your original perspective.

we have some great material here tht i can NOT wait to let you all hear and feel.

we have a release date for the album. we have a release date for the film.

all will be revealed soon.....

xxxxxxxxxx

NOTE 9

2012-01-02T14:02:00.000-08:00

the album i am recording has a protagonist and theme. the protagonist is a girl. alone in her little world with relatively hard experiences counter balancing observances she makes.
i haave worked with many people to make this album come together and we are about a quarter of the way into the tracklisting.

some of these songs where written over 9 months ago and visiting them time and time again and perfecting them and making them exactly as this journey intends them to be is a most beautiful experience.

today i listened to what we have so far, mixed and mastered, and it sounded so tender that i cried.

i am finding this journey therapy to my soul.

i havent worked alone in this journey. i have teamed with people who are grieving, needing, feeling and seeing across the world from France, to the USA, to Sweden and as far as the US forces stationed in Germany.

its not the end. my experimentation has brought to the table, a luxurious emotional buffet of delightful reality that is going to tell you the truth from behind the eyes of more than just myself. from behind the eyes of many more people who you might recognise within yourself through there emotional needs and requirements and personal sufferings.

as the bell tolls and the new year welcomed us in to 2012 we all see and feel what we see and feel.

i hope that as this album recording and writing progresses i can somehow speak for you, write for you, and sing on behalf of your eyes and your heart and soul.

i love you.

NOTE 8

2011-12-14T08:40:00.000-08:00

MEMORIES.

i have always been a free spirit who very rarely gets tied down to anything in life.

i love seeing cultures in there natural setting and i love to tour across the world to every little nook and cranny possible to share my music with whomever desires to hear it.
on my journeys many photos have been taken and most of them are kept in archive.

here are a few photos from the journeys i have taken....some of these experiences will make topics of emotion on the COLOUR OF FOREVER.

In a river in Reading, UK

Performing a small show in New York City

Another river in the East Midlands, UK

In a church in Birmingham, UK

In London, UK

These are just a few of many little memories plotted across the world. I have millions of these photos and videos from the travels....

Memories are important, sometimes we dont quite remember them the way they happened, they can sometimes seem more magical than they actually where.

Consider these photos a Christmas Present....share in my thoughts....and my memories.

Merry Christmas....

....Ill be back in the new year.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

NOTE 7

2011-12-01T23:57:00.000-08:00

Christmas was always an interesting time of year for me.
I used to get so excited at the colours of the christmas decorations that adorned all of the house i lived in as a child. I used to stare in dismay at the fake snow that lived on the windows. I could watch the colourful lights on a christmas tree for hours, trying to work out the pattern and rhythm of each light and colour.

In those moments i hoped that i was like other people around the world.
That i was similar in some way or other. That i wasnt the only one who had colourful lights and sparkly decorations to look at on a regular basis for 6 weeks per year.

The journey of seeing my house as a child, go from boring stake colours to exciting sparkly diamonds flashing at me from everywhere was delightful. A stupendous treat to behold as my life was pretty boring and shit at its best.

This year i will be doing it again, this following weekend, putting up the sparkly decorations in the house. And i will admit its difficult to do.
Im no longer a startled child. I am a grown 24 year old man. But there is something in my mind that refuses to let go of the wonders of a childs mind and when i put those decorations up i become childlike almost. Running around and getting excited as each one goes up on the roof and the tinsel is draped over the furniture and stairs.

Why is it that i am only too aware that there are children however, across the world, who dont have this experience that i have?.

As a child my country was fighting a war in Bosnia. And as a result a lot of war victims where heading to my country for refuge. I met a boy called Raul who moved to my school. Raul was the same age as me, 12 years old.
He walked with incredible difficulty.
He used to wear the same basketball shirt every single day in almost everything he did.
I watched in the playground as the older kids would bully him for the way he walked and his lack of english.
He spoke english, just not to the high standard that the 'popular' boys and girls expected with their high brow attention to detail.
I once rescued Raul from another bullying session one day, i chased away three boys who where intent on making his journey home a living hell. I chased them away and then told Raul i would talk him to his house. Raul lived 4 doors down from me!!.

He was most greatful and he gave me a hug. I got talking to Raul and it seemed he only knew about basketball!. He loved basketball!.
He talked about the fact that 12 people lived in the small house he lived in and they had come from Bosnia and he explained the reason he walked with difficulty. Because he had been caught in crossfire and shot in the leg during this war.

I looked into Rauls eyes and felt touched by his kindness, compassion and gentle nature. It was nearly christmas time and in one weeks time we were due to head home for the christmas holidays.

I made a desicion.

I would make Rauls christmas great.

I went to school and asked my class friends to bring in ONE toy each for Raul and to keep it top secret. The following day the WONDERFUL school friends brought in their toys in there wee bags without telling mum and dad what they where taking them to school for. I saw a giant Buzz Lightyear toy, a tamagotchi watch and one boy caled Thomas brought in his favourite pack of playing cards. Pogs and other little games came in too!. I asked my form teacher if we could wrap these presents up on the final friday before we broke up for christmas. It was hard keeping this from Raul as we all started to hang out with him in the playground and the temptation to tell him that his Christmas was going to be THIS AMAZING was difficult to avoid but we managed it somehow.

On the final friday at first ring of the final bell we got Raul to meet us in the hanging tree bush to the left of the main school building and presented him a fine selection of wrapped toys. All with our names on them. We told him not to open them until Christmas day.

What followed next i will never forget.

Raul looked us deep in the eyes and didnt speak a word. Then i felt my throat clench up as a solitary tear fell from his left eye onto his cheek and onto the plastic bag his presents were in.
The journey home from school that night was amazing, Raul couldnt stop thanking us and he wouldnt stop talking!. hehe!.

Sadly i moved schools very soon after that and i never got to see Raul again....

....but i will always remember the lessons i learnt from him and that wonderful week in my life and hopefully his life.

I hope that throughout december leading up to christmas we all find a way to reach out to someone....

....to put a smile on someones face.

Its a beautiful thing.

I love you :)

Daniel xx

NOTE 6

2011-11-22T18:38:00.000-08:00

STUDIO UPDATE:

Just a wee update to talk about the progress of the album at this point....

I am currently working on a theme called ''Faces'' in which i have asked people to anonymously submit pages of notes on what peoples faces have told them. They have sat in coffee shops and looked at your faces wherever you are, and written stories about you. Whoever you are out there, your on my album and in my thoughts.

These faces tell stories and i have taken these notes and re-imagined these stories by intertwining them with haunting experiences of my own.

The results are startling in song writing form and tomorrow(Wednesday 23rd Nov) i will be in the studio improvising several pieces of music to tell these stories.

I find myself wanting to use less electronica and more piano and violin crescendo and my raw vocals to tell these stories at this point....
The album is crafting itself beautifully and im so delighted with the current progress and sounds...

This album is half improvised through emotional moments between me and the producer, we just sit and i will play lots of music, and he will record and tell me if i am veering away or if i am striking a emotional jackpot of tears. Then we add shitloads of drums.....hehe!

Thats our goal tomorrow, to cry. I love working in the studio with honesty and someone who loves music just as much as me. Quick and efficent disagreements, long and prolonged agreements.

Its time to create.....again......NO DRUMS TOMORROW......

NOTE 5

2011-11-13T14:17:00.000-08:00

I remember a time when i was young.

When my father felt it fit to punish me i used to sit on the stairs.

Hands on my knees, staring into the glass pane that was the front door of our old house.

I could always sense when their was movement in the next room and i could always tell when the soundwaves transmitted from the television where interefered by the large body of ones father.

I could feel and hear everything and sense almost any movement and sound from the outer world as well as the terrible shell that was my home at the age of 12.

It was one day that i heard a beatiful piece of noise come through the wall on my left hand side.
The sound was peculiar and crackling.

It was smooth however in its movement and its fluid sympathetic tones.

This would turn out to be my peace, salvation and favourite moments for the next year of my life at this house i lived in before moving to another house far away.

This sound was my next door neighbour, only known as ''Robert'' playing his piano.

He played every few evenings in the week and he sometimes serenaded me without knowing on the odd saturday and sunday here and there.
He doesnt know it, but i listened to him so fervently as he gifted me one hour here and another hour there.

He was amazing. His playing was tranquil and remarkable and he sometimes used to make me fall asleep on the stairs.

I would pin my left ear to the wall right underneath the banister and take in each note and soft ivory crescendo that was his piano playing. It was heaven to listen to.

I grew to know Robert at this distance through his piano playing only.

He sometimes played fast and furious and those times are the times i presumed Robert was struggling in life and was frustrated. Other times he played soft and tenderly and i presumed he was at peace, maybe smoking some tobacco in his pipe and enjoying the sun blazing through his curtains.

It is not 12 years later that i play the piano for my wife when i am emotionally challenged. She sometimes almost falls asleep and i feel like i have inherited this gift from Robert.

With this new album i am setting a challenge we are keen to meet.

We have asked strangers from around the world to take part in a series of challenges that involve emotions, photography & creative atmospheric emotional interaction of the enviroment in which these wonderful people live.

From the UK to Sweden to Arkansas in the USA, i am trying to channel the emotions, feeling and the aura that serenades the lives of these wonderful people and im channeling it all into the songwriting for THE COLOUR OF FOREVER.

We have recorded three tracks for the album so far and we will record around 30 tracks. 15 of them will make the album....
The rest will make their appearance though....thats another story....

Its more than i deserve.

x

NOTE 4

2011-10-29T05:25:00.000-07:00

Studio:

Work has begun and here are a few pictures from this week in the studio.

We work in a beautiful and comfortable space which is almost homely. This is good for relaxation and work production. There are no TV's or distractions and we have Egyptian statues and mummified beasts to keep us company.

Here are some images from yesterdays session:

NOTE 3

2011-10-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

The official 1st teaser trailer.

Contains footage from the short film & two tiny music teasers(intros from tracks).

Enjoy.

UPDATE: Thos note contained the first trailer for the album. The video has since been removed and replaced with the 2nd announcement trailer. This can be found in a more recent note up above.

NOTE 2

2011-10-20T04:51:00.000-07:00

Religion:

I have always had a unique and contrite view on religion. Religion plays quite a large part of the album and i find that as i continue to write new material i learn that i feel the need to dispell religion in general.

My issue with religion can be perfectly portrayed in this quote...

Bertrand Russell said:

“You find as you look around the world that every single bit of human progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is, the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

“I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.”

NOTE 1

2011-10-15T20:11:00.000-07:00

This is it.

The official diary from the first day of writing and recording of THE COLOUR OF FOREVER until the final time i tour the album after release sometime in 2013???.

This will be a honest and informative selection of notes, images, videos & brain matter to bring you into our world whilst we record the concept album that is my 3rd record. Might i add, i suck at grammar....

I begin:

A memory. Sweden. 2007. Coasting down a highway in a place called Västerås with a friend in the back of a car that is shabby and battered. This is my first time in the country that will eventually play a HUGE role in creating this third album. I would visit Sweden many more times before moving there, suffering a shitty relationship, a illness and then the notion and motion of moving back to England. But i wrote a shitload of material, themed and my most personal and passionate whilst in Sweden and then in the first months of being back in England. And to quickly put in, i loved living in Sweden.

Back to the memory. My friend pulls out some headphones and looks me dead in the eye and mutters something in Swedish. Then smiles and says ''i hate america''. I would regard my face to probably be somewhat bemused and confused but to be honest i had been reading Michael Moore's ''Stupid White Men'' and felt that the general aesthetic in Sweden was pretty much ''fuck america'' at the time i was there.

Her way of proving her point was to push one headphone into my right ear and press play on a small battered mp3 player. What followed was the first time i had ever heard ''American Idiot'' by Green Day.

See at this time i was a dandy goth boy with tight purple skinny jeans and skulls on my little grey scarf with hair so lame i could honestly cringe when i look at old photos. Whilst listening to American Idiot by Green Day i looked to my right to see my friend going pretty mental, blowing her breath on the window and painting love hearts with her esteemed finger. They disappeared as quickly as they had been painted. The music made me feel rebellious and i felt like i was in a uncontrollable frenzy as my head mopped backwards and forwards and my friend reveled in her new convert to Rock 'n' Roll.

This was my conversion to modern music in general. And since then i have become a music fueled addict.

Truth is, my first ever concert was a band called Whitesnake when i was 14. My father had just passed away and i was enjoying stupendous freedom that came too fast and too extensively. I had nothing of my own so i borrowed everything that was around me to create Daniel Angelus v1.

This included a tape of Whitesnake's greatest hits.

So when i heard they where coming to my town to perform i thought i must go!. I was lucky enough to have my mother buy the very last ticket that was a balcony seat to the right of the stage. I didn't really think this through because the truth is i had never been to a gig before. I saw my school dinner lady rock it in a leather jacket!. I was gobsmacked. I never saw her the same way ever again in my final 4 years at that school.

Whitesnake stole my gig virginity, but they didn't convert me because i wanted a truly stupendous and free feeling of rock n roll. From a young age i understood music to be ''freedom''. That became my opinion and whenever i feel down?, its music that can pick me up. Or help me achieve my preferred feeling.

So trolling along in the FREEZING cold snow in Sweden it was American Idiot that captured my imagination. I tapped into the emotion and the pretty girl sat next to me and the place i was and it all was perfect for me.

That was a memory....or several.....