Ahhhhh...
And to think I was NOT going to post THIS one on dSound.
This may not be the favorite of my original musical productions. However, it is a rather special one.
I'd dabbled in music production on and off over the years, from songwriting and recording during my teens with a guitar, drum machine, and 4-track cassette recorder, to making some beats on a MPC 2000XL after high school, and toying around with Reason and Logic in my twenties. Yet, this is the first completely original complete production I'd put together - I believe in 2013, a year after arriving in Bali...
Listen to Rok Sivante's "Sunset Symphony" on dSound
There's an interesting love-hate relationship with this one...
In part, I don't like how it turned out.
The song structure could have been better. The sections suitable for verses feel incomplete, the drums not properly done, the outro kinda drags on... as an entire composition, not the strongest.
However, there are parts...
The intro...
It's progression, as the string-ish synth plucks come in with the reverse reverb...
The triangle-like keys compounding in, and the the flute-ish notes blending in prior to the synths and kick joining the party...
So lush.
Such a wonderful soundscape.
where it all began: in the bale at my rental villa in Kerbokan, Bali...
And then that damn verse section comes and kinda fucks it up. Lol.
But then, it comes back around.
Bridging back into the chorus, with those mallet-like plucks and the chord progression changeup...
Perhaps dragging out a little bit too long, and not leading into a proper chorus as expected - though buliding nicely into the second verse section, which feels to flow much nicer with the white noise hats filling up more space and coming together more wholesome than the first...
And the break.
Fucking long, yeah.
But man, is there ever a certain magic in there.
The symphony, growing element-by-element.
The intensity building with the compiling of textures.
The richness, filling out as that single progression expands in depth with the addition and changeup of sounds.
And gracefully shifting into the conclusive epochs, drawing from certain phrases that've come before - building to smoothly transition out, the kick persisting like a heartbeat, deeply resonating until its collapse into the ambient space.
ahhh.
and furthering the work, from BED...
Yeah.
There's some wonderful love that went into this, and that persists for it.
I'd been putting producing music off for years. As I had put off moving to Bali for years.
But I did make the move. And, this was the product of the first move made back into music.
Undoubtedly, there's a bit of that dreaminess in it - the ethereal essence which drew me to the Island Of The Gods, and the tropical vibe of the island. (Inspired, surely, in part by the sunset gigs I was DJing at some amazingly stunning beach clubs).
Yep. As imperfect as this one might be, there's still something special about it.
And now... it's your turn to have a listen and catch a glimpse of the inspiration.
May your journey through this soundscape instill your spirit with a little (or a lot) of the passion that went into it, and the beauty of the experiences encapsulated in the work during the time it was created.
Enjoy!