REVERIES is an ongoing project of music making for the sake of joy for the sake of music making for the sake of time for the sake of self therapy for the sake of sharing moments for the sake of making your day better. They are all instrumentals, a way to share the ongoing improvisations and compositions and whimsy of cellist/guitarist/composer/whatever Luke Janela. Listen either as an ongoing soundtrack or as a palate cleanser between talkie talk. Listen underwater, in midst of revelation, and especially while walking.
If you’ve discovered and enjoy this unique music podcast please leave a review. More though, take it with you, this moment that you are reading this, remember: you are alive yeah.
This song has been around with me for a long long time. I probably wrote it more than ten years ago. Unlike some songs from that era it has aged well, ie. I’m not embarrassed by it.
I don’t know how it never ended up on an album or fully produced. It’s a perfect example of a thing that works well in a room with people and flat/not quite alive on album…
I’d tell you what it’s about but doesn’t that always ruin a song? I will tell you there is a lot of church related imagery in there. Clearly growing up Catholic and an altar boy invaded my subconscious and probably will give me songs by the bucketful forever. Because? Because church is the imperfect institution, the fallible middleman? Because church is metaphor for society? Church can be metaphor for any thing in our lives be it music or art or love or nature? Because because because. Whatever it is to you.
Without further ado!
REVERIES
"The Longest Book Ever Written" - Performance Video
E’ry so often I put ye old iTunes on shuffle and here something perfectly podcast worthy. Here’s an older live on-air performance from KDVS live in studio A. So much reverb! I believe I requested that. I can never have too much reverb.
Got that image from here, you can get a print of it even.
I’m a big fan of interludes and in between moments. I’m a fan of the album vs. the single, and I think these snippets create a glue to hold the other songs together. It’s a fine line and you can kill the momentum of an album pretty easily… But I can’t help myself.
It’s also a way for me to include snippets of musical ideas that maybe don’t ever make it into a song, and the why bother there is that for me albums are more about a certain period of time being captured, rather than a bunch of songs. And those little snippets tend to coincide pretty well with the feeling of the rest of the music.
ANYWAYS.
This one is called “Forge” and it’s a throwback to my ukelele addiction I suffered through last year. I listen to a lot of EDM and somehow someday I want to marry the pulse of that music’s kick drum to an acoustic instrument. For fun and amusement. For justice and glory. And stuff.
Thought I’d gather all the pieces I composed for Shar, Nisha and Brad’s film “You Follow”. It’s my first official soundtrack! I’ll be unrolling them in rapid succession here on the site, via the podcast. Hope you enjoy…
Here’s the second part of the album I made for making things to. Make whatever you want! Again what we want is ambience and a lack of drama, without aspiring to New Age.
I had a friend who had a ranch out in the hidden part of Mendocino County, and one of our past-times during an amazing Summer visit there became “rock-hopping”, where you hop down a mostly dried up creek bed, ideally reaching a state where you don’t think between leaps. For some reason this song reminded me of that.
I had the honor of working on the soundtrack for “You Follow”, a story about a woman who goes to find out about her past in India. The main character does a lot of searching and I composed this piece to be her (Nisha) theme. It was a fun and interesting project and I’m excited to go see the opening screening tonight(!)…
A while ago I made my girlfriend Katy an album. She has a certain playlist she’s created for painting and has talked about the perfect music for that kinda thing… meditative and non-disruptive, but interesting enough maybe to be listenable over and over. So obviously I created a polka/deep-house mashup. And that didn’t fit the bill. So I tried this.
Just a live cello performance using some looping, and a very brutish beat to pull it all along.
It’s long, and it’s a pretty good quality mp3 if you are into that sort of thing.
A while ago I made my girlfriend Katy an album. She has a certain playlist she’s created for painting and has talked about the perfect music for that kinda thing… meditative and non-disruptive, but interesting enough maybe to be listenable over and over. So obviously I created this flugelhorn polka. And that didn’t fit the bill. So I tried this.
Just a live cello performance using some looping, and a very brutish beat to pull it all along.
When my girlfriend heard me play the early version of this she said “that’s pretty is that a Bruce Springsteen cover?”, which I took as a compliment. Nebraska is one of the most beautiful albums ever recorded. I didn’t intend to have the influence be so obvious, it wasn’t conscious, and also, if there is a sound I’d love to pay homage to it’s that one.
Came across this early version of “You Can Get Far” (video from the album REDWOOD SUMMER here).
And it reminded me of when I recorded it, at Canyonlands National Park, sitting up on a cliff’s edge. As you can hear not a lot is different in the studio version, just perhaps a nicer mic and the absence of the sounds of rocks scraping underneath my shifting weight. And the view I had was incredible.
Here’s an update from a song I posted a couple weeks ago. I added a cello solo in there. It was imperative to shred. I also added backup vocals toward the end. And hand claps. Always more hand claps. Also as always I prefer the original, what do you think?
The podcast was my main delivery about five years ago. Then facebook happened. The thing about facebook for me now, is that it feels WAY less personal than it somehow used to.
Also, I don’t need to share ALL my random songs with ANYONE who likes my facebook page. You, my friend, are here because you are (amazingly) dedicated and I appreciate that.
So we’re going to try to get the podcast back on its feet.
Here’s a new old song. I wrote the lyrics/melody quite a while ago, and stumbled across it in my lyric book, which happens when I’m playing little mini-concerts of old material.
It’s a bit rough, but I like the way it turned out. I’m thinking of adding a little more bowed cello, and perhaps more vocals at the end there…
I’ve been putting off basically everything working on some new music, so much new music in fact that I’m needing to break it down into its respective pieces.
This one is on an album I’m putting out that is basically electronic music meets cello. I’ve done that in the past, but the key with this one is that I more or less be able to play it live. Or some semblance of it. With looping that is possible!
So without saying much more, here is a new electrocello song. I’m likely to take it down soon, as I don’t want to spoil the fun, but love rewarding you my faithful readers…
Take care, enjoy…
REVERIES
alright, you're right, it's time for some new music
B sides are always around in my boxes. I have a lot of ideas that eventually would lead to a melody, but sometimes, like in the case of this one, will never be duplicated because the performance is so unique.
So here you go, so amazingly uncut or edited:
Here Is Enlightmenent
permalink to this post: http://midnightdoor.com/word/?p=558
I was playing around with vocal range in this one, total Mariah Carey inspired (kidding), it’s pretty rambling for sure. I’ve got a “holidays” ish song coming next week, so stay tuned!
OK so I’ve been talking about this for a while but now the album is getting mastered this Friday!
I’d really like to have any and all of your voices on the backup vocals for the chorus (just the chorus… easy!) of my song ‘True North’
The lyrics are simple and maybe cheesy, but whatevs. They are:
“Start a great fire
start a great fire
start a great fire
in your hearth
turn a blind eye
turn a blind eye
turn a blind eye
to the lie”
The way I envision you being able to do this is to simply open up any audio recording program on your computer (garageband on mac, audacity on PC), put headphones on in another program (say, itunes) press play on “true north”, press record on your audio program and sing along during the chorus into the computer’s mic. Yup, that mic is fine. It’s ok if it sounds treble-y, it will create a roomy ambience, it is the easiest option, and I will fit it in the mix however it goes. I don’t care if you sing it amazingly or not. I want the sound of many voices. If you have a better mic that is fine too.
Then you press stop on the audio program. Save the file as pretty much any audio format, and email it to me. No, I won’t hear the rest of the song because you had your headphones on, but don’t clip it down to just the chorus or anything like that so that it is easier to line up with the recording.
If you have time that is more than great. If you don’t, I understand. But please just take 5 minutes to do it if you want/can! You will be immortalized forever and most likely a radio signal will send your voice into space. Most likely. You will get credit on the album. You will be irrevocably awesome.
Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!
Let me know if you think you will. I need it by thurs at the absolute latest (Sorry for the late notice… )
The mp3 is noted here. If it doesn’t show up in this facebook post, go to http://midnightdoor.com/word/?p=467
The albums are coming along. I had the pleasure of recording some drums with Molly from Huff This!. She adds such a rock sound to the tracks. It’s perfect for the feel of the album.
So here is a more rounded out version of the song I posted a few weeks ago. This is the sample of the more rock, acoustic guitars and cello based album I’m calling ‘Redwood Summer’. Enjoy!
I’ve been working like mad lately and in my late night hours I’ve been burning through my music list. One of the tracks from my old band “The Key” came up and I decided I’m really proud of this whole album, especially in retrospect. Especially in retrospect because I wrote this song about the approach of the US warplanes at the beginning of the Iraq war from the point of view of an innocent kid. Maybe my age, maybe in Baghdad… I still think it fits. The sounds at the end are from a giant (80,000 plus people) anti-war rally on the eve of the war. Before that scumbag W. pulled the trigger. Listen and enjoy…
In other news, I’m super busy in life and otherwise.
After that I’m driving down to Los Angeles to do some cello recording with Huff This! They’re putting together their album and I’m super glad to be able to contribute perhaps.
In the meantime, good progress is made on the solo cello album, the new cello/beats/vocals album. Those two will probably be released at the same time, in early spring.
Canyonlands National Park a few years ago… there are these amazing ledges that drop many hundred feet. Stopped and played guitar and recorded this song there…
So I’ve begun work on one of my next albums, which is to be all cello, all the time. No vocals, no beats. And I shall try to resist the temptation to add piano and guitar or… whatever. Point is, a sparse album.
I usually have a motive in mind with my albums to some degree, and with this one I think that the appropriate listening experience would be something like: quietly in the summer evening. Warmly by the woodstove in the winter.
Oh yeah, I was going to post a song. So here is one approaching completion, Would Dent Sky. I cannot call this finished, but it is an encouraging beginning.
I don’t think I will be posting all the songs here as I go in this case, but keep your eye on the site, or subscribe to the podcast, I will certainly not be able to resist sharing them as they come along.
Be sure to stick around for a minute or two, as the development begins to get more layered then… Thanks for listening!
I originally recorded the song ‘Pinon’ off Midnight Door as a long, meandering piece. The idea was simply to open on the I chord, in C Major, and linger on the V, G7 for a good long time.
It worked better for the album for me to split it into three parts, because I really felt that this song in particular felt like the road.
I found out, naively, that I can record with, hold the phones, TWO microphones at once. I didn’t have to buy a mixer or anything. Well, I already had what I needed.
And so, the blueprint for the cello & voice only album is laid out: two mics, live recordings.
This song was recorded as a test of my setup, the room, the mics, positions, et cetera, and I am quite happy with how it turned out. The mic on my cello is big and right, and the vocals (hint of sick still in my voice, I hate recording when I’m sick but I can’t stop myself) are the ever faithful SM57 at work.
So, preface this song with: a test. Lyrics… not quite worked out, but I will keep some of them and rework the whole thing. I wanted to give you a little something, as I have been far from the external world lately in the land of illness. But I’m back again!
It has been a long busy and good week for me. And yet, I have not shared much music. I like the beginnings of this song, and especially I like the way that just cello and voice is going to work on the just cello and voice album I’ll be releasing this year.
Practicing tonight, working it out. Here is a short sampling of what might happen… Here I am playing the cello (with my hands) and the beatbox (with my feet).
I’ve been working with a few things lately, trying to make the new.
First of all I recorded an album for my dad, akin to something I did for my mom a few years back, where really, its just me sitting down with the cello and playing what happens to come out.
Second of all I took the tracks and have been putting them to video. For this first one, I asked Kate to do some drawing in the same manner, and used that as the footage.
I hope you like. It SHOULD be iPod compliant if you are into that kind of thing.
Here is the permalink, and below might be (if I can figure out the technology) a video player.
