Well what a journey this has been so far. And we are not even half way through. We’ve had 5 songs so far that have all happened smoothly enough; what could go wrong ???
Well, it’s new songs part 6, and something has gone wrong. Yep; my music computer decided that it has had enough of being a computer & as a consequence it has withdrawn most of its services. It still has some functionality but it’s only running approximately 20% of its core function. The upshot of all of this is that I don’t have any new songs to publish this month
Fear not I say!!
In the words of Baldrick, “I have a cunning plan”. For those who are just joining this party the plan goes something like this. I have been curating a new album at the rate of one song per month; my good friend Phil Lawson has been working on them with me, using his meticulous & powerful brain, & wonderful ears. Then we transfer them to my band camp site (details below) where you can stream them or buy them.
There is a fee of $13 should you wish to purchase the whole album. The good folk at Bandcamp assure me that once you pay this fee, you have continued access to whole album every time we load a new song to it.
This month will be a little different; let me explain.
With no new songs ready I’ve decided to do something a little different. A few years ago now I was fortunate to work on a project with me good mate and birth Doula Julie Bell. Julie approached me all inspired to write a series of meditations whose aim was to help the birth mother prepare for the birth experience. She canvassed the idea with me that I could/should write a piece of music to sit behind each of these meditations to enhance the experience for the listener. There were 24 of them.
With some trepidation about the size of the task, I said yes. As the project gathered pace, it became obvious that it was in fact a two album project; one was the meditations with the music backing, specifically for those entering into that space of expectant parents; the second one was just the instrumentals, specifically for those who wanted to continue listening to the music, but no longer needed the meditations. So now the project was upwards of 40 tracks to be made ready. Piece of cake!! 😩
So, what does that have to do with this months music release?
Good question, glad you asked. This month, I am picking 4 of these instrumentals and posting them on Bandcamp FOR FREE!!!! (As always, you can pay if you wanna donate to a good cause…. ME!) It has been brought to my attention that even people that regularly follow my releases have avoided these tracks thinking that they were only for people expecting children. (Maybe they thought that they might get pregnant?)
So here are the 4 songs
- Breathe; the first song we recorded for the project; I was trying to just react to the spoken word from Julie. CLICK Here to listen to this track
- Dance of the pilgrim; Channelling my inner Demis Roussos and dancing around my kitchen is how this one passed muster. CLICK HERE to listen to this track
- Deep Echoes; I recorded the storm (yes it’s a real one!!) and wrote the music to suit. Possibly my favourite track from the whole project. CLICK HERE to listen to this track
- Sing Child. Once more flirting with the pilgrim/journey theme, this track is reminiscent of journeying through remote places. Click Here to listen to this track
Remember, these are instrumentals without the original meditations from Julie; If you want to check out the meditations alongside the music, head along to our iTunes site. Login and search For Ancient Gates, the readings, by Mick McIvor & Julie Bell
mickmcivor.com 