Releases

There's Nothing Like Love album and It's A Chem Cloud Day EP Maxi Single (featuring four tracks from the forthcoming album Maelstrom Beach) . . .

AVAILABLE IN SPRING 2008!

Maelstrom Beach

The Quickening RELEASES

THE QUICKENING

Mini Album, released May 2004.

Buy the Album Online

Track List:

1. 24/7
2. There's Nothing Like Love
3. Come Back
4. Straight Faced
5. The Quickening
6. Sweet Mountain (bonus track)
7. We All Stand Together (bonus track)

Bonus Tracks:

Sweet Mountain (Wilson-Sandler)
From the "AMERICAN SPRING" album that Brian Wilson produced for his then wife (Marilyn) and sister-in-law (Diane) in the '70s. This cut was for me the highlight of the album. Our version here is similar in approach to the original, but different.

We All Stand Together (McCartney/Martin)
This version is based on Paul's '70s era demo. I recorded this a year or so ago for a children's album (still in production) and figured this might be a good time to sneak it out in conjunction with the recent release of Paul's animation DVD.

LYRICS:

"THE QUICKENING" (Parkes-Pett-Dolan)

Light is dark and dark is light,
right is wrong and wrong is right.
When did truth become a lie?
Can't you hear the angels cry?

Night is day and day is night,
light is dark and dark is light.
Is it any wonder why
God has a tear in his eye?

In the home of the brave
In the land of the free
It's the dawning of the age of insanity.
From the spacious skies,
from sea to shining sea
kingdoms rise to fall
and all is vanity.
The quickening is quickening...

A bad moon's rising in the East,
people gather 'round the one eyed beast.
Flying demons full of rage
force history to turn a page...

(repeat chorus)

Tuesday morning all is calm,
little children sing a simple psalm.
The blast was felt all over town
ashes, ashes all fall down...

Stars may tumble from the sky,
it's appointed once for man to die.
Somewhere lies an empty tomb.
The second coming's coming soon?

(repeat chorus)

"The rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air
gave proof through the night that our flag was still there..."

This song has an unusual history. Back in 1995 I worked a graveyard-shift and used to listen to Art Bell to help me stay awake. Art had this theory about time and 'end time' events speeding up to some sort of climax. One day I was listening to some ancient Byzantin Chants, which are very modal and rather eerie sounding to modern ears, and had the idea to create a basic track based on a Byzantin drone or pedal tone. I started with just drums and percussion and began building it up from there. I was intrigued with the idea and challenge of creating a pop record consisting of a one chord drone (in E minor for those who care to know) with a beat behind it. I then added a 60-piece string section.

The track, lyrics, and production evolved over a six year period. There have been numerous versions (some as long as 7 minutes) along the way and was considered "finished" prior to the 9/11 attack. The song was, and is, prophetic. I purposely used a Nostradamus style in that all of the verses are in a quatrain format. Post 9/11 I did a remix and added a string introduction (an edited portion of the string arrangement later in the song), altered a couple of lines, extended the end by adding the quote of the National Anthem in the tag. "God Bless America" worked perfectly but the Irving Berlin Estate wouldn't grant us the license to use it because, "Mr. Berlin's dying wish was to ensure that 'GOD BLESS AMERICA' never be interpolated or quoted out of context".

The swirling, chromatic runs played by the string section at the close of each chorus represents "time speeding up". The track just builds and builds to a shattering climax and dies off with the strings playing a slow glissando to their highest note — an electric guitar chord fades off into silence. — CMP