Brother Wren

Added soundcloud account

2010-09-08T00:04:00.000-07:00

In order to make sharing this music a bit easier, I signed up for soundcloud.com, a kind of Flikr-for-audio site. It looks pretty useful, and I'm going through my old posts and adding an embedded player that links the song to its host on SC. Now I won't have to leach quite so much off of ~eo~ph()g, which had been a source of some guilt for me. I'm also experimenting with a new email address. It shouldn't be a major transition for anybody, don't worry about it, this is more for me than anyone else. I will resume posting stuff fairly soon.

WIP #7 - "Pivot"

2010-08-26T21:06:00.000-07:00

This is just a simple electronica jam I did during my spring break in Alexandria. The name "Pivot" is a kind of lame homage to one of my favorite electronica composers, William Orbit, whose style and aesthetics has definitely influenced me tremendously. A lot of this song needs to be polished up; in a system upgrade I lost a lot of the sound effects I was using, and I find it a bit... well, flat, maybe. Right now the only live instrument is my bass playing, which I think could be a lot better, and I should probably add some guitars and other stuff.

http://haoma.neonphog.com/music/demos/pivot.mp3

Pivot by brotherwren

WIP #6 - Fiveeight

2010-08-23T22:30:00.000-07:00

This song definitely needs a title. It's a really fun song based off a riff in a slightly unusual time signature, what I think would be 13/8, because it is essentially a 6/8 beat with an extra eighth note at the end, i.e., 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3-4 repeat. I love the extra space this beat gives me to play with, and although the song is, up to now, purely instrumental, I could totally see adding lyrics, which could make the spacey quality of the song really pop out. However, it works well as is, too, although I think it could do with less synth-y sounds. The bass and guitar, of course, are live.

http://haoma.neonphog.com/music/demos/fiveeight.mp3

Any suggestions on how the song could develop, or a good title, are more than welcome.

Thirteen by brotherwren

WIP #5 - Waltz'n

2010-08-20T21:16:00.000-07:00

This is a really, really old song Kevin and I wrote together. It's really reflective of our early songwriting, with a lot of different parts and not a whole lot of the verse-chorus thing. I just did this today for fun, there's a lot of sloppy playing and mistakes, but it's gratifying to compare it to the demo we did ten years ago and see how much better it sounds. :) It's not an easy song for me to sing, I think I'll have to warm up into this if I'm going to do it.

http://haoma.neonphog.com/music/demos/waltzn.mp3

Waltz'n by brotherwren

Lyrics:

I waltz with the wind, her light fingertips on my waist
A waltz in the wind, and the brush of her lips on my face
I feel the winds blow and I see the ground flow far below me
And all I can see is the beauty there waiting for me

Like birds and the bees flying high above trees
Or a beautiful dove I'm in love
Now I look down see the ground and I freeze
Oh my, I'm too high

I tumble and fall in my panic and fear
And I think that she blew me a kiss
And her beauty and grace I can see in her face
As I beg her to dance with me more
"I'll miss you!" I cry as I see her recede
And her beauty fades into the mist
And straining my ears to hear her reply
I don't even hear a goodbye

{All I can hear is the rush of the air
And the sound of my tears as I cry}

With a thud and a crunch, I gracefully crash to the land.
The waltz in the wind has left me standing alone on the sand.
And impossibly high, I see a few clouds floating by
Through the blueness and sunshine, the birds gently drift through the sky

"I hate you!" I cry, shake my fist at the sky,
But I stop.. and I breathe, and I sigh..
And straining my ears to hear her reply,
I hear her soft whisper "Goodbye..."

WIP #4 - Parallels in Spacetime

2010-08-19T20:52:00.000-07:00

This is one of my more fully-developed songs; you may have heard it in an earlier, instrumental form a few years ago. I'm really curious to hear what people think about this song in particular, since it is as close to being "done" as anything on this site. How does it flow? How are the lyrics, both in content and delivery? Balance issues? I may redo the drum tracks, but I'm pretty happy with the instrumentation otherwise.

Parallels in Spacetime by brotherwren

http://haoma.neonphog.com/music/demos/parallels.mp3

Lyrics

you could try to sleep
close the door and dim the lights
and try not to forget what came over me

i could try to pause, i
essentialize and redact the lies and
stop at the sudden smell of clover

these moments hanging high
like electric lights in a sunlit sky
arrive and recall what is missing

another day is gone
another night to spend alone another
time another time another time another time another

(bridge)

you could try to sleep
the solitude of a sightless smile
and hope for dreams to come and take you over

i could look at you and think
why i didn't think i'd fall
and take a look behind at my footsteps

(bridge)

you could try to dream
lose yourself in another time
and maybe find another life to enter

i could do the same
for time is just another dream
and maybe you are waiting for me there

illuminate, but never blind
these electric lights in a sunlit sky
i swore that i never would be that way

we could intertwine
intersect between the lines
we could be parallels in space-time

and oh,
what a wonderful thought we shared that night
and oh,
what a powerful loss we could barely face
and oh,
what a comfortable sigh behind closed eyes
and oh,
what a vulnerable time to be alive

WIP #3 - Kzing

2010-08-19T19:54:00.000-07:00

Why Kzing? It's about as meaningless as this song. Maybe I'll rename it; thoughts?

Features:

heavily distorted violin solos
ethereal strings
synthesized harpsichords and trumpets
audio of me riding a CTA bus

You see? Random.

http://haoma.neonphog.com/music/demos/kzing.mp3

Kzing by brotherwren

WIP Track #2 - Azan

2010-08-17T23:17:00.000-07:00

It seems only fitting that I should be coming back to this during Ramadan. I wrote it while living in Cairo, and the whole song is centered around my impression of the Adhan. I was walking down a local street near my apartment one day, and there was one mu'azzin giving the call to prayer at that moment that totally struck me. He would take one note and just SIT there, only moving up a half-tone every now and then for ornamentation as he finished his phrases. The sheer beauty and simplicity of two adjacent notes captured me, and I got home determined to somehow get it out there in my own music. Thus this sound-collage, "Azan," was born. In it, I tried to recreate some of the characteristics of the Adhan in Cairo that stand out most to me: the intermittent flow between relative quiet and sudden sonic upheaval; the cacophonous joy of a hundred voices lifted, each independent of the other yet all directed towards the same object and purpose; the simple structure, decorated by vocal embellishment; the unexpected magic that can come out of notes that don't (at first glance for a Western ear) go together.

This is a recent incarnation---I have added vocal tracks and made it murkier (which I'm okay with, this is also a characteristic of the Adhan in big cities). I also made the syth tracks a little less discordant. At first, it really did sound like the "Jaws" theme, or something out of a cheesy zombie movie. Back to nice happy major chords. I'm really curious to hear what people like and dislike in this song; it's not the most conventional piece, but it is really simple, perhaps to the point of boredom.

Azan by brotherwren

It is time
Azan
Silence breaks
Shatters in sound

Carry me
Azan
Above streets
Pull me down

It is time
Azan
Day is long
Give me pause

Sleep by me
Azan
Night is come
Announce dawn

It is time
Azan
Heavy sky
Cast off by voice

It is time
Azan
Nothing
Changes

WIP track #1 - "erech"

2010-08-17T21:11:00.000-07:00

Instrumental, recorded in Garageband with live guitar and bass. Why "erech"? Because I needed a name that captured the mood, and where else to go but Middle Earth? My main gripes:

• Drum loops are boring. Need better loops! Or live drums!
• Bass may be too high -- but then again, it's a key instrument in this mix.
• I'd like to have a live instrument take over the synth oboe.

Erech by brotherwren

Please, please, feedback is good!

Moving into two projects

2010-08-16T21:01:00.000-07:00

So, there's lots of news. I'm starting up an actual band with a drummer and a guitarist, and a lot of the rock tunes I had been working on are now turning into material that we'll be performing as a group, rather than as a solo project. At the same time, I have a lot of stuff I've composed in Garageband over the years that doesn't really lend itself to a rock vibe -- it's too instrumental and ambient for that. I think, then, that the next step is to create two projects, each one a bit more manageable. The first is to finalize some of my Garageband stuff and release it as a solo -- part of me wants to bring in Kevin and make another Afternights collaboration CD. The other stuff will be recorded acoustically with live instruments and released as a stripped-down, performable series of tracks. I've got some good acoustic versions of some TLB songs already laid down, but they need drum tracks and possibly more guitar work before they're ready. Meanwhile, then, I'll focus on getting this electronic stuff polished away. It's sat on my hard drive too long.

Album progress

2010-01-06T23:49:00.000-08:00

Things are coming along nicely. Dave's guitar does just the trick when I want nice jangly IN TUNE arpeggios, so I mostly did the slow stuff. I also discovered that I do have some pretty nice guitar work down from last summer that I can still use, so I'm looking at a good five-six songs basically down already (sans vocals, which is blah). I also had the extreme pleasure of recording the setar for the first time. It sounds wicked cool, even if it forced me to hear all the little problems in my technique. Here's where I'm now at:

Woodland cave (Setar song) -- I'll probably have to re-do the whole thing, since the setar intro was meh and the instruments weren't quite in tune with each other, but it sounds AWESOME.
Exposed (needs bass)
Trigun song (needs title) :)
When I am sane (yes!!)
Dirt (still good from last year)
Paste
Emily (has good guitars, just needs an electric when I get home)
Flowers (still has good guitars, although the rest of the song ..?)

So things are looking good!

Winter plans

2009-12-31T14:15:00.000-08:00

This is just to say that I'm planning to record a short set of acoustic pieces next week. I'll be in Evergreen with my parents, no noise, no neighbors, no distractions, so it should be idea conditions. I have my fiddle, setar, tenor, and guitar with me, and I don't plan on using any software (partially because I installed a new system and no longer have Garage Band on my computer), so it'll just be live playing through my little recording box. The songs I hope to have done will be:

Exposed (Tastes Like Burning)
Green Lights (Tastes Like Burning)
My little song
Emily
Paste (Tastes Like Burning)
bassline (unnamed)
dropD song (unnamed)
woodland cave (ida)
trigun-style instrumental
dirt
Maps and Legends (cover) / King of Birds (cover)
Golden Age
Maybe something by kingsbury manx

Where does Brother Wren come from?

2009-12-26T00:43:00.000-08:00

“Cameron” seems to be a name made for changing around. At home, my folks call me “Cam,” but “Roonie” is a kind of pet name my mother uses for me. School names included Roon, Cami, Cameroon, Looney Tune, Camcam, Ham, and so on. As I started speaking other languages, “Camille”, “Camillo,” “Kemo,” “Kamil,” and “Kamran” have all made an appearance. Brother Wren is a play off of a special name my cousins had for me, Brother Ren. Musicians or writers who yearn for a pen-name may spend ages going over the various possibilities before settling on a name that simultaneously conveys the “real me” and the persona they want to project to a public. Brother Wren seemed like a good choice: odd, rather meaningless, yet nonetheless deeply tied to my own childhood experience of never having a single name or identity I could fully depend on.

This shifting, unsettled sense of identity may also reveal itself in my music, since it, too, is rather incongruous as a body. I grew up playing Texas fiddle, an old American genre that, as blues did for rock and roll, provided the foundation for western swing and modern rock and country. Fiddle introduced me to rhythm guitar, tenor guitar, and subsequently bass, all of which I performed on my two fiddle albums, Going Places (2000) and Salt River (2005). In 2001 I had my first experience in a professional band, playing violin with the Denver-based group Xiren. At the same time, my interest in electronica and experimental music grew, leading to my first batch of eccentric rock tunes recorded with my friends as Afternights. After a short break, I started getting more interested in playing live rather than working solely in front of a computer with my instruments surrounding me, and by good fortune I met some people interested in the same thing. This let to the group Tastes Like Burning, which lasted for about a year before I moved to Chicago.

Chicago has kind of killed music for me. It’s hard to find places to practice and school is so overwhelming I rarely have time. However, I mess around from time to time on the computer or with my recording gear and at this point I have quite a number of songs more or less ready to be released, once the final touches are added. For the time being, I’ll be publishing myself as a solo artist (Brother Wren) until the next thing comes along.