I usually prefer to review songs that the readers of this blog can hear without having to buy it. But this song was just too good and is definitely worth your 99 cents, so I made an exception.

The thing that captured me when I heard this song is how “refined” it is. It is under three minutes and on the minimalist side as far as the instrumentation is concerned. Yet it has such a solid build up in the verses and such a strong punch in the chorus.

The vi-I-II progression in the first three lines of the verse is a familir progression that is made more unique and interesting by the nice guitar work that is implementing it. And the final line of the verse going to IV-V transition performs a nice and intense segue into the chorus. Oh and the bass performance in the verses also adds a very subtle but important contribution in my oppinion. Very tasteful.

And the chorus… Yeah baby the chorus itself is the “perfect combination” as the lyrics proclaim. To me the signature stamp of this song, the climax is that 4 syncopated beats at the last measure of every line in the chorus (the perfect combi-NA-TION, that WORKS FOR me… ). The little use of the crunchy second guitar that supports those for beats is also a nice touch.

Well people who know me also know any song that has a guitar solo in it gets a default bonus from me… and Singin’ Country does too… It’s more of an ambient solo than an active one but it works well with the overall mood of the solo and does its job as a low key preparation to contrast and grow the final chorus.

May I also say how subtle and wonderful the ending is. Not a whole blown outro. Just one more repeat and a perfect ending with those 4 syncopated hits that is the heart of this song. Leaves the listener’s heart beating to the “heartbeat” of this song. Very clever, very elegant… Loved it

So overall there is more than enough goodness and solidity in this song to make one eagerly wait for the whole EP from Jessica. She is quite the perfectionist on this but that’s even better for us listeners.

Then every once in a while, I run into a work of art that is seemingly minimalistic yet emotionally deep and structurally intricate, only in a very subtle way. Speak Your Heart by Val D’Alessio is one such song.

I first saw Val live and she blew my mind. So I immediately found out she has music out there on the web for all to listen.

http://www.myspace.com/valdalessio

Genre-wise I guess it is fair to call it contemporary country, but who cares about genres, right?

The tune kicks in with a minimalistic mix that let’s the listener focus on the beautiful and articulate acoustic guitars in the intro. And since I am a big fan of the relationship between the chords vi and IV (like Am and F) the chord progression is an instant winner for me.

But what also immediately grabs the listener is Val’s “earthy” vocals. She has such a unique voice. Highly expressive with a little bit of grit and breathiness. A perfect combination for the deep emotional music she makes.

The subtle, slightly-gritty lead guitar is there just the right amount. If it was any more prominent, it would start to deteriorate the overall song, if it was any less, it would be lost in the song.

The chorus is supported by very subtle and lush harmonies from female back vocals and with the changing beat on the drums, this makes the chorus stand out just at the right amount.

The bridge that kicks in 2.04 has some interesting musical choices. It is possibly one of the most lyric intense parts of the song. Harmonically it sticks to a simple two chord progression and the mix becomes quite again. All of this works pretty nicely and the returning chorus ignites the hand clapping, head swaying, or whatever the rhythmic movement of choice for the listener.

This song is about making very subtle choices. This is hard to describe but let me attempt. It is almost as if Val stood in front of a machine with 20 rotary knobs that she could set from 0 to 10. She set them all at different values between 1 and 3. but if any of them were off by one tenth the song would deteriorate. And she made it so that none were off the slightest.

This kind of “balance of subtle elements” is very hard to achieve. Not just in the songwriting but also in performance, recording and mixing. And all those elements are perfect in their subtlety in this song.

The song wastes no time with unnecessary repeats anywhere. it just flows from part to part with a steady and comfortable pace that takes the listener along a relaxed journey.

I have to mention also how much I enjoyed the bass performance on this song. Again very subtle but tasteful and solid.

Another subtle but tasteful surprise for me was the shakers that come in at 2.56 marking the beginning of the outro.

Speak your heart is a solidly beautiful tune where every single beat and note is there with purpose and direction. It is always rewarding for me to see a song that has gone through as many iterations as necessary for it to be refined and polished to its strongest core elements.

Hasan, “Allamulax”, Ates (and his MySpace) is an electronica artist that have grown much more since making The Neverending Breeze. He once mentioned that when he listened to this piece recently, he felt such naivity in it that it made him feel “I would definitely not have made this song this way now” and yet he still felt happy with it. This probably happens to all musicians. On the one hand we look at our old work and notice our inexperience reflected in them. But we also are somewhat happy that, at that point in time that was who we were and part of us got captured in that old song and won’t be lost in time.

Thus Neverending Breeze did capture a somewhat more “playful” Hasan back then. The piece starts with some nice multi layer ambient synth texture and jumps right into the playful electric drum beat. I have to admit I am not a big fan of some examples of electronica (and hip hop) where the focus is solely on creating a catchy beat and nothing else. Hasan never falls into that trap. Throughout the song there is a lot of harmonic color palette at the background and a lot of very melodic leads dancing with each other.

Especially the melody starting at 0.19 is I think one of the strongest in the entire song. At the end of that melody another synth takes the melody an octave up at 0.40 and an soft flute tone suddenly gives the song a very new age-ey atmosphere. But just for a while…

There is a arythmic slow section for about 15 seconds that adds an interesting dynamic to the song. The familiar beat turns back at 1:14 but this time joined with a nice two line lead harmony. I really like this section between 1:14 and 1:42 as it also moves over some really interesting chord transitions. It is followed by a variation of the intro lead then back into a synth solo at 1:55 and another pretty soulful solo till 2:20 where it is joined by a simple few melody lines as back up arpegios. And the song then fades out.

What struck me when I first heard this piece was the overall bittersweet yet playful feeling. The bass line is very “poppy” in a sense. The main pad that dominates most of the song is not too favorite of a sound for me. It could have been better if it was further back in the mix, but then again these are probably the thing that Hasan meant when he said he would make some things different today. Nevertheless this is a song that has a lot of raw goodness in it and it definitely grows on you with time.

Funny thing is I don’t even know if there is a finalized version of this song anywhere online. The link I am giving you is to their reverbnation site and the track I am writing the review based on is called “Scratch/Guide trax for “All I Am ” “.  Well even the scratch tracks version is a kick ass song so I don’t care

From the first second till the end the song carries so much conflict, so much bittersweetness, so much pain. It is not your typical “all-around-sad” song. It is much more sophisticated than that.

The piece starts with a dark acoustic guitar duo. I love the chord progression. I love the little crunchy vibrato lead on the right side. And this harmonic framework carries Secret’s awesome vocals and with some backvocals (Chelsea? at least live it was her). At 1:08 a pre-chorus part enters with masterful gipsy-jazzy vocals and ties into the chorus (well it’s actually hard to talk about a chorus in this song’s structure, it is more free form and has many different parts, which is something rare but something I love). The “take me as I am” part is just mesmerizing

At 2.12 an instrumental / solo part starts. And this acoustic solo gives me goose bumps. It is perfectly bluesy but yet carries with it a hint of jazz and I must add some rock.

The section that starts at 3:10 just gets me close my eyes and sway left and right. Over the next minute many magical things happen simultaneously in a hard to explain way. There is an overall crescendo. There is the lead guitar driving to higher registers and growing more intense. Slowly but steadily more vocal tracks are added to the mix. There is almost a gospel-choir like quality at first (at around 3:23), then around 3:45 further vocal harmonies enter making the sound thicker and more majestic. At around 4.20 all is going crazy epic, and emotional.

This emotional climax resolves at 5:04 into the intro progression and turns into an outro. That’s where you say to yourself “What just happened”. And if you are in the reverbnation page you need to choose now between listening to “All I am” again or listenning to the other tracks. The answer in these situations for me is always easy. Listen again.

There is enough time to come back and listen to the rest of Divine Discontent tracks. And you will want to do that. I will review many more tracks from them.

The piece starts with two acoustic guitars dancing around the base chord, but quickly jumps into the first verse in a few seconds (together with drum and bass). I am really a big fan of the verse chord progression. It is a relatively less used I - iii - ii – IV progression and made even more interesting by the actual guitar  riffs (the little fifth to sixth slide). The mix here involves a bare-bones bass + drums + 2 acoustic guitars instrumentation and this is a tasteful and utilitarian choice as in the second repreat of the progression, Chris and Jessica join in with the back vocals, adding to the harmonic texture.

At 0:35 we reach the extremely catchy chorus. The canon-like delayed back vocals create a refreshing and engaging point of attention in front of David’s falsetto vocals in the chorus. The guitar chord progression here is amazingly simple yet with the added harmonic support from the three vocals, there is very exciting harmonic infrastructure here as well as strong melodic goodness.

At 1:03 we meet Jessica. She delivers an emotional and technically flawless second verse. Check out the little details like the soulful micro-slide on the word slow in “… slow down”. Nice clean female country vocals at its best.

The song also features a nice bridge starting at 1:59 also introducing two distorted slide guitars to the mix. Again a very efficient and well fitting chord progression here both on the guitars and voices. At 2:35 another interesting acoustic lead part enters and brings some more dynamism. I’ve seen David playing this song live in a single guitar + voice setup and this part works really well live. In the recorded version I find it a little crowded with the two slide guitars (I would have prefered without the slides) but still it serves very well  and ties the song into the last verse.

Speaking of the single guitar version I must also say I think the arrangement here with two acoustic guitars through the first two verses and choruses is great in the recorded version. I suspect this is Chris’s doing. Chris has a very strong command on acoustic guitars as a colorful melody/harmony tool.

The outro starting at 3:46 is also very minimalistic and tasteful. This song just leaves me in a good relaxed mood everytime I listen to it and probably the outro plays a part in this.

Overall I believe this is a song that can appeal to a large number of people. It doesn’t have any stereotypical genre attributes. It is just a plain good song and you should definitely check it out. You can here it in David’s Reverbnation page (the link at the beginning).

Revamp is a band that I recently found out about. They are a melodic metal band with operatic female vocals (a great one in Floor Jansen) and occasional male growl. This form factor is something I generally like (also seen in Nightwish, Epica etc…). I found out about them through a friend mentioning Mayan (a new band formed by some Epica members). Floor sang on some tracks for them. It’s funny how music discovery works these days.

In Sweet Curse, all good things about Revamp get further amplified by a guy whom I consider to be one of the best male rock vocalists of all time, Russell Allen. Russell is the frontman for Symphony X (which I no doubt will review soon). He has Dio like shrieking abilities and Coverdale-like bass-heavy tone. The duet between Russell and Floor just proves too good.

The piece starts with a haunting piano motif and after a few measures Floor’s perfect soprano voice enters together with some electronic drums. at about 00:31 a cello melody starts to fatten the sound in the bass range (Ok I admit I have a soft spot for cello melodies too).

00:44 starts a new phase of the song. The bass and the drums enter with a rhythm that reminds us that this is, after all, a metal ballad. I really like the last chord in the progression here (the F – assuming it is E, C, A, F tuned half step up). It gives the progression that nice tasteful dissonance, the element of anger. And yes, my beloved, the palm muted distorted rhythm guitar is there too.

We reach the chorus at 1:13 with unmuted power chords in the lo-mid range, Russell’s voice at the mid and strings at the top. Nice, fat chorus. Nice and effective chord progression. I love the slowed down exit from the chorus.

Then at 1:43 Russell enters what will be an epic second verse. In just a few measures, the guy starts from a moaning painful lows, and takes it up almost an octave up in a Dio-like crunchy and ends epicly. Well that epicness is intensified by the headbang-inducing entry of drum/bass/guitar at 1.55 as Russell delivers the last line of the verse in the stratosphere, the listener can do nothing but assume power stance

2:41 brings on a vocal show  in the upper limits of male and female voice. The chord progression in the bridge wasn’t particularly exciting to me, but it is efficient enough to provide a harmonic texture for the amazing vocal performances in the front.

3:08 introduces one of the most exciting parts of the song for me. The post-bridge string-led orchestration dancing with Floor’s perfect and emotional delivery leads us back to the chorus and ultimately the intro piano motif becomes the outro.

In short this is a track that heavily showcases great vocals with some minimalistic orchestration and some good old melodic metal rhythms. Revamp is a relatively new project (although the people in it have been around for a long time). Keep an eye on them. If you are the heavy metal listener then check out Revamp’s Here’s My Hell as well.

Emir Diril is a very talented young composer/guitarist. You are likely to see many more pieces from him getting reviewed here as he is one of my favorite composers. Definitely check out more of his stuff.

The track starts with a minimal but tasteful Japanese motif played with a Yangqin that starts to get some support from a western string section; first the violins then violas and cellos. I must say I really love the sudden jump back to the east at around 00:34 with the wind instrument (sounds like a Bawu but I am not sure) and the taiko drums coming back. Especially the build up of the bass moving from A to D starting at 00:45 is another piece of simple yet masterful orchestration. This build up gets even more epic with the addition of the chords played by the brass section at 00:59

I need to pause here and talk about something else here briefly. The use of brass section in computerized orchestrations is extremely tricky business. It is very hard to achieve believable and technically sound brass parts. We are all spoiled by Hollywood soundtracks that have been using brass in actions scenes, epic wars etc. that I believe we have certain expectations from the brass section by now as listeners. The other main two melodic families of instruments in the symphony orchestra (namely the strings and the woodwinds) are not as hard. Somehow the strings (even with somewhat lame sound libraries) sound well (especially if slow enough) and the woodwinds also have less problems especially with fitting melodies and Mozart-like solo use. But the brass my friend… You can tell a lot by a modern day composer by looking at their proficiency at using brass.

And this is one of the highlights of Emir to me. He is an absolute master of the brass section. OK I hope I have brought enough attention to this issue, let’s move on with the review

The build up ends with a great hook at 1:08. Again notice how masterfully the orchestra implements a crescendo into the harp sweep. The timing at which the brass section is silenced, followed by the violas and cellos with only the violins remaining at the top. In a matter of three seconds where many composers would have probably just gotten sloppy and forget, Emir here displays a finely tuned sense of dynamics understanding and perfect taste.

And comes the heart stopping piano motif (A, G, D, E) at 1:13. From this point on the piece seems to just gain momentum and keep flowing non stop to its end. It is a particularly hard part to review in writing, since there is so much movement intervowen. But the first time I listened to this piece I got goosebumps at the piano motif. And before I could even comprehend what happened Emir kept coming back with more orchestral sophistication, taking the listener on a flowing voyage through melody and harmony.

Even as early as 1:18 the cellos start supporting the piano with an answering bass melody while the rest of the violins calmly provide the harmonic framework. 1:24 the violas enter into an arpegio motif under the violins and after two measures get joined by second violins a third away. And at 1:37 things start to get seriously epic, with the addition of snare drum (the marching band rhythm) and the brass section again (almost like a battle cry in the making)

Another harp sweep in 1:53 takes us to a part dominated by harmonic movement without a melody in the fore front. This is a choice that I particularly admire. For listeners melody is usually the most memorable part with rhythm being the thing that moves them and harmony being the thing that whispers to their mood. For a composer to take the harmony center stage like this is rare and takes courage. Courage in orchestration and structure. Obviously Emir has that. And he not only has the courage but also the technical prowess to pull this off beautifully as well. Piano gives up its melodic role and falls into an arpegio. There is a gradual build up among the brass, piano and finally strings until 2.20. That’s when the yangqin makes its return with its part from 0:45, but this time in front of a more mature, finalistic and resolving harmonic framework. It takes us all the way back to the beginning motif at 2.39.

I believe in all art forms there is an inherent conflict. A conflict between the technical prowess about the medium and the artistic attributes like originality and sincerity. As an example think of Malmsteen with his extreme technical prowess (but often critisized of being repetitive – btw I love Malmsteen). Or think of Nirvana and other grunge artists that had a lot of sincerity and originality (but often critisized for their lack of technical prowess). The main conflict is the moment you start to “show” technical prowess, it becomes recognizable in and of itself as a separate entity then the overall context which it is a part of. And that breaks the flow of the overall piece more often than not. That is why doing something that is both technically awesome and artistically true is very hard and rare.

To me Emir managed to do exactly that with First. A perfect combination of artistic integrity and technical prowess. A natural beauty with a strong design.

You can listen to First in Emir’s MySpace page.