by Brian Andrew Marek
Hello again, Lizardson and everybody else out there in Time Has Told Me land!
Brian Andrew Marek - A Lion in the Sun (2005)
In the summer of 2005, the band I'd led for some six years was losing momentum, purpose and key members. I was feeling pretty burned out on that scene, so I eagerly accepted an invitation to play bass for a long-running alt-country band due to tour Europe - only to be summarily dismissed two months and two gigs into our stateside preparations. I was beginning to suspect that I, as the saying goes, "don't play well with others".
So I fired up the (already obsolete) ADAT machine, chose some songs both old and new, and began the joyously painstaking task of recording a solo album. A SOLO album, for I am fully to blame for every instrument and every voice heard upon this recording. A solo ALBUM, because this was conceived as such, not as a series of unrelated demos or experiments. To put it another way, this is probably the most ambitious project I've ever undertaken. Frankly, I wonder how I managed it!
But while the recording process went fairly briskly (aside from a panic over a damaged tape that nearly nixed "Ten Seventeen Oh Two"), mixing yet again infinitely delayed a promising project (another story for another time). A friend who worked in a commercial recording studio offered to mix the album for free during the studio's downtime, and while we managed to get a few tracks done, time dragged on with no progress, and after a while, he stopped returning my emails. (The original mix of "One More Kiss", by the way, did appear on a hurricane Katrina benefit compilation, "Upstream/Downstream".)
Fast forward to June of 2007. I'm sitting on these tapes, I've got a pair of ears and some decent equipment, why don't I just mix 'em myself and, uh, do something with 'em? Well, I mixed them, edited them, crossfaded them, and mostly enjoyed the result. I decided five of them needed remixing (KIDS: See if you can guess which ones!) but... well, life is full of distractions. I'm not a professional, y'know.
Now it's September of 2008. Somewhere along the line I realized that I'm no closer to having the money to press and release such a thing on my own, and I have no stomach for the notion of "pitching" (ugh) myself to a label. Also, the ADAT machine seems to have given up the ghost for good, so the mixes I have are most likely the only one's I'll ever have.
But I've grown to accept that it is what it is, and I'm proud of what I've done, whatever its faults. And I have the good fortune to live in the age of the music blog, so I can finally release (in the sense of letting something go) this music to the world and not keep it in the closet like so many skeletons. Please enjoy, and know that though I receive no monetary recompense, the right comment is more precious far than gold.
BaM
TECHNICAL NOTE (PLEASE READ): While I have prepared a MP3 version of the album for the convenience of those who don't want or aren't familiar with FLAC files, it suffers from the tiny glitches or drop-outs at track endings/beginning so common with crossfaded album encoded as separate MP3's (if there is workaround for this, please let me know - I've never heard of one). For this reason I also encoded the album to FLAC so that listeners can be assured of a seamless (and higher fidelity) listening experience. I highly recommend taking the extra time to download the FLAC version.
FLAC: DL
MP3: DL
Brian Andrew Marek - A Lion in the Sun (2005)
In the summer of 2005, the band I'd led for some six years was losing momentum, purpose and key members. I was feeling pretty burned out on that scene, so I eagerly accepted an invitation to play bass for a long-running alt-country band due to tour Europe - only to be summarily dismissed two months and two gigs into our stateside preparations. I was beginning to suspect that I, as the saying goes, "don't play well with others".
So I fired up the (already obsolete) ADAT machine, chose some songs both old and new, and began the joyously painstaking task of recording a solo album. A SOLO album, for I am fully to blame for every instrument and every voice heard upon this recording. A solo ALBUM, because this was conceived as such, not as a series of unrelated demos or experiments. To put it another way, this is probably the most ambitious project I've ever undertaken. Frankly, I wonder how I managed it!
But while the recording process went fairly briskly (aside from a panic over a damaged tape that nearly nixed "Ten Seventeen Oh Two"), mixing yet again infinitely delayed a promising project (another story for another time). A friend who worked in a commercial recording studio offered to mix the album for free during the studio's downtime, and while we managed to get a few tracks done, time dragged on with no progress, and after a while, he stopped returning my emails. (The original mix of "One More Kiss", by the way, did appear on a hurricane Katrina benefit compilation, "Upstream/Downstream".)
Fast forward to June of 2007. I'm sitting on these tapes, I've got a pair of ears and some decent equipment, why don't I just mix 'em myself and, uh, do something with 'em? Well, I mixed them, edited them, crossfaded them, and mostly enjoyed the result. I decided five of them needed remixing (KIDS: See if you can guess which ones!) but... well, life is full of distractions. I'm not a professional, y'know.
Now it's September of 2008. Somewhere along the line I realized that I'm no closer to having the money to press and release such a thing on my own, and I have no stomach for the notion of "pitching" (ugh) myself to a label. Also, the ADAT machine seems to have given up the ghost for good, so the mixes I have are most likely the only one's I'll ever have.
But I've grown to accept that it is what it is, and I'm proud of what I've done, whatever its faults. And I have the good fortune to live in the age of the music blog, so I can finally release (in the sense of letting something go) this music to the world and not keep it in the closet like so many skeletons. Please enjoy, and know that though I receive no monetary recompense, the right comment is more precious far than gold.
BaM
TECHNICAL NOTE (PLEASE READ): While I have prepared a MP3 version of the album for the convenience of those who don't want or aren't familiar with FLAC files, it suffers from the tiny glitches or drop-outs at track endings/beginning so common with crossfaded album encoded as separate MP3's (if there is workaround for this, please let me know - I've never heard of one). For this reason I also encoded the album to FLAC so that listeners can be assured of a seamless (and higher fidelity) listening experience. I highly recommend taking the extra time to download the FLAC version.
FLAC: DL
MP3: DL
posted by Lizardson at 7:49 AM
4 Comments:
Regarding the tiny spaces of silence as you jump from one mp3 to the next:
Check your options in your mp3 creation software and select 'VBR' - Variable Bit Rate.
Brian, I'm looking forward to hearing your music, and whether I like it or not I want to commend you on your efforts to record, mix, and share your music! I've got lots of ideas, my playing is getting to where I want it, I have lots of software and some good instruments, I just never seem to get the time to pull it all together. Thanks for the inspiration!
I've heard from a number of people who said they don't have RAR, couldn't run it on their computer, et cetera, so I've changed all my upload links to ZIP archives for everybody's convenience. Enjoy!
Brian Andrew Marek - A Lion in the Sun (2005) (FLAC's)
Brian Andrew Marek - A Lion in the Sun (2005) (single MP3 + cue sheet)
Brian Andrew Marek - A Lion in the Sun (2005) (MP3's)
I ended up here googling Ceoltóirí Chualann, and started reading your article. i'm downloading your songs right now, it made me curious :)
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