A Demonstration of Songs of the Sun

John — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 05:00:49 +0000

For the 2009 RPM Challenge, an annual challenge (no, not a contest) to write and record a whole album within the month of February, I put out this open call to a bunch of previous VUArtists and other people taking on the Challenge to send me some original music that could conceivably be turned into a song. I would then write and sing all the vocals and lyrics for each song and work the whole thing up into one big concept album, telling a story of some sort. Here’s how that turned out:

The response was superb, and I had some really marvellous music to work with. With a bit of collaboration with the album’s cover artist, Michael John Keegan, I worked up a fantastic story which is ultimately about a man on a quest for redemption. However, the scope of the project ballooned into something bigger than the month of February could contain, and so for RPM I produced a mere demo of the real thing, the incomplete and roughly mixed A Demonstration of Songs of the Sun.

A shot of the artwork by Michael John Keegan

If you’d like to see and hear where this album stood as of March 1^st, visit its temporary home, drop.io/songsofthesun. As this is a work in process, I am now working with the musicians involved (as well as some new ones!) to complete the album, adding new songs, tweaking some of the lyrics, and re-recording some of the vocals with other singers. Feedback of any sort, from anyone, particularly advice and other constructive critique, is most welcome!

Preview one of the tracks, wherein our hero finds resolve:

LaSalamander: Projectography » The RPM Challenge

A Demonstration of Songs of the Sun