News from Kuutana
On Learning to Fly
Available now on Bandcamp
(Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music , YouTube (non-subscriber) and other major outlets world-wide end November)
Learning to Fly
An introduction by composer and songwriter, Ron Charron, a.k.a. Kuutana
Six years ago, Borders Edge music released a Pink Floyd inspired album under the project named Midnight Airship. The album was named A River Once Flowed Here. It was an all instrumental album, with tracks included in a number of Borders Edge Compilations.
Today, I am pleased to introduce Midnight Airship’s second album, titled: “Learning to Fly”. Four years in in the making, and unlike Midnight Airship’s first album, a few tracks include lyrics inspired by some of more emotion inducing moments of recent history.
Just as with the first album, Learning to Fly is also heavily influenced by the Pink Floyd sound. It is also influenced by some of woven social commentary, introduced by the Floyd in its middle to late years. As the world goes through hardships and heartbreak thrown upon it by the global pandemic and political unrest, there is a growing yearning for hope. Hope that this is just a passing phase (as Roger Waters put it). However, it’s through collective thinking, and willing for peace and hope that it is given a chance to emerge from the darkness and reveal itself into the light.
An interesting aspect of '70s music was how song lyrics embraced poetry. Descriptions of kaleidoscopic visions of colours, senses, and experiences. Purple Twilight lyrics give a nod to the psychedelic era, where care for worldly concerns occasionally gave way to poetic expression of experiences felt and breathing in the present moment.
Taking a hard turn into more recent events, the second track, called Crazy Days, weaves words which present some of the harsher realities of present times. You’ll notice a few sound bytes from influential speakers punctuate the pulsating sequences of guitar and bass patterns. You may also notice some familiar guitar and synthesizer sounds, also borrowed from memories of countless years of listening to albums the like of Wish you were here, Animals, and The Wall.
The third track, For Whom the Bell Tolls, sings in an instrumental voice only, the complaints of the heart and soul, as the human condition faces the hardships of its own mortality.
In track 4, Dark Star Rising, a certain political persona was in mind, though to be fair, it’s like darkness and a bit of madness took hold of the world these last few years, not wanting to let go. The darkness and insanity but also cries for it to stop, and for the better angel part intrinsic to everyone’s soul. So many cries to stop the madness and to live and let live.
After the rather dark passages of Dark Star Rising, the fifth track called “From Black to Blue” celebrates our home planet Earth. Despite what gray clouds we can create for ourselves, stopping the clock to just appreciate the beauty of our home world and nature can be the best possible medicine for the soul.
About the Album Cover
I had the pleasure of having German artist Greta Heron let me use some of her lovely artwork on the Minerva album. For Learning to Fly, I was pleased when she accepted my request to shape an image I had envisioned. She did a great job of turning it into the album cover used for the final release of the album. It's awesome how imagination can shape art, and Greta keeps imagining and drawing personae and landscapes which help nourish the imagination.
Ending Words
I hope you will enjoy the Learning to Fly album. It took four years to develop, mix and master into the album we'd love for you to listen and enjoy!
You can listen and download here on our Bandcamp page. The album will also find its way on most streaming and downloading outlets worldwide.
Ron Charron, a.k.a. Kuutana
Somewhere in Canada's National Capital Area, November 11, 2020.
CC BY-NC:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sunset_may_2006_panorama.jpg
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Partial-Solar-eclipse.jpg
Crazy Days Photo: Sigi We, with permission.
Kuutana Interview - Sequential Dreams Legends Album
"I was very much amazed by the dedication to producing the highest possible quality sound for the album"
Kuutana Interview (by Wolf Red) - May 2016
Editor's Note: Kuutana was the lead producer for Sequential Dreams "Legends" Album.
Interview by Wolf Red , radio programmer at Modul303.com - Listen to Modul303.com for the best in electronic music!
Check the end of this article for some credits information.
Wolf Red: This is your seventh Sequential Dreams production, why the “Legends” theme? Anything to do with Tangerine Dream’s “Legend” movie soundtrack?
Kuutana: Well, I had already come to a point in the production of the album where it really could have just been delivered as-is. All tracks were complete, and pretty groomed - ready for the stores! But as I always do, I was spending marathon hours listening to the album over a period of a few weeks so to get a sense of how I would feel about the album in the long term (I like to think that I’d produce an album that you’d like to come back to and listen more than once!). I felt that something was missing. Then, as I often do!, I was watching my Tangerine Dream concert DVDs, and it struck me how Berni’s guitar helped TD’s sound break out of the “déjà-vu” feeling you get after listening to the same tracks over and over again. If you look at TD concert footage where Berni “breaks loose” and does some of his amazing guitar solos, you know what I mean. I told myself, I have nothing to lose by inviting him to lay down some guitar work on the album. So I got in touch with him to make the proposition. After he heard a few of my demo tracks, I was very pleasantly surprised by a very positive response to my offer! I was quite delighted that he would agree to work on the project! Of course, we have long distances that separate us. He’s based in Austria, whereas I’m based in Canada. However, Berni is also very technically adept and with the help of modern technology (digital audio workstations and the internet) we had no problems spending countless hours building up amazingly new reformulations of several tracks on the album! I was very much amazed by the dedication to producing the highest possible quality sound for the album.
Berni has a razor sharp ear for timing. I was very much impressed. Also, his guitar technique is outstanding. If you listen to his passages on the Legends album, you’ll hear everything from very folksy acoustic, through “Gilmour-ish” slides, tap-on arpeggiations that will have you wondering if you’re listening to a synth instead of a guitar and even more so, the way out of this world special fx sounding guitars of the “Event Horizon” track that for me, brought me right back to that feeling I got when listening to Pink Floyd’s time filming at the Pompeii coliseum during the peak of the psychedelic days. To top it off, I was treated to some wonderfully rich violin playing which totally changed the sound of “Mission to Shangri-La” (which, btw, was originally titled “Tangerine Tree”) but Berni advised me to avoid irritating someone who might not take too kindly to my using “Tangerine” in any of my titles ;)
For me, working with Berni was an amazing experience.
Wolf Red: You are also credited with having composed and performed guitars for several of your tracks. How did you divide up the guitar work between Berni and yourself?
Kuutana:Well, as I said, the album was already considered nearly complete by the time Berni joined the project. Of course, the sound of it changed in a massive way after we reworked it to bring it to a whole different level together. However, I already had laid down guitar tracks on several tracks. After analysing the material, we came to a consensus on which of my guitar contributions should be kept and which sections which would be best served by Berni’s outstanding guitar skills. Whereas I tend to have a much more synthesized guitar sound (which Berni mentioned reminding him much of Edgar’s tendency to drown guitars in FX), Berni really prefers limiting FX to very distinctive delay FX and specific reverb settings. I much appreciated my conversations with him which led to my developing these FX settings in my rig, which I could then apply to the dry-recorded guitar tracks I received from him. I got to appreciate what made up “Berni’s sound” and felt rather privileged that he would share his “magic ingredients” for FX the way he did. As the touring season was heating up, towards the end of the album production cycle, Berni had to spend much more time on the road. We spent many many weeks refining single tracks and got nearly 40 minutes work of tracks with Berni’s contributions recorded, but as I wanted to make this a long album (76 minutes) there were still a few tracks where I wanted more “Berni sounding” guitars. So, I re-recorded a few tracks like “The Big Apple” and “One Giant Leap” to also include more guitars, which I performed, sometimes using some elements of Berni’s FX configuration to try to bring in some consistence. Of course my sound is much more “drowned in FX” haha, as Berni would say ;)
Wolf Red: You also have Japanese composer and producer Ryo Utasato revisiting the Sequential Dreams line-up. Can you say a few words on that?
Kuutana:Well, I’ve always been very respectful of Ryo’s work. Her special blend of traditional music inspired sound but rendered with a very avant-garde, cinematic, electronic music just stood well out from the masses of EM being produced out there. This is what had attracted me to do the “Liquid Fire” track with her during the “Cosmic Touch” Sequential Dreams album. When I heard her “Kurenai” demo track, which not only had those stylistic elements, but also introduced some sequenced synthesizers and haunting traditional Japanese “Matsuri chanting” - I couldn’t resist, and got in touch with her about writing up an extended version of her piece (Editor’s note: The Sequential Dreams version is twice the length of the original demo). From the moment I sat down to work on Kurenai, I was amazed by the extent of the inspirational flow that entranced me into composing many additional sections which were then merged into the original idea. Though the work was detailed and very involved, there was no sense of effort whatsoever. The flow was so good that it was just like riding a wave and the creative process took over. I am very happy with the resulting sound and often quite enchanted by how things came together is such a lovely fashion, as I listen to this piece over and over and I continue to enjoy the sound from day to day and week to week. Just as was the case with Kori, and Berni, I am very grateful to have had an opportunity to join the underlying flow of creativity set by Ryo’s creative energy.
Wolf Red: After listening to the “Legends” Album, one can sense that there are possibly a few different markets for this music, with some being almost New Age (Kori’s piano pieces) others closer to the TD sound, and then at some point we’re into electronic rock. Are you worried you might confuse your audience?
Kuutana: People who have following my work closely know that I produce across different genres. I honor whatever inspiration the Universe will send my way. But that said, the Sequential Dreams series of projects were originally aimed towards honoring the inspiration that came from TD’s music. There is certainly a segment of the TD listener market that describe themselves as “purists” with a definition of what is “real TD music” limited mostly to the first few albums coming primarily out of the seventies. While I respect their opinion, and also love the music produced during that time, I have come to respect the very wide-range of sound produced by TD across the decades. Of course I don’t love everything they have produced. But I feel there are some real gems that came out of each era. From the early modulars, to the periods that they started discovering digital synths, though Jerome Froese’s energetic introduction of a more rock orientation, up to the period where Linda Spa, Iris Camaa, and of course, Bernhard Beibl were the line-up in the last period before Edgar Froese’s passing. I think there is some really good music in all of those periods and that is what I keep to heart. So, if you consider the vast range of sound produced throughout those many decades, you’ll see that my own range in music styles, as you will find them in the Legends album, is not so very dissimilar in its inclusion of these various genres. Of course, there is always a copious bed of synthesizers, sequences, and guitars. I hope that the album can attract not only other TD music listeners with a similar opinion, but also listeners whose tastes are sufficiently eclectic as to embrace the rich variety of moods.
Kuutana: Yes, a lot of my listeners are big synthesizer enthusiasts and this question comes up a lot! I’d say that my selection of synths mirror the discussion in your previous question. As I said, TD’s music being so enduring across the decades, the use of “synthesis devices” ranged from “phased distorted organs run through echo machines” (I got a good laugh from Berni on that one!) through the modular era, then digital synths, virtual analogs, wave tables, and eventually computer-based software synths. I have to say this pretty much describes the range of what you will hear at different moments when you listen to the Legends album!!
Wolf Red: Where to from here? The last Sequential Dreams album, “Lost Dimensions” was released only 6 months prior to releasing “Legends”. Do you expect to take a rest now? (laugh)
Kuutana: I hope that listeners will enjoy this album. A lot of energy and attention has gone into producing it, and from talking with each of the artists involved in this album, I think we all feel that we’ve produced a good one for you to enjoy!
Thank you for your interview, I enjoyed the time spent discussing this!
Credits:
Tangerine Dream photograph (c) Wolf Red
Sequential Dreams "Legends" Album artwork by Andreas Schwietzke
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