The Chaos Tree - Is dead, long live Rollasoc.

I was going to delete the original Rollasoc blog and start a new one for the "solo" project, but I didn't want to lose posts, like my musical journey ones, or the fact that four years later, I still haven't released "A Winter's Memory", (even though it is mixed and mastered), nor "Persephone", (though that isn't far from completion). 

But sometimes, you have to keep the embarressing history of a lack of progress.  

So why the delay?

Time and procrastination would be the honest answers. 

Working on two (well three, but one is a secret),  other musical projects, which have been releasing an EP or two each for the last four years, family expansion, (which is pure fun) and a major illness, has slowed me down and possibly a lack of direction. 

Since this is a vanity project for me, not allowing myself to work on it, until I completed tasks for other musical projects meant this set of songs has been a frustrating niggle at the back of my mind for a very long time now.

A couple of years ago, I decided to speed this thing up, it might be nice to collaborate with some people, so I changed the project name to The Chaos Tree, but I never got around to asking anyone, so I'm changing it back to Rollasoc.

 I already have the social media names for Rollasoc and although there is no other bands called The Chaos Tree, someone is using that name on Instagram and Youtube, so it kind of tarnished the name for me.

"A Winter's Memory" had occasionally, been remixed or re-mastered over the last four years.   It is currently sitting there waiting to go.   But I've had in my head an idea for a music video for it, but haven't had time to start it.  So it has been delayed.

I have started designing the characters for it.

So this is the first character, Marnie.

The above will be the cover for the single. 

With The Hair Thieves, we used to use a manniquin as a cover, then moved onto smoke art.

With Sineglider, the covers are now all fractal images.

So going forward, each Rollasoc cover will be computer generated person / scene.

I'm not sure if any others will have animated videos, I hope so.

I'm thinking of releasing A Winter's Tale in September 2020, video or not.   We shall see.

I will try and blog monthly from now on and make some musical progress.

FAWM 2016

It is that time of the year, when several thousand songwriters, attempt to write 14 songs in 28 (well 29 days this year) days.  It is time for FAWM. (February Album Writing Month)

I've done this challenge for the last three years, managing 3, 6 and 9 songs respectively.  So getting closer to completing the challenge with each passing year.

Last year, my 9 songs were split between this project (2 or 3 songs), the Hair Thieves (2 songs), which is my main musical project and my occasional instrumental Sineglider project (3 songs). The other songs were abandoned, since not deemed up to scratch.

As I write this, early, on day 7, I should have 3.5 songs written, if I am to achieve target.

So far, I have finished two demos  of instrumentals, (thus Sineglider tunes).     

The first is called Koleti

Named after a star system, I am currently in, in the game Elite Dangerous.

This is a free form (ie to no time signature), is totally improvised and was an experiment on creating something ambient, in an hour.  I also lmited myself to only using synths by Steinberg.





The second is called El Sol
This was a challenge on Fawm, which was to write a song based on the South American Loteria cards.  I was given El Sol (the sun).

Thinking of Holst's The Planets, I used this as an excuse to play with some orchestral instruments.  To learn more about programming them and use of articualtions.  

I think this is quite unfinished.  I will revisit it later in the year and flesh it out.  Maybe add some woodwinds and brass, to make it more orchestral rather than the current string sections and percussion.




I am also currently working on finishing two other songs.

The first is musically written, the challenge was to write a song with the title "Playing with fire" in an hour.  I managed the music, but not the lyrics.   I may stay with the title, I may not.

The second song, is untitled, but driven by me wanting to learn more about some synths I have.   In a mad two minutes, I ended up with a dance drum kit in 3/4 time.   So a kind of modern Waltz.
Hopefully, this will have lyrics, it is early days, so I will see how this pads out.

Regarding the current state of the solo album.

"A Winter's Memory" is finished and ready to be released once I have another track to go with it and finish the video.  It won't be this month, due to FAWM.

A couple other tunes are ongoing.

Two of the songs I have music for, which I really like, have both been given back to The Hair Thieves.   They started as Hair Thieves songs, got abandoned, I picked them up years later and worked on them some more and decided they should be Hair Thieves material, so have submitted them to E.

One will be on the next Hair Thieves EP.  The other probably the one after, depending on how other songs pan out over the next couple of months.

So the solo album is on going.  Hopefully, FAWM will give me a couple of new songs for it, or at least the b-side for "A Winter's Memory".

I'll post another FAWM update next week.