blog
You probably know this painting:
It’s called “The Scream”, created in 1893 by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch and although another medium, it sums up what I felt when I wrote "Pray For Silence".
It was a situation when everything became too much: information, emotion, obligation- to name those featuring in the lyrics.
INFORMATION
abundant, horrifying, intrusive and sometimes I find myself asking: do I really want to know?
EMOTION
the new drug of an otherwise cold society?
Asking someone who lost a football game by 0:6 how he feels.
Asking a victim of a crime HOW scared he feels.
People seem so overfed, they just don't feel anything anymore.
OBLIGATION
we HAVE to. Work, function, fulfil expectations.
It’s getting more difficult each day to tell what’s true, honest, necessary.
And suddenly all you want is
SILENCE.
I tried to translate these feelings into music and I had a vision about the sound.
Dense, overwhelming but with the message coming across clearly.
My own attempts of mixing it failed miserably and when Roy and me met for the first
session I was sure we would rather sooner than later agree to throw the song in the bin.
But it turned out very differently.
Translating thoughts into music is one thing, difficult enough. Creating emotion through the sound is something that not only needs the vision but also the experience to choose the right tools.
Well, this poor little song wouldn’t have survived my actual plans of mixing the album myself.
It's most likely possible to find a mixing engineer who knows his stuff.
But working together with someone who, on top of that, is on the same wavelength, is an extraordinary experience.