News: PeerGynt Lobogris planning a rock opera

PeerGynt Lobogris, a long-time contributor of free music to Jamendo.com, has just announced the upcoming release of a rock opera titled, "The Inmutant," sometime before the end of the year. The above "trailer" is more of a behind the scenes glimpse, but it certainly spikes my interest.

If you're unfamiliar with his work, check out Lobogris's work with Epic Soul Factory on the Night Hunter track from their Xpansion Edition album. Honestly, I think it's the best work he's ever done. He's partnered with BlondBlood (see his "White Flag" single on YouTube) and Jaime Heras (listen to his entire "Siderea"album on YouTube) to form "Singing Sands" for the musical effort and the vocals will be performed by what's looking like a full cast including Ricardo Texidó, Conde, Juanjo Meroño and Lara Castro along with some folks that have yet to be named.

It's hard to "review" a trailer, but a few things I'll point out: Lobogris's heavy guitar won't let you forget that this is a rock opera, but if you were expecting anything else, you probably hadn't heard his music before. BlondBlood strikes me as a multi-talented artist, but as the above linked video makes clear, he's learning quite a lot on his feet, right now. If he's composing the entire opera as well as doing art, arrangements and several instruments, I wonder if he won't be in over his head... perhaps only time will tell. I like his sense of mood and, coupled with Lobogris's emphatic, lush ambience I could see this project being quite interesting, musically.

Album / Artist: DUDELDRUM

DUDELDRUM
cover art

DUDELDRUM is both the name of a band and of their first free album. The band is Russian, but the sound is a mix of Celtic, rock and other influences. The band suggests that their sound is similar to Corvus Corax, whose instrument arrangement also includes extensive use of bagpipes, drums and electric guitar. While a bit less refined a sound than Corvus Corax, I very much appreciate the creativity of DUDELDRUM.

Cascade is a particular favorite of mine for managing to be somewhat trance-like with bagpipes. Not something I would have considered, previously...

Skaz is also a fun and frenetic piece that's worth listening to. I might consider adding it to my "stay awake while driving" mix.

The album certainly isn't for everyone, but I'd suggest giving it a try. At the very least, you will not come away from disappointed that it was just more of the same...

Val Davis raising funds for a new Album

Cover of Val Davis's first album

Val Davis, whose first album is a rock/country/folk hybrid called Immortal, is raising money for a second album. His first work was characterized by an acoustic sense of open spaces, wonder and humor, best summed up by the dreamy Texas Sky and the tongue-in-cheek Court of Greedy Kings. I suggest giving the album a try (the Jamendo download has some really annoying song naming problems with underscores all over the place (intentional?) but you can find it on Amazon's MP3 download service for just $9 if you want to save the time in correcting song names.

Anyway, if you like it, consider contributing to his next album. I'd love to see more patronized free music production, and to that end, I've already thrown a few dollars his way.

Botany Bay: Soulful free rock

Cover art for Broken

I hear the word "soulful" being thrown around quite a lot when it comes to pop, rock, country, R&B, alternative, and just about every other sub-genre of modern popular music, but what does it really mean? To me, the term has always meant the ability to communicate emotion in rich and complex ways. Anyone can sing a sad song or a love song, but the rare artist brings dimension to such emotional content and paints a canvas of emotion from a pallet that is as rich as our own experience.

Such an artist is the Creative Commons veteran band, Botany Bay.

To be perfectly frank, there's quite a lot of junk on Jamendo and other free music sites. It takes me a long time to wade through it and find the gems, but when I do, I'm rewarded for the effort many-fold. Botany Bay was formed in 1995 with a lead singer whose name has since been changed on the band's Web site to protect her after falling prey to Scientology. The core of the current lineup is writer/keyboardist Stephan Kleinert, vocalist Stephanie Mühr, guitarist Wolfgang Springob, and Felix Klöckner. As gems go, the band is as lustrous as I could hope for. Their 2007 album, Grounded, is a 19-track opus whose contents are as varied as any collection I've seen on Jamendo. Some tracks harken to indie folk while others are driven pop-rock pieces. The common theme is that ineffable quality: soulfulness.

LukHash (SH music): 8bit music for an analog world

I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, so when someone describes themselves as an 8bit rock band, my ears tend to perk up. Such is the case with LukHash (AKA SH music, and no I have no idea why they have two names, but both are used on their Web site). This project uses real 1980s era 8bit hardware such as Nintendo and Commodore64 to generate authentic 80s-era video game soundtrack-like tracks. Right now, PRELUDE, the first song on their May 2011 album, Digital Memories (also their first), is the #1 track on Jamendo.com, and after giving it a couple of listens, it has really begun to work its magic on me.

I'd also like to point out that the group appears to have made a subtle nod to ELO, one of my favorite bands. ELO's album, Time, began with the tracks Prologue and Twilight while Digital Memories begins with PRELUDE and TONIGHT. I don't know the that the coincidence was deliberate, but I'd like to think so.

I'm looking forward to good things from LukHash in the future. It will be interesting to see if 8bit rock is a sustainable subgenre past a first, high-concept album.