LOST IN THE DARK

I feel like I’m trapped in between two worlds, the world we all know and conceive as the real one and a whole different dimension that remains unknown to our senses but yet we all perceive. I don’t know what exactly led me to walk this uncertain path but I do know how I got here… and it was all in me, ever since the beginning I felt something different about reality as if something was off and I couldn’t do anything but to wait and be taken wherever this so-called perception would want to. 

But even without knowing anything about what following this path would mean, I chose to stay in it for a simple reason: I loathed reality and, especially, the people in it. And this hasn’t changed for a single day of my life. It’s not that I want everything to be perfect in some unrealistic way but still can’t help feeling threatened by this lack of empathy we’ve been experiencing until today as a human race. Too much violence and obliviousness about it. I feel as though we had failed. I’d like to believe that something can be done about it or that, maybe, this is part of the evolution process.

Maybe we need to learn to dance in the dark, maybe we need to get lost in order to be found. It’s hard to tell feeling this numbness and pain in my heart. Yet I refuse to keep on blaming myself for other people’s behavior cause no one’s capable of carrying the weight of the whole world on their shoulders. If we all have the power of choice and we all can make the same mistakes, then maybe I should give myself a break from not being perfect. If I’ve been trapped in between two worlds for too long and it’s only up to me to differentiate one world from another I choose to do it. If I once was brave enough to choose to get lost in the dark I can be brave enough now to get out of it. 

THIS IS NOT THE END

This is not the end of me, not the end of who I am, of who I choose to be. This is not the end because I now know I can choose to be myself, cause I don’t need to be like you, or like them, I just wanna be me, the one who’s never given up though having been and walked through the worst of hells. 

The one who’s never hurt a soul on purpose and if has accidentally, is repented. The one who refuses any type of violence, whether it is the obvious one or the unnoticed. The one who knows that something is wrong with people who simply accept that nothing can be done about it. The one who actually believes that we have the power of changing the world with only the little details.

If my only crime has been caring about other people's emotions, I can live with that. If my biggest mistake is believing that everything is possible, you can call me crazy. If being myself is what I do wrong, then I would rather not be right. 

They say fear is the opposite of love. They say craziness is the fear of ourselves. They say we are all different and equal at the same time.

This is not the end of me, this is the beginning. 

The best is yet to come.

I believe in myself.

ALBUM RECOMMENDATION (Garbage - Strange Little Birds)

If The Cranberries were my teenage years, I’d say that the band that is currently taking most of my listening to music time is Garbage. I was already a big fan before but it’s now that I am becoming more selective that I can really appreciate their music better. I love their electronic sound and I think that Shirley’s voice is proof that there’s no need to possess a big vocal range or an extremely powerful voice to make it sound beautiful and full of emotion at the same time. I love how her voice sounds when it’s whispered, she’s great at doing that! I also love the spirit of their songwriting, a little pessimistic and generally dark but it is understood that it has to be this way in order to prove that, as they say, it’s always darkest right before the down, and this is what makes it so realistic and full of truth indeed or, at least, It feels much more coherent to me this way. I think that the song Even Though Our Love Is Doomed describes pretty good this thing I’m trying to explain in their philosophy. Their last album, Strange Little Birds, is amazing and one of their best albums and contains some of my favorite songs of their entire career, such as Sometimes, Blackout, or Night Drive Loneliness, to name just a few. I would also like to recommend the song No Horses, which was individually released a year later than this album came out and which I have used to make one of my tribute videos, in this case for The Handmaid’s Tale, a tv show that has completely captivated me for its amazing cinematography and script.

Favorite songs: Sometimes, Blackout, Night Drive Loneliness, Even Though Our Love Is Doomed, So We Can Stay Alive, and Amends.

RUNAWAY FROM THE MASK

If you could look deep inside my eyes you’d see a tear that doesn’t wanna hide

SONGWRITING

I wrote this song when I was 14 years old, back in my high school days. I remember vividly a black folder that I would carry around in my rucksack and in which I usually kept diverse artistic paintings, lyrics, and such. Some of those lyrics were part of songs written by myself and one of them was this Runaway From The Mask, which was originally abbreviated in the title as The Mask. As can be expected, I wasn’t very fluent in English back then, but I already liked to write songs in English, inspired by my favorite artists and, for this particular song, I remember being highly inspired by the band Evanescence and one of their songs, Everybody’s Fool, from their debut album, Fallen, in which a reference to a mask is made.

Extraordinary experiences were not necessary to let the imagination go, a single word could effortlessly serve as a fountain of inspiration to get into a whole new dimension, and that mask was somehow a clear metaphor for the situation I was living in high school and how impotent it was having to hide my real sexuality in order to survive all the bullying situation. But, although that mask symbolized a concrete struggle during a particular time in my life, I realized later that this metaphor could be applied to any other aspects of our relationships with other people as a society or even to our relationships with the outside and the universe as individuals, and that’s something I had very present when rewriting the song for the production of the album so that the message would be more universal.

But what the song really expresses is how difficult being highly sensitive can be and how it can become difficult sometimes when facing the violence that rules the world nowadays still. People tend to associate being sensitive with being weak but I think it’s the opposite thing actually. Being sensitive means being alive, it’s about feelings and feelings are, despite what many may believe, what moves the world, so I feel proud to say that the message of this song strongly represents the way I am. 

PRODUCTION

The demo was pretty different in the beginning. There was a piano arpeggio that sounded like a lullaby and a rocker electric guitar arpeggio in the choruses that ended out for the final production. The instrumental in the verses was basically formed by a pad reproducing the corresponding chords, so the producer has made a great work for those parts, creating beautiful and more complex guitar arpeggios. I personally like the “weird sounds” in some parts, it gives the song a certain mysterious aura that is clearly required for this type of lyrics and melody. I may not like the electric guitars being so present in some parts of the song but I’m generally happy with the final result of the production.

I have to say that, except for two particular moments, I am also pretty content with the result of the vocals in this song. I really feel that I am improving in this terrain. Besides, I’ve quit smoking for 3 months now already and I feel much better and really notice a change when singing thanks to that fact. 

THE MATRIX Tribute

Two nights ago, it randomly occurred to me that Straight In Circles Upside Down, one of the songs from the other album, Faith In Chaos, would perfectly match the main concept of the movie The Matrix and I thought that it would be really cool to do another tribute video, so I decided to watch the movie carefully again so that I could do a better job having all the images fresh in my mind for the editing, and I realized that I had never paid enough attention to how great the movie was actually. I had seen it before but I think that now I’ve officially become a fan. I was aware of how amazing and clever the idea behind the script was, but I didn’t remember how creative technically was. The visual language, with all the transitions and visual effects, is very original, I really love it, and it has that science fiction nineties movie vibe that makes me nostalgic, from when visual effects were rather artisan instead of digital. I can see now why this movie was so pioneer and innovative back then, both script and direction are brilliant. I’m really glad to have rediscovered this piece of cult!

It’s been very easy to make the tribute video this time. Usually, when making a tribute video, I follow the frames of the movie chronologically and try to make them fit in with the song, and sometimes it feels as if maybe it’d be better to select the images randomly, but this time they have perfectly matched the structure of the lyrics of the song with the chronological system. I really love the final result and I feel as if the song, which is one of my favorites from the Faith In Chaos album,  would have been specifically written for the movie. Phrases like Disconnect your perception or Bit by bit you’ll find a way to start over new are clear proof of this.

THESIS

I think it’s hard to determine the thesis for this movie. I guess I should watch the sequels to adequately figure out what the main message is. There’s no doubt about the philosophical background of the idea and the concept of perception plays here a very important role. I think the movie wants to tell us about how unknown our brain remains today still and how mysterious its connections can be, so there’s a long way to go ahead and we gotta keep on advancing so that we get to figure out what this is all about.

It is more that remains unknown than what we have already acknowledged.

I DON'T REALLY WANNA KNOW

I don’t really wanna know about the real nature of the world

SONGWRITING

I’ve always been a curious person. Maybe too curious, I’d say. This can be good when not taken too seriously but it can completely turn out to be the opposite thing. For someone like me, who’s been through a psychotic break, with lots of paranoia and strange ideas running through the mind, it ends up being really harmful and self-destructive to try to understand all of those things. Obsessively wanting to get to know the truth has clearly slowed my recovering down sometimes, so that’s why I wrote this song, as a reminder of not taking it too hard on myself when things are not supposedly going the way I’d wish they went or when the answers are not the ones I was expecting. 

I consider this song some kind of continuation of The Question, because they both are thematically similar, although this one is clearly told from a rather optimistic point of view and it’s happier than The Question musically speaking. I like the fact that the song has this ironic double-meaning in the title and the lyrics of the verses but, as I was saying, the main message is about not overanalyzing life and always choosing love first, following the idea about love that I tried to imprint on the other album: love may not be the only important thing in life, but it’s utterly necessary nowadays. Real love can save us and set us free.

The songwriting method used for this song was different than the one for Here And Now, which happened very spontaneously and fast. In this case and as for many of my other songs, the process was like doing a jigsaw puzzle, in which each one of the three main parts of the structure (verse, bridge, and chorus) came from isolated and unfinished parts of other songs I had written before. Putting them in order was easy and, although I wasn’t very sure of the chorus choice at first, the only part that was specifically written for the song is the ending, that line repeated over and over as a reminder of not being obsessed with knowing the truth and which sounds almost like a celebration of it all.

PRODUCTION

I really like the final result of the song, mainly because of the secondary vocals we have recorded for this one. I usually travel to Barcelona once a month for each recording session but this time I did it twice in order to record those vocals, and it’s been a great idea because it’s honestly one of my favorite songs vocally speaking. The instrumental and other great arrangements that the producer has made for the song are beautiful as well but, speaking for myself, I’m pretty satisfied with my corresponding work this time. Another important factor is that I have been able to actively participate in the choice of the vocals from the diverse takes that were recorded, so that the final chosen voice would be more accurate, according to my personal taste. In the end and with all the experimentation, I’m little by little learning to improve the current methods so that the final result gets better each time.

ALBUM RECOMMENDATION (Jason Mraz - Waiting For My Rocket To Come)

I have to admit that Jason Mraz’s music didn’t cause me a great impression in the beginning. I guess that this was due to the fact that the type of music that he does is not what I would usually listen to if I had the choice, because it’s the kind of happy naïve style I dislike sometimes, in contrast to the sad melancholic or angry type I’m rather used to listen to. However, after listening to one of his most popular songs, I Won’t Give Up, I decided to give him a chance and pay more attention to his works, since I found this song a clear example of what good songwriting is. Ever since the first listen, I loved that song and the beautiful and honest message of the lyrics. So thanks to that wonderful song, I decided to buy some of his albums and one of them is this Waiting For My Rocket To Come which I’m going to write about and which I consider my favorite. This album was the first that the singer released and, unlike the following ones that were to come, which were rather folk and relaxing musically, it has a little 90’s pop vibe that I really love, although it was released in 2002. Still, the 90’s vibe is there. I guess that’s why I like it so much. I think that most of the lyrics are good but what I find most enjoyable about the album is the melodies, which are very catchy and happy. Besides, Jason Mraz’s voice sounds great in all of the songs, proving that he is very talented doing his music style. This is, with no doubt, the kind of album you would listen to over and over on a sunny day in the countryside.

Favorite songs: You And I Both, Sleep All Day, Who Needs Shelter, The boy’s gone, The Remedy, and Curbside Prophet.

THE MAN FROM EARTH Tribute

While most of the movies I’ve written about on this blog had already been on my reference list of cult movies for a long time now, this one was a relatively recent discovery and, although I feel that I still have to watch it more times so that I can get deeper into its universe and messages, I’d say that The Man From Earth has already become one of my top fetish movies in that list. This is due to diverse factors, but the main one is probably the fact that, just like the movie Cube, it is a low-cost movie basically sustained on an excellent script, and when a script is good enough to supply most of the shortages of the rest of departments, this really deserves to be mentioned and taken into consideration. Cinematography, performances, edition, and direction are ok but, as I’ve just said, the script is so interesting that you finally get to forget about those other aspects that are not so bright. All of the strengths in the script are sustained by the characters and the way in which they interact between them. No great occurrences take place in the story, it’s all about the dialogues and how the power of words can change our minds and our perception. There’s also plenty of room for existential and philosophical messages, which, in this case, are literally expressed by the characters. So, if you like movies with a good idea as the principal root without needing different scenarios or catalyst actions, you’re gonna be capable of appreciating how interesting and original this movie is.

I wasn’t completely sure about using the frames of this movie for the song Here And Now because, just like I explained before, the enchantment of the movie resides in the script rather than the images, so I thought that maybe the final result would not cause such great impact as other tribute videos I’ve made, which looked already good without needing the people to watch the movie first to understand the point of it all. However, I think that the lyrics and messages of the song are directly related to the thesis of the movie and there’s even a reference to Jesus Christ that perfectly matches the movie so, in the end, I decided that there was no other better one to use for the Here And Now video tribute.

THESIS

This movie is definitely about the Carpe Diem concept and breaking the laws of time. The plot in itself, including a man who never dies, is self-evident proof of that. The movie also expresses this idea of how religions and the concept of God have been continuously misunderstood by humanity, leading us to prejudgements. In both cases, perception plays a primal role in how we decode what we have in front of our eyes and how we decide to interpret it later.

Thesis: Here and now is the only thing that exists. The rest is just an illusion.

ALBUM RECOMMENDATION (The Cranberries - Bury The Hatchet)

The Cranberries were my teenage years! If there’s a band that reminiscences that moment of my life, it’s clearly them. They were a perfect combination of alternative rock and catchy pop melodies, proving that being musically alternative does not necessarily mean making a weird sound or being difficult to swallow from the first listen. It’s hard to choose just one album of them because I equally love most of the songs that they have released as well as each of the albums in which those are included, but, in my opinion, Bury The Hatchet is their best. I know that most people prefer their two first albums but I think that, as a band, they acquired their best sound with this one. Dolores O’Riordan’s voice sounds great as always and all of the songs are very well composed and produced. Besides, there’s a concrete song on this album that gets me the shivers every time I listen to it. This song is Shattered, which has ended up being one of the most important songs in the personal soundtrack of my life, just like a cult phenomenon beyond fiction. This song is extremely sad and melancholic, but there’s room for diverse tempos and styles in the rest of the songs, which is also something that I really like about this album, that is pretty versatile but at the same time maintains the essence of the band’s sound. To summarize, an essential album for any rocker lover and one of the most iconic and notorious works of the nineties.

Favorite songs: Animal Instinct, Promises, Shattered, Desperate Andy, Copycat, Delilah, and Fee Fi Fo.

HERE AND NOW

Songwriting

I wrote this song in September of 2013 as an exercise that my producer told me to do. We had just met for a short time until then, but he had already noticed that my songwriting methods were particularly unusual since I would start writing the lyrics first and add the chords later, so he proposed to try it the other way around, that is to say, starting to play the guitar chords and adding the lyrics later or simultaneously. 

Invaded by that enthusiastic spirit that I was feeling back at that time, thanks to the idea that making music for real was becoming true, I did what he told me to, and Here and Now was created in less than an hour, melody and lyrics as well. I remember that the first stimulation to start writing the song was a purple sky I could see from the window of the flat I was living in back then… so placing an E minor chord with my fingers on the guitar strings, I started to sing: “Purple lights in the sky, butterflies in disguise…”  and developed the rest of the song very rapidly. 

Developing this song was quite easy because it is structurally and melodically simple; actually, it is a very simple song in general terms of songwriting, although this does not necessarily mean that it is a superficial song. In fact, I would say that, despite the simplicity of the structure, the song is very effective the way it is and it feels to me as if the final result could not have been any other way. You may like it or hate it, but this song was born to be this only way. I personally like the lyrics very much, with all the abstraction and mystical concepts, I think it is still easy for anyone to understand the message. A clear example of how applying the “less is more” rule can sometimes improve a song rather than spending hours searching for complicated melodies or lyrics.

By the way, I would like to mention that the final rap of the song was an idea of the producer. I wasn’t very sure in the beginning but I really like it now. The time is now to make this kind of experimentation, after all.

Production

The demo of the song was always pretty clear. Still, I wanted the song to have a distinguishable touch and that’s how the idea of the pizzicatos came to me. The producer did a great job creating the intro and the guitars, although I didn’t want the song to be so rocker at first. But in the end, the guitars were essential to turn the song into a more powerful one. Vocally, it is one of the best songs that I have ever recorded, in my opinion. I’m starting to like the tone of my voice a little more as time goes by, so I guess that this has to be noticed when I’m singing, that I do it more fluently, or, at least, that’s what I’d like to believe.

THE ASCENDING

In view of the non-existent repercussion that the Faith In Chaos project has achieved, I have decided to do things differently with this second project. Instead of waiting for all of the songs to be finished, and having unrealistic expectations about them, I am going to publish each song of the new album on youtube as I go recording them. Let’s see what happens next. The system of the blog will remain the same: I will write about the songwriting process and the production of each song, which will come accompanied by a lyric video and a movie tribute video that has something to do with the message of the corresponding song.

What can I say about this new album? Well, I’ve already written all of the songs, a total number of ten, and the production of these is gonna be more conceptual. The idea behind the title comes precisely from wanting the whole album to be a concept. The Ascending is like a climb but in a spiritual way. It’s a desire of going from uncertainty to a better place. We could call it a transition. That’s why the main idea is that the songs go from dark and sad to brighter and happier as they advance along with the tracklist. Lyrically it’s gonna be more poetic and less visceral and, once again, the messages will be focused on the universe and the mystery of life rather than love or relationships. Musically, it will be less rocker and more melodic, although there’s still gonna be room for electric guitars. With this album, I want to describe a concrete moment of my life: my teenage years when I was addicted to smoking weed. In fact, some of the songs or concepts come from that era of my life, when I was 15 or 16 years old more or less. Part of me became very mystical because of that and, although it all led to a psychotic break that turned the whole thing into a descent, straight to the hell in itself, the idea is to invert the concept and turn the tables around, showing all the learning and turning the pain into something beautiful.

Here’s the tracklist for The Ascending:

1- Into The Unknown

2- Better Tomorrow

3- Nothing Pure In Me

4- The Rose Fairy Tale

5- Runaway From The Mask

6- Here And Now

7- I Don’t Really Wanna Know

8- A Movie Called Life

9- 15 Years In The Dark

10 - The Ascending