It is my humble privilege to share the upcoming Tomb Raider Underworld Main Theme with you. The theme took almost a month to write, which I have never experienced before since I generally score most tracks in a day or two. The core intention was to utilize the old Tomb Raider theme in the beginning and end of the piece, but also introduce a bran new theme communicating the journey into the Underworld.
Hope you can enjoy it.
You can download by clicking here:
It is pretty hard to do great and original remixes, but it happens sometimes… like Funkstars Deluxe remix of Bob Marley or JXLs remix of Elvis or Mint Royales remix of Gene Kelly. However its even more awesome when it involves motion captured garbage robots…
So I have heard this song (see video below) multiple times on the radio and its really one of my all time smooth jazz favorites. The song: “What You Won’t Do For Love” was written back in 1978 and its still - hands down - one of the most groovy pieces of music I have ever heard and for the following reasons:
1. The song fits the singer. Its obviously his song and so many beautiful subtle nuances in his performance (despite pseudo mullet, bad dress code and doubtful dance moves). Lyrics are basic, but really encapsulate the essence.
2. The baseline groove with drums/perc, rhodes, guitar and bass is extremely tempered, yet alive and sophisticated in detail. Its wonderful to see a backing group allowing space for everybody to burn through in a subtle powerful way. A very hard thing to do and something that takes years of practice and musical humbleness.
3. The underlying supporting strings generates a nice slight, soft, sadness to the piece (more audible in original piece).
4. The trumpet riff is gorgeous, soft, sexy and instantly catchy.
Feel free to listen to one of my latest personal inventions. Essentially an experiment which is a mixture of Wagner and Grieg inspired pieces. The music is divided into two main sections. The first part is a soft, swelling type of epic intro using staccato for strings and woodwinds, while also having layers sustained swells for strings and brass. The second part is a harder, syncopated type of orchestration, which combines several layers and counterpoints using staccato for strings, brass and woodwinds.
The music was composed with an upcoming sample library from ProjectSam, which is one of my favourite developers of orchestral samples.
Human Beat Box is one those things that keeps on getting back in the spotlight. It started in early 80s and kinda went underground in the 90s - yet to embraced again in the new century or so (I am sure some Beat Box fanatics will bash me for this assumption). But it is truly amazing to see what the new generation of beat boxers are capable of and I certainly see a great talent for voice actors amongst these crowds. Here is a random example from recent German Championships in Beat Boxing (these guys didn’t win btw):
I have always had a severe weakness for funk, which I guess was the largest part of my musical upbringing. The great think about funk is its focus on groove, breaks and detail. This video is a good example, since it takes the old boys a little time to find the groove, but it really shines when they do. The bass player and drummer are excellent and really lay down a great back track for Larry Carlton and Robben Ford to improvise on. See if you like it too…
So many talented musicians and composers out there. It sometimes makes me wonder whether I am doing the right thing at all. The internet has brought an explosion of new music to the world and I keep on being amazed and humbled by the depth the talents in the world. I have always been a great fan of guitar players such as Pat Metheny, John Scofield, Lee Ritenour, Larry Carlton and many others. However they can sometimes become so sophisticated they loose authenticity, however I recently found an amazing player, Andt Mckee, which got a very beautiful, lyrical, folk like type of expression to his compositions and playing style. Hope you will appreciate it too.
It seems like Youtube is blessing me with amazing music materials. I just came across this mind-blowingly beautiful 10 minute solo by Victor Wooten, which is one of my favorite bassists. Its not because he can play insanely fast, but its the fact he makes sense to most notes and has an extremely versatile arsenal of expressions on the bass. I cannot recall I have ever seen anything like this (no pun intended, Jaco). It is also refreshing to see an artist dare to express his subtle frustration, since he is obviously pushing himself into the realm of what is humanly possible at this point.
I remember watching the Edinburgh Tattoo as a child and always felt it was kinda olskool. However it seems that it is was my perception that needed an update. Check out this video of a Swiss drum ensemble showing off ultra-precision and some pretty funky grooves using tuned bass drums, snares and a few other things.