A lot of crazy stuff has happened since I started work on TRANSMIGRATION. A worldwide pandemic, A city-wide Derecho (nasty unpredictable storm with winds of 120 MPH), the disintegration of our democracy due to the worst president we've ever had (hint: he wouldn't leave even when we impeached him), and the death of my father-in-law, one of the only people to always ask how my new music was coming along.
The first track on TRANSMIGRATION is entitled THESE GLEAMING SHORES. Below you'll find the lyrics. It is heavily inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's Dream Cycle stories. Now, I know most are familiar with his CTHULHU Mythos stories, but he spent an equal amount of time traversing the dream world in his stories and they opened my impressionable young mind many a time.Lovecraft often spoke about the dream world as a completely different reality and dimension. When you fall asleep, you are just awake in a different place and time, even as a different person.
I've always taken a lot of inspiration from my own dreamworld for my music and art. I can recall times in my life when my dreams became very powerful. I went through a period where I learned to fly in my dreams and in each subsequent dream I was able to improve the skill. Upon waking, I could describe the sensation perfectly but of course could not repeat it in real life, haha! It was less a feeling of weightlessness and flying as it was a force that I could project away from myself to attain flight and even hover and swoop about almost like a fish swims in the sea.
Anyway, this track has several vocal styles that I wanted to experiment with like the chants in the beginning that are inspired by ULVER's early works and the lead vocal which is sort of a distorted, harmonized, alien kind of sound achieved with several different vocal effects and the way it was mixed with the music. Sometimes it almost sounds like an old computer modem is transmitting the sound from a distant place. I also used some raw growls / black metal vocals on this track that I don't usually like to do because I feel that I have a decent singing voice and don't want to resort to growls. But, dammit, sometimes the song just gets in a nasty mood and the only thing that seems intense enough is a growl or scream. Usually I have my best bud Syntax A do these shrieks because he is so damn good at it, but the pandemic kept us apart.
These Gleaming Shores - By Lord Sardonyx of When Bitter Spring Sleeps
Once more I pass away
beyond this hollow world
Part skies that hold behind
the mystery of dream
Fine lyrical melodies
that conquer walls of time
aetherial entities vibrate
with souls alight
curtain drawn aside
see through veils of morning
darkened tides of longing
reveal these gleaming shores
dread portents
will fade away
sorcerous winds
erase my fears
rising high'r
between the stars
sailing moments
astral fires
nebulous
with sister suns
bleeding chaos
blissful light
seething heartbeats
without end
blazing memories
tides descend
each night I pass away into the world of dream
surreal dark fantasy that stillness brings to life
no wings of majesty need I to hover high
Mere will and sorcery unveils my hidden pow'rs
When Bitter Spring Sleeps "Transmigration" is available now at PaganFlames.com and Bandcamp.
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