Colour of Love

The fifth track for the LoE project is entitled, Colour of Love. This song was inspired by the various aspects/illustrations of love in my life. Love exists in many forms, some more obvious than others. It could be as simple a mother's love for her child or as complex as the love for a country or ideal. The illustration of such love is very subjective to the person giving and/or receiving. Everyone expresses love in their own way and maintains their respective associations with it. For this reason, I can only give you my opinions towards the topic in the hopes that my communication is effective.

The sections of the song are designed to weave in and out of both the simplicity and complexity of love. The verses being the complexity and the choruses being the simplicity. The bridge is written to illustrate the dramatic and intense side of the aforementioned emotion yet eventually falls back into a simple yet elegant ending . . . beautiful, yet with a number of different twists and turns. The clean, rhythm guitar in the background was inspired by a progression/tonality that has been with me since childhood. I have always found it 'freeing' and and full of life. My mother could partially be responsible for this due to the playing of many Chip Davis records over the course of my life.

No Feeling Left

Happy Thanksgiving! Just finished my cooking and now I'm ready to give you guys the fourth installment!
This fourth track is entitled, No Feeling Left. The inspiration and title came from a conversation with someone close to me that was going through a rough patch. One of the statements this person made was that he didn't feel anything anymore. This struck me as very disheartening (as it would most anyone) and I wondered what 'having no feeling' would sound like. A melody started to come to mind and grew into the song that is 'No Feeling Left.' What is interesting here, is the tie to the LoE concept. In this regard, the lack of emotion and inability to feel anything is probably one of the more dangerous mindsets in which to end up. In this song, the dramatic soundscape behind the melody represents the crushing feeling of emptiness while the melody illustrates the cry from within to regain a sense of worth and emotion. This person explained to me that every time things started to go in a better direction, they always seemed to end up crashing down. The bridge (or B section) illustrates this concept yet ends up crashing again into that dark soundscape. Here is a video clip of the first verse into the chorus:

As a little bonus, I asked fellow Buddy Blaze artist, Joey Concepcion if he would lend a solo to this song to which he agreed so be sure to listen closely as he tears it up! For more info on Joey, visit his artist page at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Joey-Concepcion/339632932280

Until next time  . . . .

Throat Full of Nails

I'm really going to have to explain myself on this one, then again that's the idea. The song, Throat Full of Nails, was inspired by a disorder called allotriophagy. This disorder is defined as 'an unnatural desire to consume non-edible objects as food.' This disorder is incredibly compulsive and can be very detrimental (as I'm sure you can imagine) to one's health. Closely tied to this disorder, is the phenomenon of coughing up glass or nails which is centuries old and sits in a similar category as the stigmata. As one can imagine, were that to ever happen, the visual would probably be on par with something out of a Hellraiser movie and certainly excruciating for the victim of such a phenomenon. What is amusing about all of this (in a sick sort of way), is that we as humans have all had a sort of 'allotriophagy' disorder . . . maybe not with food (or lack thereof) but with other consumable things. We poison our thoughts by subjecting ourselves to immoralities and hate for others. We absorb all sorts of awful things without thinking twice about it, while we should be consuming positive, moral things. Agree or not, this is just another type of allotriophagy, more spiritual and figurative though.

On a technical note, a friend of mine, Darryl McEachin was kind enough to lend his organ chops to this song. The killin' B3 is all him!!!

. . . be careful what you consume.

Elysian Dream

I was feeling inspired (might be due to a glass of blended red wine) so I decided to post the next segment covering my thought process for Language of Emotion. The second track on the album is entitled, 'Elysian Dream.' I would like to start by first defining this term. Elysian (adj.) (or elysium n.) refers to the Greek concept of a heaven or afterlife. The Greeks believed that elysium was a post-mortum resting place reserved for those that were related to the so-called celestial beings/gods/heroes. So as one can imagine, elysium served as a very comforting thought to those near death. To get a visual, the best example of this is probably in the movie, Gladiator. To tie this concept to my little exploration into emotion, I wanted this track to reflect the feeling/emotion of being in a place where no harm can be done. It's that feeling during a first kiss, a baby's laugh, experiencing an incredible view, etc. All of these things can trigger that feeling, and make it seem as though you were in a dream.

Here are some of the technical aspects of the track. Originally, I wrote this track as part of an agreement with Ampkit by Agile Partners. Ampkit is a fully, functioning guitar amp/processor for the Apple iTouch. Here is a demo of Ampkit and my setup on the song:

Elysian Dream - Ampkit Demo

It is quite a fun little tool to use! Until next time . . .

Aaron Kusterer

Tongues of Angels . . . and some other little bits

Aloha! Thanks so much for taking time out of your day to read this! Here is the first blog entry for my upcoming album, Language of Emotion. The first track is entitled, Tongues of Angels. It's relatively short but sets the stage for the album concept. With that in mind, let me explain the initial idea behind Language of Emotion. Back in May, when I was starting to formulate the makeup of this album, I thought that it would be really interesting to do a concept album; essentially having some sort of continuity throughout. Over the past several years, I have become increasingly fascinated with human emotion and the expression of such. Across the board, emotion is one of the most beautiful and dangerous aspects of the human existence. It can make or break you, your relationships, and your life. Some emotions are visible, while others are felt way deep, down inside where no one but God can look. I thought it would be a unique task to try and capture a few of these emotions in music and put them on display for the world. Thus was born the idea, Language of Emotion. 

Now, as I stated earlier, the first track is entitled, Tongues of Angels; a phrase which is taken from 1 Corinthians 13:1 (slightly paraphrased). In the reading, it refers to the realization that regardless of what one does, if he doesn't have love in his/her heart, it is meaningless. I have come to greatly appreciate that verse and what it means for my life, so I thought it appropriate to start the album with a similar idea. The track is very ethereal so to suggest the speech of angels and leads into the 2nd track on the album, Elysian Dream. Until next time . . .