I would assume one of your first impressions might have been, "well, this is definitely different." (At which point you began screaming incoherently and urinating all over the walls).
Good or bad, the direction, arrangement, feel and overall vision of this album is by far the biggest change musically we have committed so far.
And so we begin our series on the origins of Moira's Lake, starting with the broad question:
Why did we do something so different?
But first...
WHY DON'T PEOPLE DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT?
Just because I had to pose the question of why, it already says that changing and deviating from the norm is not usual. So why don't more artists continually do something different with each new album?
Of course, some artists do just that, but in today's modern culture, deviating from something had has proven itself "successful" in any way is the road less traveled.
Innovation at its core requires risk, and risk implies no guarantee.
Borrowing from my essay "Artistic Integrity and The Dichotomy Of Success", when an artist makes it to a particular point in their career where they are lucky enough to make all of their income from the art they create, they are suddenly put into an ironic situation where they are now entirely beholden to their fan base.
If the artists wants to do something a bit different on their new album, there is a big possibility that the fans may not like it, and therefore, the artists will not make much money from it. Which is why so many bands pretty much find their niche and stick with it. (Look at AC/DC for example).
This is only one small reason why we see so little innovation and risk in popular music.
It's becomes less about creating art, and more about creating income.
STUCK IN A RUT
After I had released my second album, Empyreal Progeny, I realized I was in a rut.
A musical rut, if you will (go ahead).
Looking back at my previous two records, I became upset with myself after feeling that I had found a sort of groove, and was just doing things the easy way.
I was not trying anything new, I was not risking or experimenting, and I was not challenging myself.
In a way, I felt bored by what I had done so far. And boredom is a creativity killer.
There is no energy in boredom, and I felt that the only way I could keep things interesting, fresh and exciting for me, was to give myself a challenge. I needed to force myself out of my comfort zone and do something that would really scare the shit out of me.
So, in retaliation (against myself), I started laying out some new rules and goals as I started writing for what would eventually become Moira's Lake.
IT'S ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE
One of the main factors in my new manifesto was the unifying principle of creating an experience.
Over time, I had become increasingly disinterested in your run-of-the-mill bands, and wanted to strive beyond the dull concept of just "a few dudes who play some cool stuff... man".
The solution for me was to look to other areas of art and culture in which I found myself more affected by the emotion and message of the medium.
Namely, dramatic films and novels.
I loved the way I could be sucked into a great epic film, living within that environment for the duration of the movie, and thinking about it for hours afterward.
I wanted to aim for a similar level of immersion into a musical world, with interesting fleshed-out characters, strong human drama, and a compelling story.
Something that could transcend the mundane rock album, and become the equivalent of an audio movie.
BECOMING A STORYTELLER
People gravitate towards stories.
A good story grabs our imagination and takes us away from the doldrums of our monotone lives for a few exciting moments.
And it was this philosophy that I heartily embraced when working on Moira's Lake.
On Empyreal Progeny, I found myself writing a series of songs across the album with an interconnected theme. They were all based on the same perspective and through the narrative of an entirely fictional character and scenario. Though not every song on that album tied into the story, it was my first attempt at creating a theme that would try to weave the whole experience together in an effort to create greater significance for the whole.
Once I began writing for Moira's Lake, I consciously decided that the whole album was going to be a full story all the way through. And this time, it would not be hidden like it was on the second album. It would be the lattice work for the music to grow on.
I'll go into the details of the story of Moira's Lake in a series of future essays.
MORE IS MORE
Sweet Painful Reality and Empyreal Progeny are too repetitive.
There I said it.
They are.
At least for my tastes, at this time, my first two records feel stale in regards to their arrangements.
Just my opinion.
When I started work on this third album, one of my goals was to go against my normal arrangement style and force myself to write songs with many more parts and changes.
At first it was quite a challenge for me, especially coming from the more traditional writing background I had, but once I got into the flow, I suddenly felt incredibly inspired. I had removed many of the preconceived musical boundaries I had placed on myself, and now almost anything was possible.
Always keeping the story and characters in mind while composing, I was now able write things that would have never worked before: suspenseful sections, horrific and unsettling parts, melodies that created tension and release, rhythms that kept the listener in the same on-edge emotional and mental state as the characters.
Honestly, the new approach felt very liberating.
And let me tell you, there is a hell of a lot of energy in that.
BREAKING THROUGH THE FEAR
Even as a child, writing stupid melodies on the piano, I envisioned the music I would eventually write as having strange rhythms, odd time signatures (even before I knew the term for that) and sometimes avant-garde chords or melodies.
This strangely coming from a kid whose favorite album at the time was M.C. Hammer "Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em"!
Unfortunately, if you listen to Sweet Painful Reality, none of that mentality appears to have made it on to that album. Why?
I played it safe.
I was afraid to experiment.
I tried too hard to be something.
On Empyreal Progeny, there are a few, albeit subtle moments of some more interesting musical notions, but even there, it was still on the safe side.
In my mind, I had always been a fan of pushing musical concepts and experimenting with chords, rhythms and melodies, but in practice, I was scared.
After two albums of playing it safe, I finally had the pent-up motivation to say, "fuck it. I'm going for it."
My goal was to up all of the instrumentation, guitars, drums, bass, synths, even vocals. Why? Because I like that kind of stuff. So I pushed all of my fellow musicians to play and think beyond anything we had done previously. (Which they were none too happy about at first, but are quite glad they did now).
Moira's Lake is the first time in over eight years that I finally had the balls to do what was really in my heart, and not succumb to my own internal pressures of what people want, or what they don't want.
We get so few chances in life to really put our ideas into the world, and this time I wanted to have as little regrets as possible.
I wanted to make the most musical music I could muster.
THE DOWNSIDE OF BEING DIFFERENT
As I mentioned above, doing something different is a risk. It could pay off, sure, but usually the odds are against it.
And boy are the odds against poor Moira.
When I released Empyreal Progeny in 2004 (wow, that was a long time ago... how depressing), there were some fans of Sweet Painful Reality that did not enjoy the change between the records.
And though it's never fun to hear, when you evolve and change, even just a little bit, not everyone will appreciate that change. So is the nature of things.
However, to its credit, there were also many more people who found us on Empyreal Progeny who told us how much more they liked it compared to Sweet Painful Reality.
Keeping that in mind, with the very significant changes on Moira's Lake, I knew ahead of time that I would end up alienating some of our previous fans.
It's a really different album for us, and it will piss some people off.
It sucks. But that's just how it works. If you want to grow and change, you have to take the risks. You (I) can't have it both ways.
More odds piled against Moira come in the form of creating an album that is not immediately accessible.
In today's music market, if a song does not jump into the chorus within the first thirty seconds and stick in your head, you're done. It's over.
Not only is Moira's Lake not the kind of album you can immediately understand, but it also takes energy and effort from the listener to fully appreciate the experience.
You can't demand effort from your listeners! That's basically like committing pop music suicide.
Besides, people don't want long, intense, emotional and thoughty opuses. They want Rhianna and Lady GaGa.
Right?
SO WHY DO SOMETHING SO DIFFERENT?
Because the world is saturated with untalented, bland, "me too" shitty bands.
Because I believe that many people would actually want more immersive emotional experiences, if they only knew that they existed.
Because, being a person who passionately cares about art, music and emotion, I had no other choice.
Because it could be my only chance to do something in life that might actually matter.
Because to not do so would be an insult to the intelligence of all of you.
Because I'm an insecure, pathetic musician who feels the need to try and impress people with what I can create musically, to compensate for all of my glaring flaws, inadequacies, and deficiencies as a human being.
And that's the truth. Well, partially...
NIKO
