Friday, June 20, 2008

unreleased motW

I'm in the process of writing an essay for an upcoming edition of ARCANA, a series of books that JZ has put together to give composers an opportunity to explain their music (hopefully borne out of the fact that critics always get it wrong.)

Anyway I've spent a good few pages retrospecting maudlin of the Well, which has made a few older and unrecorded songs flood back into my mind... amazingly, the memory of them is very fresh and I'm still able to hear those complete songs in my head.

A lot of the time in motW, some compositional and programming decisions were made based on the music's audience; thus the music that was never heard is like the least rock stuff of all (but it's all from 1998-2000, so is not as pushing of the envelope as our music of today). For example, there's an expanded and further developed version of The Blue Ghost/Shedding Qliphoth with vocals, strings, piano, etc... all the stuff I'm talking about is kind of in that vein.

So I have this serious bug in my ear right now about it; Terran is around again and if we had the resources I think we'd both be eager to put a record together. Actually I already asked Dark Symphonies but they can't do it. But I'm not really interested in label-shopping otherwise because I'm not sure what motW's relevance is to any label. There also doesn't really seem to be a need to release motW commerically since the band is done as an entity, so even a free internet release would be cool; I wonder if we could somehow have a community-funded motW record - funded by donations from fans and then released for free online. Or released for free on CD or vinyl complete with artwork if there was enough fundage.

14 comments:

Grant said...

This is great, Toby. I've only recently become a fan of your projects (in the last couple of years anyway), so I missed out on the timely progression of motW to Kayo Dot. Of course there are always those who complain of the lack of "metal" in your recent endeavors, but I feel a continuing tradition in the techniques demonstrated.

"For example, there's an expanded and further developed version of The Blue Ghost/Shedding Qliphoth with vocals, strings, piano, etc... all the stuff I'm talking about is kind of in that vein."
I think this is very interesting; you picked an appropriate time to promote this idea in coordination with Kayo Dot's current musical state. (You, by no means, have to agree). haha

I'd be happy and willing to contribute. Take care.

Anonymous said...

will this essay be in Arcana III? from looking on amazon, it looks like there's a 7 year gap between the release of the first and second volumes of this series. i hope we won't have to wait 'til 2014 to get to read this? :o

for the record, i'd be willing to contribute to the motW unreleased-music-revival-project-thing if you choose to go the donation route.

that said, i think you might be underestimating the commercial viability of a new motW release, even if some of the new stuff consists of alternate versions of pre-released material.

i've come across a lot of people, especially in the prog community, who still prefer the more tradional approach of maudlin of the Well to the more textural and atmospheric/less intuitively-structured music of kayo dot. the point is, there's a surprisingly significant motW fan base that has, for whatever reason, not taken as much interest in your more recent body of work.

http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=43967&KW=kayo+dot (kayo dot/maudlin of the well preference poll from dec 07 -- split 50/50)

i guess it also sort of depends on whether you guys would be willing to tour in support of the new motW material!

thanks for all the wonderful music :)

Anonymous said...

If you think to release it for free on internet (or even in other ways actually) I absolutely agree to give you some money (by paypal ?).

That would be the least we can do to thank and support you.

tranquil senescence said...

Toby, is it going to be a couple of songs or more like a fourth album? I'd be willing to donate over $250 for an album full of new material.

Anonymous said...

I'd donate so fast.

Anonymous said...

Toby, Toby, Toby. You genius.

Unfortunately, buying online in South Africa isn't possible unless you have a credit card - something which I refuse to obtain.

However, I will offer you my first born. No, seriously, I'd be more than happy to help you out if it were possible - I hope you understand.

Good luck. I hope it all goes smoothly.

Anonymous said...

First born child it is.

Seriously though, I'd probably donate some Canadian money to this fantastic idea.

Toby Driver said...

Out of all the flotsam, I would say there's just two full songs, and then a dozen worthwhile fragments.

Only the two would be strictly 100% old material... It would of course be possible to expand on the fragmented ideas, but that would end up being a hybrid of two different eras of my compositional mind (which I think could be really cool, but probably not what motW fans are looking for).

In terms of cost, to do a high quality, studio version of a song with such detail and orchestration costs about $900 average per song, then add mastering on top of that (200-300 total) and that's just production costs - for any post-production such as actually pressing CDs or vinyl it'd be quite a bit more.

So it seems unrealistic to be able to get the necessary amount through fan donations... but we could at least try setting it up and see if we get enough.. the only thing that would be sketchy is that if we didn't get enough to do one song, the refund process might get awkward. how long do we wait before giving up, etc...

Anonymous said...

"...but that would end up being a hybrid of two different eras of my compositional mind (which I think could be really cool, but probably not what motW fans are looking for)."

That would be the best! I'd donate. I'm kind of broke, but I'd donate!

The refund process would be awkward... Maybe you could just make it clear that if after so much time there still isn't enough money to do what was planned you'll just redirect the money to other tours/projects and hope that doesn't deter too many people from donating in the first place.

Toby Driver said...

maybe.. but i definitely wouldn't want to reroute the money to other projects, as the point of doing a donation thing would be to be able to release the music for free....

Anonymous said...

The amount of money required to fund these recordings is astonishing. Now I feel foolish for saying I'd plunk down $20 on a recorded album when I realize how much the studio time will cost...

tranquil senescence said...

Toby, set it up and see how much people can come up with, if there's money missing to complete one song, I would pay the balance without a problem. I also have something in mind to possibly get enough money to finance your project, but that's not for sure.

tranquil senescence said...

Hey Toby, I am gonna follow up with my plan and try my best to help you with this. I have started a blog to inform you and the fans, please read it here. http://bizarreflower.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

TOBYYYYYYYYYY

what to say...this is a GREAT news...

i hope to hear from maudlin of the well again...and, maybe, finally see you in europe..it should be great...but ther's no problem to follow your bands everywhere in europe...you know we're enough mad to do it again (do you remember italians in frankfurt??)...

take care. of motw too.

francesco.