burning the temples

amarevois

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After writing the kinds of soft, fluffy tracks that featured on Unravel, I started to move into darker compositional territory. I had recently begun writing my space opera Neolithica, which had a decidedly dark and ominous score and a grittier production style. These tracks make up the bulk of the second album project Threshold, and include several tracks originally written for the opera, including Older than Stars, Land of Mu and the title track itself. The focus is shifted from the piano to guitar, and to a fair degree, to samples and soundscapes whilst retaining some of the orchestral elements implicit in film scoring.

Threshold then, is more synthetically driven in its textures, and blends elements of progressive pop/rock, and cinema score genres together to form a concept album from beginning to end, again without gaps. The sonic segues between the tracks were either specifically written for the purpose, or come directly from the Neolithica underscore itself.

The only single proposed from this album project is Maidenhead; a hard edged in-your-face metallic funk rock number with disturbingly reversed voices and a sci-fi sensibility. The most likely tracks to accompany it are Wraithmaster and the original drum ‘n bass mix of Trophies, as it appears on the Neolithica project.

The individual parts for Threshold were almost all recorded in various incarnations of my home studio, Azimuth Arts. The electronic manipulations that feature on the title track Threshold were performed by Chuck 303, an acid techno artist, also from Melbourne. Much of Maidenhead was recorded and prepared at Cloudburstz Studio where I used to work as an engineer/producer.