“We are the living links in a life force that moves and plays around and through us, binding the deepest soils with the farthest stars.”
- Alan Chadwick

Several weeks ago, I had a night of intense dreams. In one of them, I was on a moonlit forest path surrounded by cascading voices. The melody they were singing was this one. I couldn't decipher the words with the exception of, "We can go within". After I woke up, I retraced the notes on my piano and then recorded it. It was still pretty early, so I went back to sleep. But that was what started this project.

The melodic layers went down pretty quick. I found an old 56k modem sample courtesy of Freesound and gave the intro the mood of a radio transmission. To further this even more, when I recorded the vocals ran them through a series of filters to give an the old AM effect. My wonderful husband Elim provided his beautiful baritone to the chorus while I did spoken word. The vocals took longer to record than the actual song, but the results were worth it. For one, this is first time I've been able to combine both elements into a single project.

My hope is after several more tracks, I can bring in guest vocalists. I'd continue building the lyrics and melody on my own, but having vocals adds a whole new dimension to the music.

Listen to We Can Go Within

Special credits go to: Vedas for recording the sounds of an old 56k modem at the beginning of the song. Click here to listen to the original sample.

Last month's show went great! Photos came out a little blurry, but Elim caught some pretty good video. I have ones for Dangerous Curves and Shards. He also caught a wonderful rendition of If You Only Knew by Gardening Not Architecture.

Because of the show, I did take some time off to work on my set. But once the dust settled, I started work on a new piece by the name of Tempest. It took me several weeks to complete, but I'm happy with the results and I think you should download it.

Listen to Tempest

Special Credits go to the very talented Suonho who recorded the Underwater sound used at the beginning of the song. You can find more sounds like these on Freesound, who uses a Creative Commons License for all of their sounds. Awesome site!

I've been a little quieter as of late, but been a lot has been happening behind the scenes. Next Monday, I'm opening for Gardening Not Architecture at Cozmic Pizza. So most of my free time has been centered around practicing my set and putting the finishing touches on a remake of Nyght for my album. I also have an original piece that I've also been working on, but put it on hold till after the show. Other than posting one song a month, my muse has no set schedule. Her goal is to have fun and send me little bursts of Shelly-inspiration along the way. :)

Not much else to say other than I think this is a kickass version of Nyght and you should listen to it.

Listen to Nyght '09

Special Credits go to: Andrew Potterton who recorded the Ticking Sound used both at the beginning and end of the song. You can find more sounds like these on Soundsnap, who uses a Creative Commons License for all of their sounds. Pretty cool site!