I am 10 months into Baby Year. My work pace has started to pick up again a little bit, but it’s nowhere where it was pre-baby. It’s been a much slower year then normal. In baby year, it can be very difficult to get anything non baby done.
But as the haze slowly shows signs of lifting, i can begin to speculate on what the future will hold. It will involve me completing a current project and then probably returning to the whimsical sci fi-ish genre that the New Albion Trilogy is.
I am currently working on a… Balkanish rock opera. This is a very specific project and will rely on funding to happen as it involves a real band playing it. If i cannot secure funding for a real band i will not release the demo, it will sit and wait. Funding will be secured locally.
Funding will involve grants. I will not do a Kickstarter campaign. I have never personally run a kickstarter campaign and ask you guys to fund me, and i won’t for this one. I may one day, and when that day comes i will require cashing in on the goodwill of the fanbase built around New Albion. This current project is so different from what you wish of me, that this is not the project to cash in on. I know what you guys want. And i intend to give it to you.
But it’s not this current project, which is Gogol Bordello meets a slightly prog-ish, real live rock band and involves a good bit of eastern Europe vibe. For those of you who are completists, it does contain the character who will become the Monk who founds New Albion, but it is not anything like the New Albion albums. Although there is a WHOLE lot of accordion. It could be a little steampunk rock band by way of Bulgaria. It’s slow going (because of Baby Year) and will take up many, many more months. Also, one of it’s main goals is to rock. It will sound like an album from a band (although ideally i will not play on it. I am making a full demo of the entire album and i will rehearse the band who will play it, making note of where they can disregard the specific notes of the demo and add their own take.
It’s a particular process. I do not want a note for note replaying of the album. I want it better. I want a band of musicians (and they’re plenty in Belgrade) who can listen , understand exactly what i’m going for, then play better groove parts than i actually came up with. Same with anything that sounds every remotely like a solo, any little filler riff… ignore what i play. Play your own muse and please don’t forget to add that eastern European soul to it.
After this project, however, i am leaning heavily towards another sci-fi-ish story series. Long form, although stories within the larger framework will break down into smaller chunks. Those chunks could the length of a single act.. an album length… who knows. It’s first chapter will be very much the genre of Dark Cabaret.
It will take place within the New Albion world, but will not center on New Albion. However, clear intersections will occur. It will be the kind of thing you are waiting for me to do again. But i need this period of growing and trying to stretch out a few different ways. It’s important for me to develop as an artist so that when i return to the thing you, my fanbase would most like to see, and i would certainly like to make, i will better and fresh. You don’t want me stale.
The first bit would take place in a gothic western town. But i’m wondering if i can make the entire act take place literally in a single, real time cabaret performance. So… gothic western cabaret. I don’t know who this person in this picture is, but this is exactly what the female lead (of Act 1) could look like:
I also like the first act taking place within a single cabaret performance because eventually there will a bunch of reality bending. And of course longing and heartache.
I also am wondering of how to present it. I’m playing with the idea of podcasting it to some degree. A song every… whatever and then when each act has been played the entire act then collected and played straight through (and available for sale. Obviously, if I can’t support myself, i.e. feed myself and stay alive by making it, i will make something else that will allow me not to die. But don’t worry, i’ll make it really, really good so you can’t resist handing over your hard earned money to my sinister clutches.) I am open to interesting ideas on how to present and market it.
I’ll use mostly new voices on it, although i can’t bring myself to not use Lauren as long as she’ll still do it. I hope to use Psyche Corporation, who i connected with several months ago, who actually expressed a willingness to be on a project of mine and whose voice i ADORE. A. DORE.
Anyway, all this is jumping the gun. It will some time before this second thing happens. If all goes well i’ll begin work on it in the fall.
So there you go. As far as i can tell, those are my 2016 plans. We shall see.
