Week 12 - Simple Love download options -Subscribe/ MP3 Copyright Alexander J. Caruso 7/07/2011
PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS ONE WITH HEADPHONES! Made this song for my lovely lady on her birthday. I wanted to make something that invoked her kind and warm spirit, and was beautiful like her click here to comment
Week 11 - Resolve download options -Subscribe/ MP3 Copyright Alexander J. Caruso 05/21/2011
PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS ONE WITH HEADPHONES! Resolve - To come to a definite or earnest decision about; determine (to do something). To me that perfectly describes the mood of this song.. Like the time for sitting at the crossroads is done, and the choice has been made, so lets get on with it. contributions to this one include a Poem by John McCray "In Flanders Fields" (not sure who read it though). I was looking for an ominous and Old-English sort of voice to invoke a sense of battle-readiness and lend a gravity to the music. My searching led me to this video on YouTube.. The reader's grave voice was exactly the sound I wanted, and although the poem itself wasn't a perfect fit, I was able to chop and scramble it into something usable. The lines I ended up with are "take up our quarrel with the foe... we throw the torch to you.. be yours to hold it high... hold it high (repeats).. we shall not sleep (which is repeated throughout the song)" Also, my freind and band-mate (Nataraj), DJ Story helped me manifest and mutilate the rhythm section into being. click here to comment
Week 10 - C05 download options -Subscribe/ MP3 Copyright Alexander J. Caruso 05/07/2011
Ive been Stricken with the plague for the last two weeks, and unable to work, so I had to dig one out of the archives for this week's track. C05 means collaboration from 2005. This track features all of my musical friends from those days.. I wont name names though, in case anyone doesn't feel well represented by this song, but if anyone wants to come forward and claim responsibility for a part, feel free.. click here to comment
Week 9 - Arundhati download options -Subscribe / MP3 Copyright Alexander J. Caruso 11/08/2010
I Used to play this tune with Jeremy and Renjith back in the days of yore. Arundhati, the name of our little band back then, is associated with the star Alcor which forms a double star with Mizar in the constellation of Ursa Major. Since the star is faintly visible, there is a belief that when someone is near death, they cannot see the Arundhati star. click here to comment
For Summer .... When Summer was in the hospital I gave her my ipod to keep her company. She mentioned this song as one of her favorites and that AG was also the chemical abbreviation for silver, which I did not know. Some days later she died in the morning. Her husband told me that shortly after she left, a wide rainbow appeared in the sky, and that after he took a picture, a video came on his phone by itself of Summer laughing and diving into a river.
Week 8 - Arundas - Live in Ifelorum download options -Subscribe/ MP3 Copyright Alexander J Caruso 04/07/2011
So this song was originally intended to be part of a faux live album, where an audience, composed of beings from a world I dreamed up called Ifelorum (anagram for 'four mile', which is a beach I used to night-haunt north of Santa Cruz, Ca.), was to be sampled in to help create the experience of an imaginary concert. As I worked on this project I found it hard to pipe in fake audience sounds - It just felt wrong and self aggrandizing, and I eventually gave up on the Idea all together :( Featured in this song are Sage Sansone, and my long time musical co-conspirator Jeremy Schewe, who will be heard in a lot of the recordings I will gradually release over the next year. If your interested in the meaning of the lyrics, you can ask Sage :). click here to comment
This is also the first track that features my 'skitar' which is basically an electric sitar. This is the main instrument I play with my live projects Nataraj and Arundas. It works well for performance because it can get nice and loud without feeding back, and that helps when your playing with a group of heavy handed, beast-like drummers.. It was built by this guy named Gordon from Minnesota who I met at a rainbow gathering back in the days of yonder yore. I haven't heard from him since, despite many attempts on my part..
Me - alien looking guy in purple-y blue. Sage to my right, Jeremy to my left.
Week 7 - Seven download options -Subscribe/ MP3 Copyright Alexander J. Caruso 03/28/2011
This weeks song reminded me of my main reason for starting this project - I was feeling totally uninspired and lethargic, but because of my deadline, I forced myself to work and was eventually able to break through the stagnation and get 'er done (joyfully). Without having a deadline it would have taken me months to get around to finishing it, which is why I still have a mass amount of unfinished ideas gnawing at me. Tom Robbins was right - "inspiration is for sissies". (not actual quote). Of course inspiration is nice when its there, but if you rely on it solely to work, you never strengthen your ability to push through unhealthy resistances, and likely wont come to know your potentials (in the biblical sense) :). The name "Seven" comes from the amount of times 7 shows up in this song - It is exactly 7 minutes long, it is the 7th song of my project (7days1song), my favorite part is 3:47 (3+4 = 7) and I finished it on 3/27/11 (3+2+1+1 = 7). Silly I know, but good enough for a song name. Comments?
Week 6 - Vines And Leaves download options -Subscribe / MP3 Copyright Alexander J. Caruso 03/18/2011
Below is An old video experiment I did with a shortened version of the song (click above to hear the full version)
This one features Boris Popovich on flute, Sage Sansone on the vocal bit towards the end, and my friend Renjith on the frame drum. Vines and Leaves is an older song I wrote for my live music project Arundas a few years ago. After recording it in Marshall N.C. I eventually edited and mastered it after moving to Black Mountain.comments?
PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS ONE WITH HEADPHONES! Resolve - To come to a definite or earnest decision about; determine (to do something). To me that perfectly describes the mood of this song.. Like the time for sitting at the crossroads is done, and the choice has been made, so lets get on with it. contributions to this one include a Poem by John McCray "In Flanders Fields" (not sure who read it though). I was looking for an ominous and Old-English sort of voice to invoke a sense of battle-readiness and lend a gravity to the music. My searching led me to this video on YouTube.. The reader's grave voice was exactly the sound I wanted, and although the poem itself wasn't a perfect fit, I was able to chop and scramble it into something usable. The lines I ended up with are "take up our quarrel with the foe... we throw the torch to you.. be yours to hold it high... hold it high (repeats).. we shall not sleep (which is repeated throughout the song)" Also, my freind and band-mate (Nataraj), DJ Story helped me manifest and mutilate the rhythm section into being. click here to comment
Week 8 - Arundas - Live in Ifelorum 
