How about we play a little game? (win stuff!)

Greetings Strangers, 
Brad and I decided we wanted to give away some cool stuff, so we put together this web scavenger hunt for you.


SOLID (listen/free download here) is Brad’s best attempt to chronicle the historic events of February 11-March 10, 2011, which he witnessed firsthand. Sure, we could tell you what happened from our perspective, but we’d rather get you, the listener involved. 
 
Below are the lyrics to SOLID with annotation markings. We want you to find the best internet news article or youtube video to demonstrate the meaning behind the lyric. Email the URLs to us at info@strange-land.net. Once completed, we’ll re-post a special set of hyperlinked lyrics for those who weren’t there to dig deeper and draw their own conclusions. Help us tell the story! 
The contest will be open from Thursday April 19th through Thursday May 3rd. The hunt is open to our fans world wide. Either the first person to send all nine correct references, or the person with the most correct by May 3rd will be the winner. Since Strange Land enjoys it's coffee and tea as much as it's prog, here's what you can win: Your choice of an SL branded travel ceramic coffee mug or stainless steel travel tea mug.

Fight for her fame
Her glowing flame
Forward our drive
Salute her name 1


When the word came from the floor
We didn't know the bleeding we had in store 2
Boots were planted in the snow
Tyrants trembled at the crowd below


Alexandria sent fare
For us to dine on cardboard in the square 3 
Marble pillows, dreams of gall 4
On the nights when we could sleep at all
We could barely feel the cold
Arm in arm, singing anthems old 5
Though they tried to silence all
You could hear the beat in the chamber hall 6


But the fire brigade came anyway
Just to put their colors on display 7
In the people poured from miles away
A hundred thousand souls on parade 8


They barred the doors and told us to depart
And the watch was doubled in safeguard 9
Looked for trouble there, but none would start
How can you disarm a beating heart?

Where It Comes From: SOLID

Hey all, 
If you don't have our new track 'SOLID' yet, go get it now, for free. then come right back for a rundown of how this one came together. 


From Brad:

SOLID started as an idea Sean sketched out for guitar and bass, and survives entirely (with added parts) as the second half of the song. I instantly loved it, but it took me a while to wrap my head around all the flying melodies and meter changes (who thinks in 13/8 anyway?), but after a few restless nights of odd-meter nightmares, I added a drum part to frame the score for myself as much as the listener. I felt it needed a contrasting section to build up to this in much the same way the Fates Warning song "At Fates Hands" does. I wanted the earlier material to be loosely related to Sean's material, so I picked out some cadences and strummed up those chords in a more straightforward progression. Just to break up the 4/4 monotony, I decided to occasionally drop a bar of 3/4 in. Fun fact: we actually write down all our SL songs note-for-note in music notation software before it is ever played. Only drum fills and guitar solos get improvised.

Next SOLID needed a melody. I didn't want to build a song with verses and choruses because I wanted to keep harmonically connected to later material, which would mean going back and forth in a verse/chorus/verse/chorus would likely have a key change at every transition (ick). Instead we have a constantly evolving, ever-building accompaniment. So a melody came to me. It was simple and didn't require a great deal of range. I didn't know I was writing for my voice at the time, so I lucked out there. Since the first half of the song covers 3 keys, it felt like it stayed fresh. Only minor phrasing and rhythmic variations happen between D minor, Eb minor, and E major.

Lyrics for me almost always happen last. I felt the song sounded rather serious, so unlike "Under Watchful Eyes" I put the dark humor away for this one and wrote about a subject matter that was dear and deeply personal to me. Many of you listening will pick out references that may be lost on others, but sometimes that's the point, isn't it?

Apologies to W.T. Purdy.

From Sean:

As Brad mentioned, this started with an idea of mine. I had written out most of the guitar and bass parts in the second half of the song before I turned it over to Brad. I actually set out to write a song that was largely in 9/8. Most often I come up with odd meter guitar parts naturally, then count them later. In this case 9/8 was a meter I hadn't worked with so I set that as my starting point. The later meter changes are just what fell out of my hands when I wrote the parts. My original goal was to write a purely instrumental track for Strange Land. But, as often happens when collaborating, Brad latched on to a few ideas and developed then into the vocal session. I was resistant at first, but as I digested the melodies and lyrics I was sold on the idea. The quest for an instrumental lives for another day. 

SOLID is by far the most dense song I've mixed. We ended up with 50 total tracks! 40 audio tracks, 4 virtual instruments, and a handful of effects busses and sub-mixes. It was a lot to juggle, a lot of work to find a place for everything without losing track of the heart of the song. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I think this will be the first of many 'sandbox' songs. As a studio band, we're delving into territory we never could have considered as a live 3-piece band. As least not without a lot of extra gear. Hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed making it. 

Where it comes from: "Under Watchful Eyes" music

"Under Watchful Eyes" started with a beat I had used for a tune my high school jazz band played. It was titled "Nemesis," a jazz waltz, which I had never played before. I was pretty proud of this beat, and had tried unsuccessfully to use it in one of the first Strange Land songs which thankfully never saw a studio recording. Yet I somehow always came back to that jazz waltz.

One day last spring, my practice brought me back to the beat. I walked over to my piano and started trying to plunk out what I remembered about it. It had started with drums and bass playing sometimes in octaves, other times walking. With that as my starting point, I added a heavy dose of dissonance for the walking parts. Putting the tune in drop D helped me tap into my King's X influence a bit more, and made playing easier, especially the bits that dance around G#. Finally I played around with augmented 5ths because I love that sound. It sounded good in both minor and major tonalities, so I kept them both. They're now the pre-chorus and chorus sections, respectively.

Sean came up with the vocal melody around the pre-chorus and chorus, and I want to thank him for that lovely harmony. I went to work on the melody for verses, thinking a blues scale would work for this down-and-dirty rockin' jazz waltz. In the process I discovered that the melody of "Symphony of Destruction" works pretty well during the verses--give it a try sometime!

For a long time (until two weeks before the release) we used "Nemesis" as a working title as Sean and I bounced ideas back and forth. After the lyrics were finalized, we discussed changing the title; it no longer suggested anything Nemesis-like, but instead had a more brooding, suspicious feeling. All told, it was the quickest write for a Strange Land song to date.

Where it comes from: "Under Watchful Eyes" lyrics

Everyone has people they come across in their lives that give them the creeps. For one reason or another, some people make us feel uneasy by what they say or how they behave. We wonder what is going on in their heads, oftentimes without much thought. Sometimes though, we imagine what they're thinking about. We go down that road. We don't like it. We shudder and go back to our happy places, trying to forget about those who unnerve us. I chose to go down that road and stayed there for a while, until I came up with the lyrics for "Under Watchful Eyes."

Sean started with some great lyrics about looking out the window, pondering someone we don't particularly have warm, fuzzy thoughts about, and it got me thinking about someone who sends a shiver down my spine (and no, I'm not sharing who that is here!). My aim was to get YOU thinking about who gives YOU the willies, without being too specific. After all, the best horror flicks let the audience's minds fill in the blanks, rather than shock you with gore.

So visit our music page, download "Under Watchful Eyes," and let your mind wander to that certain someone who makes you look over your goose-bumped shoulder.

New track is out!

Hey all, 

It's been a while, but Strange Land is happy to let you know our first new track since 2009 is out now. You can download "Under Watchful Eyes" for free, or chip in a little to help the cause. Get high quality versions, including FLAC, here http://strangeland.bandcamp.com/track/under-watchful-eyes or grab the 192 bitrate mp3 from our RN page. Thanks for sticking with us, we'd love to hear from you. Let us know what you think of the tune!

This is the first new track from Strange Land since becoming a studio duo. We're working parallel paths, finding ourselves writing both stripped down songs, and playing in the studio sandbox more than ever. This one is on the stripped down side. We're releasing the songs one by one as 'pay what you want' downloads, and you can have them for free if you like. Once we have enough material out we'll put together an album package with some special bonuses. Obscurity is the enemy, that's why we want you to have the track for free. All we ask is that if you can't chip in 50 cents or a buck, share the song with your friends. 

Wishing you all a brilliant holiday season, 

Sean and Brad