Wyrd

11th Portal:
This tune is one of my favorites so I put it first in line. I had a lot of fun with this one. I incorporated some retro campy sci fi samples in this tune. The vibe behind this song is the way people in the 1950's thought about space travel in the future. There are many time signature and tempo changes which made it quite challenging to play.

Madah:
This tune lends itself to a more funk/fusion styling. I had been working on my bass playing and found that Gary Willis' style of playing is very effective (if only I could play half as good as him I'd be satisfied. I wrote this song for my son. He combined mom and dad together to form "madah". That way he can call me and my wife at the same time (smart kid).

The Unconscience:
This song has a funk/metal intro which then turns into (dare I say) 80's metal? It then goes into a soft break, then resumes with the main theme and winds up with the intro as the outro with some ridiculous samples thrown in.

Bugjuice:
This song is named after what we called Kool Aid when I was a kid. This song is in the rock fusion vein. Definitley some Tribal Tech influences in this tune.

Trust:
This is probably my favorite tune. It's about a space traveller who loses contact with his crew and is being hunted by someone or something. He has found a possible way out but he doesn't know who who to trust. Diminished Returns: Is basically a weird conglomeration of styles ranging from old school funk to progressive metal.

Powderburn:
This song was kind of written for war vets, hence the choppy march like intro. There is an interesting break which incorporates some spoken word samples saying "all of the heroism is in the service that they represent."

Slik:
Is a jazz/fusion tune with some old school funk thrown in.

Darkmatter:
The weirdest tune conceptually. Dark matter is basically the same as anti-matter which is everything that matter is not . I personified dark matter by giving it a voice. The samples are essentially saying that we, humans, are just trivial thoughts that dark matter thinks of that come and go. The coming and going are parallels to our living and dying. The initial riff is just a bunch of descending and ascending diminished shapes. Then it kicks in with the main riff which is in 7/8 on low D. Then strings and guitar come in with a D min9 to D min7 to A min add 9 progression over it. This tune is pretty cool closer. Anyways that's it.

Diminshed Returns
This starts out with a 7/8 riff that's kinda cool. I also slipped in a swelling synth sound in the background to try to glue things together a bit. The tune then goes into 15/16 scale run that was pure hell to play on bass. Then off to the funky part which I tried to make as old school as possible by using the phaser on the rhythm guitar and doing the old slap and pop. I also stuck in the obligatory bass/organ run which quiets things down a bit. Then comes the the diminshed low C# riff with the Pink Floyd clock sound. Back to the funk. Then to C# again with the masturbatory solo (hey I gotta have a little fun). Then it wraps up with the 7/8 theme.

Wyrd
Wyrd is the third solo venture and has a lot of new ideas and interesting sounds. I took it upon myself to expand on my songwriting using Artifacts as my jumping off point. I used songs like Heavylikejupiter, Dr. Ha, and Liar as good models to follow. The songwriting got a lot heavier and a bit more complex as the album continued to develop.

I was interested in creating seriously heavy guitar tracks and by spreading them far apart I created a large sound but being careful not to cloud up the mix. The bass sound changed from song to song as necessary. The drum sounds remained fairly consistent. The keyboard sounds varied from the traditional to the outlandish.

I recorded all the rhythm tracks first so I could continue to develop my soloing ability. (don't really know if that helped). Wyrd was recorded at my home studio on my VS-1680 using the Line6 POD as my preamp while employing the effects on the VS. About half of the rhythm tracks were done using my Ibanez 7620 while the other half was done with my Carvin DC-747c. The solos were done with the Carvin as well. Additionally I used an Ibanez 5 string bass to cover the low end. I also tried to expand on my bass playing a bit by featuring it more as a solo instrument in a few tunes.

Track List: (description)	Sound Clips (mp3)
	11th Portal (797kb)
	Madah (797kb)
	The Unconscience (797kb)
	Bugjuice (797kb)
	Trust (797kb)
	Diminished Returns (797kb)

	Slik (797kb)
	Dark Matter (797kb)

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