Last year sometime, I met Melbourne-based Chillwave artist Lacunae Glow online through a music community group on Facebook of professional indie musicians.
She had heard my album DREAM DANCE and was inspired by the music and the underwater cover art, so she messaged me asking if I’d like to collaborate on a project she envisioned entitled ‘Song of Sirens‘.
I was immediately intrigued, because a Siren
is also known as a Sea Nymph, and so I was obviously drawn to anything related
to my namesake of the nature spirits known as Nymphs. How could I resist?
The Greek stories tell of Sirens as beautiful women with
enchanting voices. . . who wouldn’t want to be part of that?
So I went and listened to Lacunae Glow’s
oceanic Chillwave Cerulean
Superus album, and I immediately fell in love with the
music, her productions and her vocals.
I messaged her back: “I’d love to!”
And so it was. . . the seedling of ‘Song of Sirens’ was planted, and, our global, oceanic deep dive began. . .
A couple of weeks after I accepted working on this new song with Lacunae Glow, I received from her, via cloud sharing platforms, the music files for the framework of the song and the first verse.
I downloaded them and imported them into my
studio.
Wow.
Not only was I impressed by how quickly
Lacunae Glow delivered, I also immediately loved the concept and the music, and
sat down the next day to write and record the next verse, sending my files back
to Lacunae Glow, halfway around the globe, to Australia.
As I was assembling and fleshing out
the arrangement and writing, my imagination was on fire with the mermaid
legends of subsuming the poor, hapless sailors beneath the waves into oblivion,
and so wanted to bring that alive in the music.
But at the same time, I didn’t want a
sense of doom, but rather of expectation and excitement.
. . . So, here’s the interesting thing. . .
Lacunae
Glow and I were writing this song together via messaging, sharing music and
lyrics back and forth, and somewhat seamlessly constructing this song.
We
had never spoken, nor met, until one day, one of us got the great idea (I think
it was Lacunae Glow) that we jump on a Zoom meeting and meet each other.
We
spent 2 hours talking and laughing and philosophizing; we had a great time.
And
we came away with an amazing revelation:
Although
we never mentioned it to each other, we both had the same idea about what we
wanted “our” Siren song to be about. . .
Not
about the evil, dangerous, frightening Siren that lures the hapless sailors to
their physical deaths. . .
But a celebration of the feminine aspect of love and connection
and intimacy (represented by the oceanic depths) that can be frightening but
also so alluring and intriguing. . . and ultimately, soothed.
And so we wove more and more beautiful Siren vocals into our arrangement, and I panned them in the mix, to swirl all around you, and to help give you the sense that you are becoming entwined, consumed, and comforted. . .
We released the ‘Song of Sirens‘ single and music video on March 23, 2019, the music for which was recorded across the globe between Australia and California, and the video imagery for which was shot all over the world: in California, Australia and Mexico.
I am so excited about and proud of this release!
I hope it brings you peace and joy and beauty when you listen to and watch it. Love,