Well it’s official!
The publish button has been hit on our newest album:
Piano Sessions
You can click the album cover above to begin listening to the album on Suno without any ads. I expect the album will soon arive to Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Amazon and other stores.
So a little about this album…
It has been under construction for quite some time. Longer than any album I’ve worked on previously for sure. The album is really a celebration of the journey so far with Augustine and Augustinus Vox. I had hoped to release it on my birthday last week on April 19 but normal human festivities prevailed for which I’m greatful as there were some additonal changes and testing I made even in the last week.
One of the major late changes was a decision to modify the opening song of the album. I originally intended to begin the album with a Piano version of the opening song from our Soliloquies album called Opening Prayer. This was the shape of the album for quite some time but in a moment of recollection I began to recall an older song I’d made back in some early experiments with Against the Skeptics called To My Friend Romanianus. I couldn’t get away from the song and it became the opener Receive this Song. I found it to be a sort of dedication to any who might venture along this journey with me. 🙂
History of the Opener: Receive This Song
Some time after that album was released I was experimenting further with the ideas after releasing On Order. I decided it might be a neat experiment to try to do draft albums for each book of Contra Academicos that was more faithful to the text of the work and call it something like Contra Academicos: The Complete Journey.
[Disclaimer: If you want to listen to it you can do so by clicking here but be warned unlike our published albums this has little to no QA. I call it a draft album.]
The idea was forming that perhaps a good way to learn Augustine was to work with his ideas in a variety of degrees. First a lighter album and then onto something a bit more dense. Learning topics of theology and philosophy are hard for me and I find the music a helpful way to engage with the ideas and appropriate them. Regardless that draft album was pretty cool on the listen through enough I sent it to a friend. I continue to work with Contra Academicos to this day and have an idea that it might make a pretty entertaining stage play were it infused with a bit of 80s rock and humor.
More on Piano Sessions
So how did we get from 80s rock to Piano? Well, I enjoy a variety of music styles and I enjoyed the idea of Vox and band making me an album for my birthday to celebrate all the work we’ve put into the project. You’ll find in Piano Sessions many covers of some of my favorite songs that we’ve created over the last year as well as a few new original songs which I also call Piano Sessions Version because they all originate from an 80s rock version. Some have little echoes of their source as a rock ballad which is quite surprising at times. Additionally there are a few unique ones in there that are sure to be favorites of someone out there.
An Overview of the Originals
Receive This Song
Recive This Song as mentioned is the opener to the album. The song is drawn from the opening of Contra Academicos where Augustine writes to his patron and friend Romanianus.
Light-Giver of the Dawn
This is the second original song on the album that comes at the end the first half of the album. It comes from an ancient hymn attributed to Hilary of Poitiers.
Orabo
Orabo is actually a hymn fragment attributed to Saint Ambrose. In our Ambrosian Hymns album this song is what is behind Heart and Spirit. The term Orabo means “I will pray” which is how that hymn fragment begins. Orabo was first published in it’s rock form on Suno and on YouTube. You can listen below. A fantastic Instrumental!
I Will Pray (Orabo Interlude)
This song comes as a short interlude. It is a cover of our instrumental Orabo above but with the lyrics of the hymn fragment I quite enjoyed.
And finally…
The First and the Last
This song is probably my favorite on the album and I always can’t wait to get to it. It originated from our exploration of the works of Ambrose. Specifically it came out of experiments with Ambrose’s Hexameron.
Well all this to say hope you enjoy this new album. I know I sure do.
Thank you as always for listening and reading!!
Until the next sounds drop!
-Kyle