had we met in another life

had we met... video

2011-09-17T08:31:00.004-04:00

bandcamp page

2010-07-18T16:29:00.003-04:00

<a href="http://jacobearl.bandcamp.com/album/had-we-met-in-another-life">for the last time by jacob earl</a>

Pioneers

2010-04-22T20:21:00.009-04:00

friends and fans, here is the fourth (and for now, final) installation in my serial ep, had we met in another life. i originally conceived of this project in late 2008, and it has finally come to fruition. i may pick it up and continue it later... there is at least one "b-side" in this series. ultimately that is the best thing about doing serial releases; i can always pick it up again later. but right now i am already working on a new project (check out jacobearl.net for a visual preview of the new series of songs, beginning very soon).

as i have recounted before, these pieces that comprise had we met in another life were temporarily shelved for a little bit, while i worked on the companion album, Your First Lover - Incarnations. i think that distancing myself from this collection of songs for almost a year allowed me re-approach them with a fresh angle, and produce some of the best stuff i have released to date.

the final composition of the had we met.. quartet is "Pioneers". this track is actually the first had we met... piece that i composed , at the end of 2008. so i have sat on this piece longest of all, fretting over little details of the composition and production.

"Pioneers" is a long track (almost seven minutes) that represents one of my first real forays into midi synth with my m-audio keyrig 25 keyboard (which i received for xmas 2008 from my awesome family). it was almost like an experimentation just to see what i could do with the new toy. i started out being bored, fooling around with some new beats i had downloaded, chopping up some royalty-free samples that i had, and came up with the backbone of the song as it is now. then i started experimenting with some organ VST sounds i had, and i liked the end result so much that i decided to use it to frame the concept i was developing at the time.

the words and music of "Pioneers" sums up the entire mood and theme of the had we met in another life sequence... which is ultimately why i chose it to be the last song in the series.

originally i wasn't happy with portions of many of the vocal tracks i laid down, so there are at least five or six vocal tracks layered into the background and trapped in the murk of reverb with the subdued guitars. i didn't want to obliterate them entirely from the track. was that a good production choice in the end? i don't know; you be the judge.

really this extended ode is all about the driving fuzzy bass and pitch-wavering organ.

ultimately i don't think it's the strongest of the four tracks... in fact it may be the weakest if i approach the end-products objectively. but there are some moments about it that i think worked out really nicely (ambient resonance created by the layered vocals and doubled-up guitar tracks moving in and out of sync with each other).

i find that when recording, i often stumble upon happy accidents that i end up keeping in the final product. i could never possibly duplicate those weird quirks again, and that's part of the beauty of doing many of my recordings with one-takes. "Pioneers" is a good example of many of these types of moments, and i think that lends a nostalgic quality to the mood of the song.

if you've been following the had we met... previous releases, you probably know that the last track i released was accompanied by a simple video that i created to go with the music. well, i did the same for "Pioneers". only this video is much better, and much more extravagant. i collected some great footage of landscapes rolling by on a train ride, and of my wonderful fiancée maggie playing in the rain in her fancy rain boots. i juxtaposed the videos together to present a visual mood of a long and playful journey. i think it is well-suited to the nostalgic "what if..." atmosphere of the song, and the vein of had we met in another life as a whole.

you can enjoy the video on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T3cWIAo3HM

and here is the song for download; free high quality VBR mp3 (thanks for listening and watching!): Pioneers

and the lyrics:

she grew up in a small town out east
her mother alone, her father deceased
she came here to be free
she came here to get away from people like me

she was just seventeen
when i met her on the scene
she carried around a fake ID
what was I supposed to believe?
maybe i wanted to be deceived...

we were pioneers to our own demise
i willingly believed the lies
she gave up and said goodbye
i almost drowned in the tears i cried

we were soldiers on a barren cold front
we were wolves on the final hunt
we were cowboys from the wild west
heading into our final sunset

we were trained to looked the other way
we refrained from thinking of yesterday
there was nothing left there that we could mend
we were pioneers to the end

the closest thing to healing

2010-03-21T12:24:00.011-04:00

welcome to a brand new track. so far i am sticking well to my plan of releasing one new song a month with the had we met in another life series.

i'll be honest though, this is track three, and i really don't have much beyond track four. i have a fifth track that's very rough, and i'm not sure ultimately whether it fits in. but i'm considering overhauling it... it could work. basically, i suppose this is going to be a short series. but i'm back in the mood to record a long piece, so ideas are starting to brew...

this new song, the third in this series, is called the closest thing to healing. it's a pretty raucous joint that i recorded over the past fourteen months. the idea was to produce a track that was upbeat and yet still slow-to-mid-tempo and moody. so i opted for a funkish, almost staccato bassline, and i did it live rather than using the midi. i wanted a loud, overdriven guitar line, which i achieved with the v-amp, tweaking the effects levels really high. just recently, i added the midi organ line and some vocal effects, and that gave the track the final touches it needed.

thematically, the lyrics follow in the same vein as the previous tracks...

the real treat here is that i shot a video for this track: a real time one take of me doing a pen & ink drawing to accompany the track, and then speeding it up double-time to match the rhythm and tempo of the song. it's a really simple video, but it gives me some great ideas for stop-motion stuff i could try.

this is the first video i've done for one of my solo tracks (excluding the Your First Lover material) since 2006ish. but i'm getting back into it (with better hardware and software now), so there will be more to come soon... expect a video for the next track too.

without further ado, the closest thing to healing music video:

download free high quality VBR mp3: the closest thing to healing

lyrics:
before what we call the modern age
when the new world was still young and unscathed
and our ancestors still lived in caves
before we ravaged and made each other slaves

it was the closest we came to healing
before we even opened the wound
once upon a time we had feelings
since we carved up this place, we’re all equally doomed

and you ask me if i even care
truthfully, i don’t even dare
it just hurts too much
it just hurts too much
it just hurts too much...

these plains were fertile once
before we faced off here with guns
i used to lie in the fields just to feel the breeze
now i lie with your body, hoping to freeze
now i lie with your body, hoping to freeze

and you ask me if i even care
truthfully, i don’t even dare
it just hurts too much
it just hurts too much
it just hurts too much
i don’t even dare
it just hurts too much...

and i still scream out to no one “you were wrong!”
still playing the blame game long after the swan song

but nothing will bring you back
nothing comes close to forgiving me for this attack
the closest we can get
is to carve our own headstones so we never forget

we were the harbingers of our own demise
we willingly believed our own lies
and you ask me why i don’t care
ask me the right question, i dare you

had we met... the title track

2010-02-10T18:59:00.003-05:00

this is it. bristling with raw emotion. the title track.

admission time here: i am such a huge secret self-critic. quite plainly, in my head, at least 70% of the time i am unhappy with just about all the music i produce. not usually so extremely unhappy that i hate it and think it sucks, and am totally disappointed with myself. but sometimes.

then every once in awhile i will listen to some of my older material, and feel a little bit proud, like i accomplished something original, creative, and enjoyable. i may not have a huge audience, but some people seem to genuinely like what i create, and i'm super happy about that. i cannot stress how happy that makes me (though there's still the whisper in the back of my head: do you really deserve praise for this?).

so, that said, any false modesty aside, this may be one of the best pieces i have composed to date. at least, i love it, i'm proud of it, i'm pleased with all the effort i put into it to make it turn out how it did. i like the words; they are a very true part of my life. i like the music; it is simple yet catchy, and easily adapts to an acoustic version. i like the production; i feel that i have come a long way in engineering and crafting my sound. i genuinely feel that this marks a progression in my songwriting: a turning point in the way i compose and produce new works.

i began composing had we met in another life - the title track - in march of 2009, around the same time i was beginning to compose the Incarnations series. it felt like a purging to get out. i still feel great whenever i pull out my guitar and play it. for some reason it feels really life-affirming. music definitely acts as a conduit for me to release (negative) energy, in a positive way.

this track felt easy to compose, despite being a long endeavour. it came naturally, without being forced, without feeling the need to complicate it by trying to make it more intricate in composition. instead i focused on crafting a nice sound around it with nuance of tone and effects, reverb and synth, using midi VSTs for faux-strings & bass (i recorded "real" bass tracks too), and a virtual amp to mold the electric guitar sounds. recorded, it took on a completely different mood than the simple, angular sparseness of playing it on an acoustic guitar, unaccompanied. so in a way, this track became as much an engineering project as a composition project for me, but i think that is a good thing for my development. and in this case, it worked to the benefit of the song... i put a lot of time and effort into it, going back and re-working it 'til it was just right.

so much quality effort went into this... right now i feel as though this may be my "flagship" song, so to speak...

what's the big deal? well, this song isn't really about any one person in particular. it means many different people to me, and more than that just the abstract concept of "what if...?" almost everyone on this over-populated world meets hundreds - if not thousands - of people in their lives, but only ever develops lasting, deep, intimate relationships with a select few. there are a handful of people in my life. and some of them are no longer around... passed away or gone separate ways. or maybe i am the one who is no longer around, right? it's about the maybe's, the what-if's, the nostalgia, the spilt milks, the wishes, the yearnings, and the dreams. make them come true, as many of them as you can... but don't sacrifice for them. recognize most the beauty and value of what you have, always, here and now.

enjoy the song.

download free high quality VBR mp3: had we met in another life

lyrics:
on the anniversary of your death
nothing much remarkable happened to me
i felt no immortal breath
no whisper of your presence, no sudden spirituality

too many years to count have passed me by
clear-cutting the memories like a bad disease
i stopped resisting it and i don’t know why
now i just do whatever i please...

had we met in another life
maybe the cliché simply wouldn’t apply
had we met before the dying age
maybe we would still be on the same page

on the anniversary of the day we met
nothing much happened that i want to talk about
i’m not gonna bore you by listing my regrets
one more crappy list that’s too long to count

i missed you horribly, and couldn’t wait to tell you
all about my dreams
i momentarily forgot, in the thick of it all,
that you were no longer here with me

am i the only one
who sees the irony here?
i should be the missing one
i’m the one with the fear

had we met in another life
i’d admit that you were right
right about everything
it wasn’t even worth the fight...

for the last time

2010-01-31T12:49:00.008-05:00

i promised that i would release a new track in january 2010, so here it is (on the last day of the month)!

this new song is entitled for the last time, and it begins the journey of the had we met in another life song-cycle.

i think that this will be a short song-cycle; perhaps only the four tracks so far completed to my satisfaction. it's not that i don't enjoy these songs, or haven't enjoyed working on them. quite the opposite. but i feel that they basically stand on their own, as cornerstones of one mini-composition (an EP, if you will), and they don't really need additional songs to complete the story.

in truth, i'm already working on exciting new things. this is how i work; multiple projects going at once.

so this track, for the last time, went through a variety of changes, including a title change, addition of extra stanzas after the originals were written, trying it out with different time signatures, etc. i find overall that the track is a bit loose and chaotic, and almost seeming like it is on the verge of falling apart at most points. but somehow i think it still retains a cohesive, rollicking rhythm. overall i'm happy with it.

it's dark and moody, of course. all of the tracks of this cycle are (at least a bit).

technically speaking, i accomplished this track through numerous iterations with different software: i believe i started the track with ableton to structure the 6/8 beat (a fake 6/8 beat, actually), and this was one of the first times i experimented doing vocals through ableton. i then dumped it to acid, built some more live and midi tracks, and then i think it went back to ableton again for tweaking, and back down to acid again for mastering and rendering. the overall effect is layered and dense, and washed out (i dunno, maybe my shoegazer roots showing through).

when i started working on this track, it was december 2008. so that's a long time for me to work on and/or sit on a new track... definitely a different experience for me to process. i hope you enjoy the song.

download free high quality VBR mp3: for the last time

lyrics:
your brown hair
like braided barbwire
serrated, hardwired
faded, far and too tired
you travelled a million miles
to watch it stain my skin

with my own blood pricked from within
my red and celibate twin

but i digress
and i trust you know the rest
the context is new
but the story is old
the words were stone true
before you turned so cold;

you are down there, down there
feeling so old
and quite the sight to behold

fingers flexed against the floor
carving your initials on the door
you painted yourself so poor
a portrait relevant no more
than i wanted to die...

but down on the frozen lake
where we spent our winter break
a solstice spread out like a dreamscape
you still wanted to escape
and i wanted only
to sustain the lie.

so i lie down in the snow
where the forgiving branches grow
and shield my eyes
from the white blinding light
far above the slow-moving bough
and cawing crow...

you made me this way
like a light-savings day;
falling back in time
to escape the crime
an hour for every
dour-faced lover i betrayed.

now enveloped by the ice and snow
i finally pay the penance i know
i deserve
your twin white curves
the last thing on my mind
when i leave this winter behind

for the last time
for the last time
these frozen lies i don’t describe
for the last time...

live @ zaphod's!

2010-01-09T15:35:00.003-05:00

folks, tonight i play live @ zaphod's! 27 york st., ottawa, doors @ 8p.m. $6.

i will be premiering some new material, including the "title track" of this blog's namesake, had we met in another life. i will also be performing some of the Incarnations. it will be badass.

get there early, as i am the opening act. on after me is Julia Set Generator, and then Owel Five & Corboe. you may remember if you have been following the Incarnations, Owel Five collaborated with me on Incarnation 1.13: A Pox On Both Our Houses.

it's gonna be a fun night, folks. come check out the noise.

and watch for new songs available here very soon!

before what we call "the modern age"

2009-11-18T20:51:00.010-05:00

so, a couple weeks ago i created this new blog and announced that i am working on a brand new album (named the same as the blog).

i should elaborate and clarify.

in the true and traditional sense of the words, what i am creating is neither new nor an album.

i conceived of the idea for Had We Met In Another Life about a year ago, near the end of 2008, and that is when i started writing and recording the songs that will comprise this song cycle.

at the time, i was coming out of the tail end of a two year post-traumatic depression that i spiralled into after my uncle's death. i had already written an ep in his honour (old habits die hard), and it had been quite a cathartic experience for me.

the notion came to me that i should create a somewhat less-depressing masterpiece in honour of my uncle, perhaps something with an almost fantasy/sci-fi bent. thus was born Had We Met In Another Life.

what was the idea behind the title? well, i don't have theistic views or much spirituality, so death is a difficult thing to fathom and accept and not be fearful of. so to me, the concept of knowing or meeting someone in another life is a purely fictitious / speculative / fantastical idea; no place in the realm of reality. but therein lies the inherent fun. fiction storytelling is one of the things i do well in my music. i thought of all the people in my life whom i love and care about, and wondered "what if...?"

what if we could travel through time, or exist temporally non-linear? what if there are parallel universes or alternate realities, and our co-existences and interactions are ever-so-slightly different in those realities than in the one we know? what if our lives are a causal loop that we keep repeating like a tape reel rewound? is it always the same? are there subtle variation? or huge differences? questions like this have been the cornerstone of great fictitious myths, legends, and tales since the dawn of time. i wanted to explore the idea with a sequence of songs.

excited by this new concept album idea, i began writing and recording new material at an almost frantic pace. in a couple of months i had sketched out the basics of five new songs.

and then sometime in january of this year, i hit the proverbial brick wall; the musical writer's block. it wasn't that i didn't feel creative or couldn't write songs. all the creative juices were still flowing, but i felt like my style was stagnating. i wanted to progress beyond the sound of my previous body of work, and not be bound by the same genres, production value, and aesthetic that i had stuck to for so many years (i think this feeling was partly due to my xmas 2008 acquisition of a midi keyboard; a wonderfully valuable tool in my musical arsenal).

i effectively shelved Had We Met In Another Life, in favour of an exciting new project, Incarnations: the compliment before the original; the answer before the question. Incarnations was meant to be the sister album that was never really an album. written and recorded quickly, singularly, and released track-by-track (instead of all at once), exclusively on the internet, it was everything a traditional album was not. it allowed me to break out of my shell, and create a lot of compositions that were very different and challenging, and extremely fulfilling to produce. i truly think that writing and producing Incarnations changed the way i approach music, and perhaps even made me a better, more accomplished composer.

hence why i have chosen now to return to Had We Met In Another Life, and release it not as a traditional album, but rather in the same fashion as Incarnations (if a little more slow and measured, and perhaps slightly less ambitious).

i have started remixing the original five tracks, and laid out a rough tracklist with three more tracks, for a total of eight new songs. this is, of course, less than the twenty Incarnations (two more still to come before the end of the year), but the songs will be longer and more involved, hopefully more lush and orchestral without getting too busy.

like i did with Incarnations, i will release one track at a time, approximately one every month or month and a half. i hope to make a couple of videos for this song cycle too.

when the Had We Met In Another Life / Incarnations project is finally complete, i think i would like to cut a CD of Had We Met... with a bonus zipped up mp3 version of Incarnations on the CD, so i can distribute the two "albums" together, as they are meant to be.

in all likelihood, the first track to be released for the Had We Met... song cycle will be "For The Last Time"; a rollicking, waltzy, bittersweet ballad about love lost to death. watch for it to appear here in january 2010...

had we met before the dying age, maybe we would still be on the same page

2009-11-02T19:49:00.002-05:00

this is a brand new blog, this is the first entry, to formally announce that i have a new solo album in the works, to be released in 2010. i have not released a proper full-length album since 2007, having focused since then on shorter ep concepts, and my Incarnations project under the moniker Your First Lover.

so the title of the blog should make it obvious: that is also the title of the new album.

Had We Met In Another Life

i want to do something different in the methodology of chronicling this musical journey; a true contrast to Incarnations. i want to present a personal and autobiographical account of the process of recording this new album, and then let the story speak for itself.

with Incarnations, i purposely constructed a third-person stance as a formal storyteller, with no direct personal attachment to the content or the audience. i removed my own persona from the blog, in favour of presenting fictitious allegories. these stories are almost complete now, and i am very happy with them. i am also pleased that there will be videos to go with some of these compositions, likely also sometime in 2010.

i hope for Had We Met In Another Life to be a good counterpoint for Incarnations.

thus far i have five new tracks mostly completed. i'm really pleased with the way these new tunes are shaping up so far.