eclectica four

Released August 1, 2012
9 Tracks
All compositions by Craig Delahoy
Available on

and Amazon

Composed, performed and recorded using Apple Logic Pro (except *).

This one took a fair bit longer than I'd planned. But I did actually put in some more time on most of the individual tracks on this album, and I'm hoping the effort shows. Nevertheless, there were a number of problems plaguing this one, so I'm kind of happy to see it completed.

Another note to Apple: I was really looking forward to saying that I'd written and recorded an entire track on an ipad using GarageBand. Here's hoping you can get the bugs out of that great app - then maybe I can say it on my next album.

1	Le chat noir	4:03	I've been to Paris, it remains one of my favourite places in the world, but I'm a little over a hundred years late to get to the famous nightclub Le chat noir. However I did see posters and other advertising for it (well, okay, probably the new hotel, or maybe the cafe) while I was there, and I just liked the name. I like to think that if the cabaret ghosts were to ever hear this track that they'd like it and feel it quite complimentary. I look forward to asking them some time ... ;-)
2	Ceux qui sont morts (Opening theme / Sarah's theme / End titles)	8:20	Around the time eclectica three was released (around July 2011) I was contacted by some people I knew that were working on a web TV series. They were in need of someone that could write an original theme and some incidental music for the show. They said they liked my style, my use of melody and my classical training. I wrote up a quick idea for a theme that was far too John Williams, but they liked it enough to give me some notes for changes. I made all the changes exactly to their spec which effectively created a brand new piece, and then expanded the love theme from my original piece into a broader love theme for the main female character. I didn't have a chance to properly produce, mix or master the tracks, but I sent the production team the early outlines - and never heard from them again. The show went ahead and was completed, with, I assume (I've never watched the program), a different composer (which is fine) - but I was a bit miffed that they chose not to speak to me at all about all the work I'd done on spec. I mean, I get that they might not like my music, or may prefer someone else's over mine, but I'm a big boy and I prefer that people tell me rather than ignore or avoid me. Not to be put off, I took the new theme, took the love theme, then created an end title sequence as well, and put them all together (properly produced, mixed and mastered) into this rather expansive track. Technically, that makes this the first track on this album that I recorded, even though it wasn't originally meant to be that way. Last I heard, the web TV show didn't make it to episode two, but the experience hasn't totally soured me, and I remain available to any other producers in need of screen music!! :-)
3	One vodka too many	5:01	I really, really, really wanted to try something a little bit different and unexpected. I usually try do to at least one ethnically-inspired track per album. This time i decided I'd like to try something that was kind of "Zorba meets oom-pa-pa", just for a bit of fun. The song is a mini-story (which is pretty much told in the title).
4	Nitrogene *	4:37	I'd used my ipad before to generate bits of music, but never a whole track. With a recent upgrade to GarageBand for ipad I thought I'd give it a go. Big mistake. I was ready for some limitations, but the moment I started the eightth track in GarageBand it became unstable. Eventually it crashed and i was unable to restart it or to recover the song I'd just about finished. Everything was lost. I persisted, and started the song again from scratch, but this time I saved and exported it multiple times. Sure enough, the moment I started using an eightth track it began to play up. Thank god I was saving it. I managed to load the most recent save into GarageBand on my Mac so I could export the finished song and master it in Logic. This is the result of a process that was both rewarding and frustrating. I hope Apple fixes GarageBand for ipad, because I still like the idea of writing and recording a song entirely on my ipad.
5	Discovery on Io	5:03	I enjoy dramatic music that gives you an emotional impression of something. That's possibly one of the reasons I enjoy the classical music that I do, and I've always wished I had the talent to create something similar. I've had something classical or atmospheric on every album, so this was a predictable inclusion.
6	Blue-eyed loser	4:52	Every album except my first has included a song I wrote many, many years ago. This is another, written when I was in my late teens. It's a little bit blues, a little bit rock, and (as it turned out) just a little bit more rockabilly or bluegrass than I'd expected. It's a bit of fun, and one day I'd love to do it live. Recording, mixing and mastering a more "live" track like this one was quite a challenging learning experience for me.
7	Phlange	5:19	Another bouncy, tap your foot kind of track. This was actually the first track I wrote and recorded specifically for this album.
8	Moonsong *	4:10	After listening to all the tracks that I'd so far compiled for this album I decided I needed just one more track, and I decided it should be a softer, melodic love song - because every album should have at least one love song, right? Despite my problems writing Nitrogene on the iPad, I bit the bullet and gave it another go. Again, I made sure I was saving and exporting the song at every opportunity in case GarageBand played up again. Sure enough it started showing problems, so I bumped this one over the GarageBand on the Mac to finish it. Mixed and mastered in Logic again.
9	Parsonesque	7:12	Playing around as I usually do I popped up with this one. I quite enjoy it, and I like the way it reminds me of the style of the Alan Parsons Project (hence the name). I generally like to finish each album with something more bouncy and so this was an obvious choice for a closer.