1. Arrival in a Distant Land

Here is my piano tracking video for Interior City‘s opening track, ‘Arrival in a Distant Land’:

Read the lyrics to ‘Arrival in a Distant Land’.

Lyrics: It begins shortly after birth, with the slow dawning of a person’s awareness and the development of their memory. Like most people, the main character in this story cannot remember his birth. He instead has a vague sense of where he came from before he was born and has a strong desire to go back to that place, as he is horrified by this world and finds it a terrifying and disturbing place to live.

Music: This song tries to answer the question ‘What if George Crumb were a singer-songwriter instead of a contemporary classical composer?’  It was inspired by his ‘Eine kleine Mitternachtmusik (Ruminations on Monk’s Round Midnight)’ (2) (3), particularly the ‘Incantation’ movement, as well as the first movement of Olivier Messiaen’s ‘Visions De L’Amen’, the ‘Amen du Creation’ (you can hear Messiaen’s Nightingale call in ‘Arrival’). However, both of those works are meticulously composed instrumental pieces, while this is a semi-improvisational vocal song, different in every performance.  It obsesses over part of a chord progression which returns in the middle of the album and is completed at the end.

Piano sessions: The piano tracking sessions for Interior City took place in the second week of January 2012. The piano was the only instrument not tracked at Garrett Davis’s West Main Recording, as Garrett does not have a working piano in his studio. We ended up having to relocate and bring all of Garrett’s gear to Salisbury University’s nearby Gull Works Studios to use their Yamaha C7 Grand Piano.

Unfortunately, the camera containing all of the violin, guitar, bass, and saxophone sessions as well as half of the piano sessions and most of the vocal sessions was lost or stolen, so I could not include any footage of the vocal takes in this video – nor will I able to do a complete piano tracking video series for this album.

Recording this song: The studio version of the song as shown in this video is last of 3 continuous takes – if there is any interest, I can upload the first two for comparison purposes. Each take is quite different, as the right-hand piano parts in the solo piano introduction and outro are completely improvised. Each take ended up being slower and longer than the last as I got further into the mindset of the song, with the last take being the slowest and longest. A song that had been only five and a half minutes long in my original demo became nearly seven in the final studio version due to the slower pace. I was unaccustomed to singing the vocal parts this slowly, and it caught me off guard in the studio and proved to be quite difficult.

I apologize that the camera angle obscures some of what I’m playing inside the piano – this was tracked at the end of a long day of piano recording, and I forgot to adjust the camera to account for the extended techniques.

Early Solo Live Performances: This song has been performed twice so far in solo performances by Gabriel Riccio. The debut live performance was at the 3rd Annual Swarthmore College Student and Alumni Composers Concert in Lang Concert Hall, Swarthmore, PA on November 10, 2012, while the second performance took place at the third concert of the 11th Annual Festival of Contemporary Music at the Community Music Center in San Francisco, CA on August 17, 2013. Both performances can be heard and downloaded below:

Garmonbozia: In 2014, Sophia Uddin and I began recording as a violin/electric piano improvisational duo named Garmonbozia. In our first session, we tried recording versions of ‘Arrival in a Distant Land’ and ‘My Alien Father’ in the Garmonbozia style. While the latter didn’t quite work, the former ended up defining how we approached that song live with a full band (a different approach was required for live performances with an electronic keyboard, as I was unable to replicate the way I play inside the piano when performing it acoustically). You can hear our studio rendition of the song here and two live renditions here – one as a duo, and another as a trio with Matt Tate of Pavlov(3).

Band Performances: Videos of the first 3 performances of this track by The Gabriel Construct live band can be found in this post.

Interior City – 4/5/13

album_coverThe Gabriel Construct’s debut album, Interior City, was released on April 5, 2013!  It is a dark and atmospheric concept album written and performed by Gabriel Riccio and featuring Travis Orbin (ex-Periphery, Sky Eats Airplane, Of Legends) on drums, Thomas Murphy (ex-Periphery) on bass, David Stivelman (ex-Debbie Does Dallas) on guitar, Soren Larson on saxophone, and frequent collaborator Sophia Uddin on violin.  It was engineered by Garrett Davis (Train, Shinedown, The Devil Wears Prada) and was mixed and mastered by Taylor Larson (Periphery, Sky Eats Airplane, Life on Repeat).

The album unites players from rock, metal, classical, and jazz backgrounds to create a sound which incorporates influences from a wide variety of genres, including progressive rock, 20th century classical music, extreme metal, and more. The album’s densely layered vocal harmonies, distorted pianos, dissonant chords, and complex rhythms envelop the listener in a hallucinatory wall of sound.

Just as the music of ‘Interior City’ attempts to overcome the limitations of genre boundaries, the album’s concept is concerned with overcoming the mental programming which holds each of us back. It is a story about paranoia and escapism, based on a simple idea: in a society which respects nothing, every individual learns that they are not worthy of respect. The album follows one person’s tumultuous journey to regain their self respect and their ability to fully engage with the world around them, in the process revealing the darkest thoughts that drive society as a whole.

Gabriel wanted “to create a work which encourages people to live with respect and compassion, both for the world around them and for themselves. In an increasingly globalized world, it is more important than ever to recognize how our actions and lifestyles affect others.” With ‘Interior City’, he has musically documented his personal journey towards manifesting that compassion.

Interior City is now available for purchase at:
Bandcamp (Physical, digital, full stream)
CD Baby (Physical, digital)
Amazon.com / Amazon MP3
Amazon.co.uk / Amazon UK MP3

More can be found on the Stores page.

The cover art was painted by Joseph Borzotta. His mission statement for his paintings reveals why he was the right artist for Interior City:

Many of these images explore peoples’ relation to society and themselves. How connected are they to what is happening around them, or right on top of them? The paintings are a visual exploration into existentialism – analyzing existence and the freedom, responsibility and isolation of the individual. Are they in environments that they created, or are forced to live in?”

Check out Travis Orbin’s thoughts on the Interior City sessions:

My involvement in this full-length album came about through an old friend from my local music scene, Garrett Davis, who has long since turned to producing/engineering. He told me about this guy who “might need some crazy drums” for his solo project, and within a couple of months I was writing parts for one of my favorite projects ever. I also helped round out the personnel, acting as a bit of a scout for Gabe and suggesting Tom as session bassist and, of course, my bud Taylor Larson for mixing/mastering.

I recorded all of ‘Interior City’ in early January 2012 at Garrett’s digs (West Main Recording) in Salisbury, MD. I used a wide variety of gear, switching out cymbals and snares — and even my rack tom for another floor tom on occasion — per tune. I also utilized a second ride cymbal on my right side. For the most part, however, I used my Pearl Reference Pure tom-toms and my Vision kick. I used Emperor coated heads on the toms, Controlled Sound on my brass snare and a coated Ambassador on the piccolo snare (stock head). Side note, but this was the first session I ever filmed supplemented with my Canon 60D.

Obviously, a part of being in the music business is developing relationships that are integral to your career. However, in my experience, most of the people with whom I work end up as friends, for contributing to their music is a unique, intimate experience. I’m proud to call Gabe, a fiercely talented individual, my friend and to continue to work with him on future projects – both as a sideman and a full-on collaborator. Dear audience, please heed these words: you’d do yourself a service by purchasing this album upon release, finding some headphones and a quiet room and relishing the journey.

Reviews:
Abort Magazine
Absolute Punk
AltProgCore
antiMusic
Babyblaue Prog-Reviews
The Big Takeover
Can This Even Be Called Music?
Culture Catch
Dangerdog Music Reviews
Dutch Progressive Rock Page
Echoes and Dust
Empire of the Sky
Follow the Signal
Heavy Blog is Heavy
Huffington Post
I Am Entertainment
Inanna Naked
Instantfilter
Lords of Metal E-Zine
Manifesto Music
Metal for Music Majors
MetalSucks
Middle Tennessee Music
Monolith Sound
Music Emissions
Music News
Music Street Journal
Musikreviews.de
Music Waves
Obscure Sound
Prog Archives
Prog Rock Music Talk
Progulator
Progshine
Rate Your Music
Red House Reviews
Rhythm and Truth
Rocking Republic
I Rock Therefore I Am
Rock World Magazine
Sea of Tranquility
Skope Magazine
Soletron
Sputnik Music
The Aardvark
The Pulp Scribbler
The Truth About Music
This Is Not A Scene
Two Guys Metal Reviews
Under the Gun
Universum Noll
Unknown Metal Bands
Urban Alternative
Vents Magazine

Interviews:
Delmarva Daily Times
Lords of Metal E-Zine
Music Street Journal
Musikreviews.de
Pen’s Eye View
Progulator
Under the Gun
Vents Magazine
Warped Magazine

Stream ‘Interior City’: