Background
Over the course of my songwriting career I have written a series of numbered songs all named Mood # 1, Mood # 2 etc.
I now have 12 such pieces of music, yet only a handful have appeared on CD as released entities.
Anyway, I was asked the other day why this was the case. Why didn’t the Moods add up? Well, this little article is going to explain all that and more!
First, the “Moods” in full
For those of you just getting into the band and wondering WTF is he on about, the table below lists all my Moods and where they are:
| Mood | Album | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Mood #1 | Natural Instinct | Yes |
| Mood #2 | Unreleased | No |
| Mood #3 | Blinded by Time | No |
| Mood #4 | Unreleased | No |
| Mood #5 | Unreleased | No |
| Mood #6 | Unreleased | No |
| Mood #7 | Unreleased | No |
| Mood #8 | Palindrome | Yes |
| Mood #9 | Vignettes EP | Yes |
| Mood #10 | Too Many Goodbyes | Yes |
| Mood #11 | Enraptured EP | Yes |
| Mood #12 | Unreleased | Yes |
As can be seen, only 7 of the 12 Moods have been made commercially available. So what gives?
The Moody Rationale
Many years ago, when I first began to compose, I thought it would be great to:
build a body of work that is separated by time and ability until it reached the point where there was at least one albums worth of material. And in the meantime, if a Mood fitted the concept of an album that was being worked on, it could be used. If it didn’t, then it wouldn’t.
Well, I now find myself in the position of having 12 such Moods – a whole album. I have reached the point where there can be no more Moods.
A Mood free Future
So, the plan, after completing the Architect of Light remix / remaster and the new studio album, is to release an album of all 12 moods re-recorded (so that the cohesion that wouldn’t be there with songs of such age and recording differentiations, er, is) + a companion album of the original 12 recordings . . . . . from bare-bones basic acoustic guitar demos right up to full band workouts.
I may even do it as one free Mood per month for a whole year before compiling them into one album. Who knows!
I think it would make a fascinating little project to listen to as well as a closing of the circle.
What do you think?