All of this points towards something I started giving serious thought to during the Den of Maniacs recording process: I really should narrow my focus more on my albums (if not in general, though that’s not going to happen!). I would like to gain a bigger fanbase, be able to tour, be able to build a better studio, hire more musicians, and, of course, sell more tickets/music. Reviews like the following (from the Phantom Tollbooth) underscore the benefits of a narrower, and perhaps simpler approach, at least in some of my work (I’ve also been getting even more urging than usual from industry types to keep my style but simplify the music so they can work with me):

——————–

Once again, we get the slightly askew brilliance of Dan Wallace on Den of Maniacs, a project sure to delight some and to confuse others…

The fourth outing by Dan Wallace, Den of Maniacs, reinforces the artist’s steadfast dedication to his particular vision – his Culture of Self, if you will (to borrow the phrase from a previous album). Possessing all of the tools needed for crossover success -– the ability to write songs with hooks, a flexible vocal range, and all of the required rock and roll musical chops – Wallace instead walks a musical road less traveled, and a bizarrely picturesque road it is.

In somewhat of a surprise move, Wallace starts the album off with one of the most immediately accessible tracks he’s ever done –- the hard-rock (mock-rock?) “Look at Me,” which asks, “hey you there look at me / tell me, tell me, help me – tell me what you see / am i the same man i used to be? different, changed, or in between? / am i soft now or too extreme? / tell me tell me help me tell me what you see…” The song seems to give the average rock & roll consumer what he wants to hear on a surface level while at the same time asking why he wants to hear it – Wallace shows us, for the moment, a rock star persona with thundering drums, pounding bass and fiery guitar solos, all supporting questions posed in his Ray Collins style falsetto vocal, as if to illustrate the fact that all might not be exactly as it seems.

The rock star facade falls away with the second track, where we begin to hear more typically adventurous music with the sweetly macabre sounding “Go Away,” a rock carnival waltz featuring some complex guitar work under wonderfully-arranged vocal melody and back-up harmony interplay.

Wallace has a distinctive sound, primarily featuring a variety of keyboard effects, his wonderful guitar playing, compositions that are irresistibly melodic and full of surprising twists and turns, and his immediately identifiable vocals. A multi-instrumentalist, Wallace essentially plays everything you hear on the album, with a brief assist from George Lawler on drums (“Look at Me,” and “Go Away”) and Emanuel Ban on violin (“ Vante Left Them Human” and “Fell”).

To say that this music is unusual would be an understatement. “Spiders in Heaven” starts out sounding like Django and The Hot Club of France in Dante’s Inferno, “Fell (For two Musicians and a Computer)” ends up with a Sufjan Stevens-like crescendo, and the wonderfully complex “I Want to Be (Ensemble Version)” is, in parts, reminiscent of Frank Zappa’s Uncle Meat. Keeping those comparisons in mind, the fact that Wallace occasionally seems to channel Brian Wilson (perhaps a _demented_ Brian Wilson – or is that redundant?) is quite interesting (one track actually starts with the words, “God only knows…”).

Lyrically, Wallace is fairly obscure, but always compelling, writing in a poetic form more often than creating a linear narrative – from “Fever,” the last song on the CD:

what’s one more dusty faith clutched closer in the maze

whose walls are portrait lined?

it’s not fine, it’s a fever spreading like tar

it’s a fever dripping down from above …

Always interesting, sometimes challenging, undeniably memorable, Den of Maniacs shows Dan Wallace in a slightly more accessible mode, but still as intriguing as ever. You don’t have to be a maniac to like this, but it helps.

- Bert Saraco

——————–

It’s a nice review, to be sure (I always appreciate the thought and detail Saraco puts into his reviews, and he’s always been supportive of my albums), though I can’t help but wonder where I might be able to take my work (and career) were I to remove the confusion element, at least for an album or two. Time will tell, as my plan is to focus my next few albums stylistically, as well as to include some simpler songs. To be clear, I don’t plan on doing anything that doesn’t excite me at an emotional level. Quite the contrary, I’ve done four albums of a certain kind of material (and have a fifth already composed), and am ready to venture into new territory, perhaps as a result of reducing and thoroughly exploring specific facets of my musical personality within the context of a cohesively sequenced album. Or not hahah. Who friggin knows how this stuff works?

The official release date for my new album, DEN OF MANIACS, has been confirmed as March 23, 2010. In the meanwhile, here are two free mp3s and the album cover (left-click to listen, right-click to save):

Look at Me (link no longer available)
(in which I improvise a lot of electric guitar solos as a means of coping with
increasingly colorful existential quandaries)

Go Away (link no longer available)
(a 6/8 response to a famous song by Jacques Brel)

Order DEN OF MANIACS today at Amazon.com.

To read lyrics, go here.

Click here to read a previous blog post that has more info about the album (including track listing).

The cover art, featuring me and Jonathan Arron Taylor, was done by Vesna Jovanovic with the assistance of Pawel Mlynarczyk. The drums on the above tracks were performed by George Lawler.

The truth is that I wasn’t expecting to release an album this year, due to extreme busyness. But DEN OF MANIACS just kind of happened. I ended up with recordings of ten songs I could call an “album,” and there you have it. I intended to release it several months ago, but decided to sit on it for Jan/Feb 2010 to give me the full year to promote it, which I’m really excited to get started on! The songs are:

1. Look at Me
2. Go Away
3. Vante Left Them Human (Revamped)
4. Take it Back
5. Morceau
6. The Gift
7. Spiders in Heaven
8. I Want to Be (Ensemble Edition)
9. Fell (For Two Musicians and a Computer)
10. Fever

I think that’s the order. So, what do we notice here? Three “imperative” titles in the first half (not sure if that means anything…). Also, there are three songs here that have appeared on past albums: “Vante Left Them Human” is a studio version of an arrangement I made for a live-in-studio video about a year ago with Emanuel Ban on violin (and yes, “Revamped” is a pun). “I Want to Be” appeared on CULTURE OF SELF as a piano/vocal (Robin Morgan) arrangement. I’m singing on this version, and have composed a new middle section. Finally, this new arrangement of “Fell” is close to what I’ve been doing live recently, with the addition of Emmanuel on violin.

I really love this album because many of the songs have a story for me… perhaps I’ll post a blog talking a little about each song once the album is out. I enjoy the music itself too, especially if I’ve had a couple of dirty martinis to help me loosen up and get out of the critical mode. The “critical mode” is more about recording issues than music issues, really. Maybe I should call it the “technical mode.” Anyway, I hope listeners enjoy it sober (or however they like to listen) as much as I enjoy it after a couple of cocktails

Now that this album is done, I’ll be working here and there on some new compositions that are a bit different from what I’ve done on the last few albums (or at least focus on an aspect of my musical personality that has been less emphasized in recent years). These new sounds (mostly instrumental forays with a few songs thrown in) have been largely inspired by the work I did earlier this year on a film for Adam Payne, and will actually include some of the stuff I did for that film (it’s called Damn Dirty Hippies). That’ll be a side project I’ll work on while making some more videos (live-in-studio as well as for the album) and working out a new live set. I also plan to get much more active with this blog. Then, in 2011, I have another album already written that I’ll get started on recording. More on that then.

Finally, because no blog post is as interesting without a pop culture reference with accompanying image: I missed Inglorious Basterds in the theaters, but look forward to seeing it on DVD.

New Music Updates

First of all, I’m nearing completion of the new album. This is something I’ve been working on here and there over the last few months (and I got a couple of songs done during summer school!). I’m planning to release it in January, possibly with a single during the winter holiday season.

Also, I’ve resumed work on a string quartet I started a couple of months ago, and plan to soon resume composition lessons with Patricia Morehead (I have some exercises and the string quartet to finish before the next lesson). My plan is to finally get my degree (masters, possibly doctorate) in music composition. Partly because there are some ideas I think it’ll help me pursue, such as this opera-like movie thing I’ve been sketching ideas for… more on that later.

Another thing still in the works is music for the latest movie by Adam Payne’s latest movie, which has picked back up. Hope to have that done soon as well.

Arnold Schoenberg’s Theory of Harmony and Other Texts, a.k.a. Learning Is Fun!

I also need to finish studying Arnold Schoenberg’s Theory of Harmony, a wonderfully longwinded book that is more of a philosophical inquiry into the nature and development (or nurture, perhaps) of western tertiary harmony within the context of an increasingly modernist musical climate than it is a treatise on how to compose. In other words, I wouldn’t recommend it for newcomers to harmonic theory (Walter Piston’s book would be better for that, especially for the autodidact).

After Theory of Harmony, I have a few other great books to finish up, which I may or may not mention here again at some point: Story by Robert McKee, The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, The Art Question by Nigel Warburton, and 20th Century Harmony by Vincent Persichetti.

Let the Right One In

Also this summer I saw the movie and read the novel Let the Right One In (or, originally: Låt den rätte komma in). Fantastic!! I especially loved the movie, the screenplay for which was written by the same guy who wrote the book, John Ajvide Lindqvist. The movie was directed by Tomas Alfredson. The cinematography (by Hoyte Van Hoytema… cool name… like if I were Dante Van Dantema) is gorgeous, and the sound design (by “Sound Department”, heh heh) is some of the best I’ve ever heard in a movie, ever.

It’s an oversimplification to call it a vampire story… I’ll just add that the vampire in question was turned at the age of about 12 (awesomely portrayed by Lina Leandersson), and that there are archetypal themes explored for which the setting of the film provides a backdrop and context. Most of these themes deal with relationships between children, and children and adults, but with a twist, considering that one of the children is about 200 years old. Also, I liked what the Onion AV Club said: “…the film makes it impossible to judge whether we’re watching tender scenes of puppy love or unholy union.”

Also, note that the DVD I watched has the controversial (reportedly cheaper to produce) “dumbed-down” subtitles. Here’s the statement on that from Magnet Releasing (Magnolia Pictures DVD distribution arm:)

“We’ve been made aware that there are several fans that don’t like the version of the subtitles on the DVD/BR. We had an alternate translation that we went with. Obviously a lot of fans thought we should have stuck with the original theatrical version. We are listening to the fans feedback, and going forward we will be manufacturing the discs with the subtitles from the theatrical version.”

I’ll be waiting for the new DVD’s to come out before purchasing, which will indicate: “SUBTITLES: ENGLISH (Theatrical), SPANISH.”

Oh, and one more thought, regarding the novel vs. the movie: I saw the movie first. I enjoyed the book quite a lot and can recommend it, but recommend seeing the movie first because it leaves a lot of questions unanswered. I enjoyed contemplating those questions as a viewer. If I’d read the book, I’d have known too much. Also, the book still has plenty of surprises after seeing the movie, but not vice versa. When reading the book, I was still able to keep my personal version of the story in my head as a sort of alternate telling which I could now re-watch the movie in order to experience.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel

Speaking of the Onion AV Club (and, I guess, vampires), Noel Murray has been blogging in bursts about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and – now that he’s up to Season 4 – has added a bit of Angel into the mix. It’s an insightful, candid, entertaining, and interactive (thanks to the comments section) series of writings that any Buffy fan should enjoy.

Pandora: The Music Genome Project

Next up in Dan News: Pandora. They have included Reattachment in their library, aka “The Music Genome Project”. They opted not to include my first two albums, however. While I feel that this is an error and a loss to them, it does at least show that they are being picky and applying a strict filtering process (at least with un-ubiquitously hyped acts) in an age where anybody with a computer can get their music up at iTunes and and the like. Speaking of which, I’ve noticed a spike in sales lately. Could this be related to Pandora? I don’t know, but thank you to whomever out there is buying, and thank you slowly improving economy!

Anywayz, cliquez sur this link to head on over to Pandora and make a Dan Wallace Station: www.pandora.com/music/artist/dan+wallace

Vesna Jovanovic: Pareidolia

Finally, but far from leastily, my partner Vesna Jovanovic recently had another great exhibition opening reception. This one was held last Friday at the International Museum of Surgical Sciences and was a blast, with loads of interesting people in attendance. The work on display is a series of drawings entitled Pareidolia, which you can learn more about at Vesna’s website: www.vesnaonline.com/news.html . The show runs from 7/31/09 to 10/16/09.

That’s the update, more to come…

Fell (Acoustic-Electronica-Shredder Version) (link no longer available)

This is inspired by how I perform it in my live solo set, which includes a few guitars and a laptop. In this version there’s also some violin (performed by Emanuel Ban). Enjoy and, as always, feel free to share.

More updates coming very soon…

To listen, left-click; to download the MP3, right-click (or use the music player in the right side-bar): I Want to Be (no longer available)

It originally appeared on my 2007 album Culture of Self with a very different arrangement, vibe and singer.  The vocalist on that version was an opera singer who used to work in the exact same job I’m at now, at the same desk and everything. This updated version is sung by me, and has a whole new instrumental middle section.  Enjoy and share :)