I just finished my second CD. It will be an E.P. that will include among other things my rendition of Genesis' Second Home By the Sea. In a sense, the CD is a continuation of the last project. The main different is that it is mostly original material. The name of the CD is "Strangers in Strange Places". It will have two of my own compositions plus the Genesis song.
If you are familiar with my other CD "Plays Genesis & Other Original Stuff" you'll get the idea of the new one. In approaching the Genesis song, I wanted to keep it close to the original but with a few twists in the arrangements. Almost as if it were more of an "alternate" version than anything else. In part because it is difficult to make it sound good once you remove the electric drum kit sound of it. I was first inclined to recorded with a more conventional drum sound but it sounded strange. I felt the song is in a way, is very driven by the percussion and therefore I tried my best to get the "Simmons" drum sound back into it.
Since the song deals with ghosts living within the walls of a house by the ocean, I added a few of my own special effects like the sound of the ocean as well as some very interesting "ghostly sounds" here and there throughout the recording, (you'll need headphones to really appreciate those backing tracks). Since the other material is all instrumental, I decided to keep it that way and changed the usual vocal part with an original guitar solo. I'm very pleased with the result and I hope that all of you who will take the time listening to it, will enjoy it just as much.
The EP will also include a song titled "Strange Places". For this song I got a couple of music legends to contribute to it. Bill Bruford on the drum tracks and John Goodsall on guitars. Both played together a long time ago in Brand-X.
The last song is an extended version of the last song form my previous album. There was some remixing and some new recording added to it. The end result is an instrumental of around seven or eight minutes that make a great transition between the other songs in the CD. As of this writing, the material is over at Abbey Road studios being mastered. So far, we are on track for an October release.
There is a sample of "Strange Places" in the player of my myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/leonalvaradoplaysmusic