released October 16, 2020

"Orchards of Churchyard Departures"...

This record is a collection of "monochromatic tone poems" I began sketching 2 years ago. Very impressionistic. Reaching ever so far back into my beginnings of studying the amazing composers of the baroque period and beyond into the 20th century. All through my early teens I would spend what seems like endless beautiful evenings at my public library reading many books and materials on these composers, then following down the path to the AV department to listen to records and tapes of these works. I would pick pieces and create etudes of what emerged to be my personal favorite sections of those compositions. I would then develop an unorthodox system of blending and melding many composers movements into something that would flow naturally from my instrument. It was an equally challenging and liberating way to learn and find personal freedom in form of music.

Even in my earliest days of composing for magnetic tape, I have always wanted my music to sound and feel the same ways in which 16MM film looks and sounds. The marriage of image and sound of that medium seemed to open another somehow, esoteric portal into the creative, composing mind. I am hopeful some of the recording techniques I have incorporated into the making of this album will express that inspiration. The great wish of an old soul who searches to constantly move forward in their own way of the wilderness.

Ever since I was my daughters age, I had dream after dream of doing a record of orchestrations only using the Hammond Organ & Mellotron. Even then, I had wondered why no one had done it. Especially one that was done in someone's home or church. There's nothing like making a record in your home. Only you, your music, your instruments and tape recorders. There is a sort of ghost that evokes through the machines in process with the muse. It's something very timeless and personal. An exploration of the back woods in your creative spirits. All of the many spirits that take flight through the smoke of morning campfires, the autumn perfumes of evening, and the passengers of time that haunt the surrounding rivers and streams. No matter which transportation in time and space, we are all searching for the path of least resistance. For me, all of these elements find their way into the root systems and thatch-work of my music. I very much wanted to work with these colors and the broad strokes they inspire...

I am an October daughter, and so I feel its colors so deeply through harmonic convergence. When the dense shields of summer begin to dissolve into the harvest of autumn, I can see so clearly into some efflorescence of my own inspirations of music and its art. There is something so special in the clockwork of this time of the season. It offers us a glimpse of a wider view of the soul. How we as travelers of this life, change and yet remain to attain these threads of our sacred self. The very essence of the process of music for me.
I am so grateful when the eclipse of this season aligns with the runes I etch to ask for the gifts of creation. Just to ride it, to see it's transluecence reflecting from the whispering pines. I really have very little to do with the music other than I am witnessing the miraculousness of the music and sound myself as it unravels into an open flowing form. I love the process so much. There's always so much to learn and to appreciate with each time I get the chance to take flight with it. I'm forever in wonder of it. A student of it's prisms of design.
As time goes, I just try to keep well out of the way of it. I want to witness it more than ever claim it...

In conclusion, this is an oratorio for my son, Xenakis.
What a special gift I was given when he came into my life. I'll never forget the very moment of meeting. Over the past 26 years he had taken the great exodus of this life with me. Through so much darkness and light, chaos and quiet, love and anger, fear and change, such an infinte storybook of memories I have with this beautiful deep and kind soul. What a rapport we had too. Full on conversations and love. one grateful for the other. So much laughter and play. Always looking out for the other. We possessed such a strong voice of command for the others safety and security. Unconditional love river deep and mountain high. It was something so precious and profound. Truly...

Within the nocturnal walls of this music, I ask a host of questions:
Where does the time go?
Even when you cherish it and hold on to each note?
How in such a fleeting moment does such a fully felt and beautiful life vanish from our vibration? Is death and transfiguartion from the soils of this earth the end of our most sincere intentions?

No matter how far I look into the sky, I still have never been able to find even a glance of that resolve. Engulfed in the great stream...
The ritual and it's landscape changes. Much like the seasons themselves. The talisman's tale changes polarity. The broken bells of sadness find us and haunt us until we can traject beyond the resurgence of death. I feel it's in the distant chimes of that postmortem we must listen to the swirling winds of our life's truth. To exhume the love of life that we so easily allow the meek to inherit within us. It's through such harvest that we can gather the most of any one life.
I am so grateful for my time here with him. He was a king. A voyager of many lives and many masters. I will light a candle everyday for him and call out his name. "My Son". "My Golden Sun":..
Shine On...

In loving memory of my son, Xenakis.
Thank you for 26 truly amazing years. Fly free now my dear one...
I'll love you for the rest of my days. See you on the other side...

Lisa Bella Donna / October 2020
Appalachian Mountains