Musician Diaries

  Maple Dye · When We Make It Through The Storm Maple Dye · Potato Swing I rarely write songs about "current reality" issues, mostly because I'm a poetic being, and I know that kind of subjects are condemned not to last. However, sometimes that kind of songs happen to me. "When We Make It Through The Storm" is one of them. It was written in march/april 2020, when the frickin damn virus thing was starting and nobody knew what things were going to be like... My fear and my hope (and my fatigue of being a human, which was already at huge levels... It was like "and now, on top of it, vampires!") came through with this song, which I like a lot although I don't have the necessary distance to judge it impartially, if I ever can. Let's just hope everything works out for the best. Good luck to everyone.

  Pale Reflections by Maple Dye Here's an album so diverse that it's almost a mixtape. Some of the tracks were recorded in 2013 (and the composition of some of the song reaches back all the way to 1993!). They span through 2 countries, 5 houses, 3 audio interfaces... no wonder they are so varied. After trying different approaches for the playlist order, what I finally found was creating a bit of an "EP within an EP". The first series of songs starts with "As My Mood Goes Down" and closes with "Teaser Of Hell". From that point on, I looked at it as sort of an "after party", as if saying "OK, if you feel like it there's still more music ahead, but be warned that things are getting a bit weirder from this point on..." All in all, I listen to the collection with joy (although it will also be a "joy" to stop listening for a while after these repetitive final steps...) My favorite this round is perhaps "Oh Dirty Hap

  Maple Dye · River Of Steps Maple Dye · Heading Out A new and flamboyant song, I guess it is folk rock, although the premise wasn't ever "I want to write a folk rock" song, I just pulled the string of the melody and it came out that way... If that's what happened, because the song was composed, incredible how time flies, almost 10 years ago, and memory has its traps. In any case, a lighter composition than the previous one (meaning both less complex and more on the happy side), in this one I'm very happy of the "embroidery" of little guitar phrases that accompany the vocals. As for "Heading Out", it was the first installment of an exercise where I challenge myself to finish something, whatever it is, in only one sitting. This one took about 3 hours, if I recall correctly. As the name of the game in this case is spontaneity, I'm publishing these songs without corrections, just like they appeared, to keep the freshness.

C Maple Dye · Oh Dirty Happiness Maple Dye · The Tides Will Change I'm trying a little experiment with my launch schedule; for the following months, I'm going to publish songs in batches of two, composed of one "full fledged, hard sweat" song, plus some other thing lighter and simpler, preferrably from my most recent inventory. The idea came simply because I noticed a lack of balance between the amount of music I have in my vaults and the amount I'm showing "in public". As a listener, I enjoy a lot of that less polished stuff, and I think other people might too; and keeping those pieces to myself in a way "poisons my blood", blocks the circuit. I need to make them at least available, potentially possible to be listened to. It also turns out that those pieces, given the long time it takes me to produce a song, are going to be more recent, closer to the year 2020, and therefore closer to my current sensitivity and the world's. Only later

  Maple Dye · Walk Away This power pop song was composed in the pre-Internet times. The composition has stayed steady from those arcane days, but it's interesting how, on the contrary, the production has changed a lot, and to high degree been defined by circumstances, in an example of adaptation, of resiliency. Particularly I'm thinking of the part with the keyboard melody; at first, my idea was playing a very elaborate keyboard solo, starting from the initial theme and then building up in a "psychedelic" way, a la Ray Manzarek. However, when the moment came I didn't have access to a proper keyboard, only the computer's, so I decided to do a very straightforward arrangement instead, and then filling up that section with other instruments. Time goes by, a lot of life happens, and, alas, when I'm finally going to weave a few electric guitars for that section, I found that this time it is my guitar what betrays me. Enter vocal harmonies. Maple Dye featuring

Maple Dye · The Prisoner Hope everybody is doing fine in these crazy, deserted times. This song might, perhaps, make someone think about the coronavirus lockdowns. But in fact, it was written almost a decade ago, and it's about a different prison -lack of communication, solitude... other "jails with no visible key"-. Who might have known that their lyrics would, with the passing of time, fit so well this other so different situation... The most optimistic previsions foresee a vaccine for March to September 2021. Let's hope that things take the optimistic turn, and, that in the meantime nobody does anything irreparably stupid... (The Muse has been generous lately, and more recent songs of mine discuss our troubled days more directly... Stay tuned. And stay safe.)

This song was inspired by a couple I knew in my twenties, part of my group of "drinking buddies". Both him and her were beautiful like Greek gods, and not only that, but also very nice people, and could outdrink you and outsmoke you (because such were our pleasures then) and leave you behind the table any day of the week. They were a bit our private deity, and while writing my song I kinda did the "role playing" of being him singing his love to her in a poetic way; the consolation of love that compensates the toil of living, the many cruel things that happen in this world. The song is full of references that are like a sentimental map for me. We shared a love for The Doors ("My Wild Love"), the "heartbeat style" of the drumming has a lot to do with Neil Young's "Harvest" for sure, there is a tip of the hat to Lenny Kravitz too ("Welcome to the Real World")... Those days, those laughters no longer exist, but this