Carmen Suite
By
Daniel Niles
The album Carmen Suite is the latest offering from London
producer Daniel Niles. Noted as the soundtrack to the years 2015-2020 it is a
dedication to the love of his life. Across twelve instrumental tracks the album
focuses on the ups and downs of life together. From the good times such as
Friday nights at the cinema or just walking together through the streets of
London or on holiday, to the darker times of pain, anger, and
misunderstandings.
So, let’s take a walk shall we…
The album opens to drums and piano notes on 2nd
Movement which sets up this kind of introduction where you feel it’s like
the opening of a movie and you are flying over a city scape. That city is
London and soon the scene seems to change, you feel you are descending into the
city streets and come to rest outside of a window and looking into a new world.
As this mental picture solidifies and the vison of life beyond the window
clears, things change, pounding drums with synth and electronic notes creates a
mind-bending vibe and the energy you feel is that of a place where Echoes
of the past abound. Thoughts of past events come easy here and soon your
awareness is alive with the time you first meet someone and those first
tentative steps as love blossomed. As memories float through you mind the mood
changes once more with a chilled beat featuring notes of tambourine and
synth’s. Reve elicits a mixture of feelings as the word itself (the
meaning that I discovered) is an old word used to describe a manager, bailiff,
or similar type figure. This put’s you in mind of the day-to-day grind and
doing your best in a tough world and there are times where you might struggle
and risk losing your possessions.
Some of the best times we have with those we love are the
simple moments like simply walking together and the jazzy vibe of drums, bass
and sampled sounds on City Waltz really bring that to mind. There is
something special about sharing those moments with someone special as you watch
the world go by and just taking in the visual and emotional pleasure of the
moment. The jazz vibe seeps into the drums, piano, and horns of Blue Green
and transports you to a stunning vista of a Mediterranean Sea. A place where
you can have a chilled time in the seaside attractions or just splashing around
together in the warm sea. Again, we move from one scene to another with
differing emotions as the sax, Piano, bass, and upbeat drum invite us to look
into Schatzi’s Eyes. I felt that Schatzi is a child, and this gave the
track such a deep meaning. A child’s eyes convey so many emotions from the
moments they first open their eyes as a new-born, unable to speak, to the
journey they take you on as you watch them grow.
Every day the sun rises and the new Day Begins and
here that day dawns with an upbeat drum driven vibe. It puts you in mind of all
those days you’ve begun in so many ways. The days you awoke alone or together,
the days you just lazed about and the days where it was frantic as you
overslept. So many days and so many ways in which to walk into them. As we ponder the days we’ve had, a laid-back
vibe of drums and organ notes allows us to drift to those days we are in our
heart centered space together. Perhaps it’s just after a storm, the rain has
passed and as the sun shines once more and Rainbows form, warming your hearts. This is the perfect
moment to do something together and the musical backdrop of drums, horns, guitar,
and cymbals, is the perfect soundtrack for us to experience a Movie. Not just
any movie as Kino is the highest form of film or cinema artistry and
this track perfectly captures that mood after you have both enjoyed a good
movie on a Friday night.
Now as we all know life is not always a bed of roses and we
have to take the rough with the smooth in order to grow. The Piano, Drum and
big cinema soundtrack vibe of Katze’s Jeopardy really brings to mind
those moments where it all gets messy, we argue, and misunderstandings can put
us in a dark place where we question or relationships. After every argument
there are those moments where we feel hurt, and the laid-back drum and brass
notes of Katze’s Pain reflects those times. With our emotions strained
we seek to understand and to talk, and as we begin to calm, we reconcile and
feel the love once more. The album ends on an interesting note with heavy drums
and horns on Bis Bold. As the music carried me, I wondered how this
title referred to anything in a relationship with a loved one? Then something
just seemed to fit, Bis is a Latin word meaning twice and bald is when you are
devoid of something, or you are completely open. This happens only a couple of
times in our life once when we are born and again when we meet out soul mate,
at least that’s where it took me…
There were a few things that struck me as I listened to this
album. First and foremost is that this is a well-crafted musical journey that
has its feet rooted in the emotive journey we all take with a loved one. Secondly,
I liked the way that certain track titles have double or deeper meaning such as
I have noted already and doing this adds that extra dimension for the listener.
Lastly, and something I really love about instrumental albums, is that the
sounds can take you to many different places, it all just depends on what
situation you are listening to it in at the time. There really is no right or wrong way in what you feel to an instrumental track.
I really liked that Daniel has used his production skills to
create an easy listening Hip-Hop album that encapsulates the memories, thoughts,
and feelings of such a deep subject. Many people do not always associate Hip-Hop
music with being able to express the emotions of such a subject. But you just
have to remember that the core essence of Hip-Hop from its early days was
Peace, Unity, Love and having fun, so all you need do is to find the right beat
and the right samples to help you express that. Big credit to Daniel here for
building in those off-beat subliminal suggestions and musical side doors that
allow the listener to branch off into new worlds whilst still enjoying the core
element of his project, Love.
If you’re a lover of Hip-Hop or not, I still reckon this one
is well worth checking out and having a go at immersing yourself in…
Carmen Suite is available now.
Time for me to drift outta here,
See Ya,
Steve.
Postscript: I have not done this before but, in light
of some additional information from Daniel Niles I felt I wanted to add this separately and
not to rewrite the whole review. When you are writing and doing your research there are
times that the information you find is not perfect and changes your whole view
of a piece of music. Talking to Daniel regarding the review, he informed me
that some of the titles include German words. So, here is how this new
information can change your view of things and how it highlights the way
everyone can feel something different when listening to the music.
Track 3 REVE: My original research found the meaning
in Old English and so went with this however, the French meaning of the word is
dream. So, this changes the vibe of the track completely and where once the
music gave you these visions of scenes of struggle and grinding in life. Now it
brings to mind the dreams we all have as we consider the future together or
even the dreams, we have in sleep that can be positive, negative or just
downright weird.
Track 6 SCHATZI’s EYEs: Overall I got the mood of
this one perfectly as I did not find a definition of the word and went solely
with my intuition (which is mostly what I do). The only thing different is the
focus. In German Schatzi means Sweetheart and so here the meaning of the word
just changes our point of view slightly as we think of how it makes us feel
looking deep into the eyes of our sweethearts and how the emotions conveyed by
them changes with the moment and situation.
Track 9 KINO: Here I was kinda lucky finding several
meanings and chose wisely as the German meaning for Kino is Cinema.
Track 10 & 11 KATZE’s JEOPARDY & KATZE’s PAIN:
With these two tracks I went on intuition and with the note’s Daniel added to
the album’s description on Bandcamp. It all worked perfectly. Now in German
Katze, as I had discovered, means Cat. Now I was not sure how to fit this into
the review at first and was going to add it into the summary but, it fits
perfectly here as it is also a pet name for Carman, so we see how it fits to
mood of the tracks.
Track 12 BIS BALD: If you take into account where my
intuition took me when I researched some meanings for the title, then you can
see dramatically this is going to change. Bis Bald is German for “See You soon”
which is exactly the kinda thing you say to someone perhaps when you leave for
work in the morning. It really does change the vibe of the track but, not that
deep loving feeling.
I hope this helps you get the deeper meaning of the tracks
and an insight into how Daniel has put his heart and soul into each and every
track.
The link to get the album on Bandcamp is below and be sure to check out Daniel's other work while you are there.
Have a good one,
Peace Out,
Steve
LINKS
No comments:
Post a Comment