Claudine

The subject of this topic is a private joke between Mike, Nuno and I...well, sometimes when you we are more than 6 hours working non-stop our brains plays tricks on us:)

Today was another frenetic day, we did some bass recordings for 'Outside In' and then we worked around 'An Outer Body Experience' song structure. Mike and I eventually tested all possible chords (really all) and we came to a very beautiful end for this track...I had to change my lyrics for this part of the track as I previewed, man it was a good challenge!!! I'm sure Paulo will have a good time recording these sections when we went on studio. This is a track that completes 'The Hill' as a part II; all fans of Rush, Marillion or Dream Theater will like this track for sure due to it's melodic composition.

One of my faves for this album up to the moment!

Home sweet home

Wednesday 13th February, o1:34 a.m...

I finished the lyric for 'An Outer Body Experience', I'm thrilled to show it to the guys of the band and really curious to see the changes happening after we start to work it on studio.

Home sweet home, I really like to write lyrics on a cpu with a cup of hot coffee or some cold beer to bring some inspiration. I spent almost 6 hours today finishing the last part of the song and I'm really proud of it, I hope you all enjoy it while listening to this album in a near future...

I stayed at home to work more lyrics while Mike and Sam are on studio today recording more clicktracks, keyboard tracks, messing around with DFH and the new upgraded toy called Muse Research.

More posts tomorrow

best

7hawk

Building an album

Day after day the rhythmical base and song structures are being made for each song. Today we did "Outside In" and we got half of the tracks done - we are still working the new instrumental sections for it so we need more hours to bring it to a final version. The cool part of being a progressive band is the change of rhythms and measures, this track has 4/4, 7/4, 5/8, 2/4 and some of them are interlaced like in the 3rd verse (the crazy one) in which bass and guitar are in 7 and drums in 4 or in the next section in which bass in 4 and drums & guitar are doing a change between 7, 8, 7, 8, 7 at the same time... Those who don't know how measures works, it means we are sometimes together and sometimes on the up beat playing the damn riff.... aaaaargghhh!

Click tracks

Post of the day to leave some pictures and a debriefing of today's work. A sick with the flu Sammy, Nuno and I were on studio today recording the click tracks for 'Flashback', we did some takes and got it done with ease. I showed some more lyrical ideas to guys and that was pretty much of all we did today...next rounds includes the click tracks for 'Racing the Hours' and 'Outside In'.

have a nice weekend;)

Meters

Today Sam and I went to the studio to work around meters for 'The Hill'.

We did some serious arranjements to improve the already powerful low tempo beat which this song is all about. Very interesting rhythm analysis on this track also because of the hidden details from Sammy's drum kick and Nuno's fretless delightful passages. On the lunch break we got up with Nuno 'Strap', our bass player and we got the pleasure of the presence of Mr.Tiago Machado, an excellent musician(keyboard player), who got drowned in his neverending 'dourada' dish..."this looks like the bottom of the ocean" - laughs!:)

Nuno joined us in the afternoon and got time to work a great riff, maybe for 'Dopplegänger'...?- time will tell.

I, as usual in the last weeks, got myself in front of the cpu screen for hours working more lyrics for 'An Outer Body Experience' - Nuno's shredding on my side all afternoon was somehow inspiring, though completely out of creative frequency(lol) - I'm knowing myself better as a writer and this a fantastic world that pushes my inspiration and creative mind to a whole new level!

More posts tomorrow,

regards
7hawk

Progressive massacre...

Hi folks,

Just a quick mail to let you know that today was a very prolific day working around 'Outside In' instrumental sections.
We got plenty of riffs and way ahead rhythms for this song, we were totally creative and it was a revealing day: we are on our way to a great progressive album, that's for sure!
More work tomorrow, Friday and Saturday so there will be more posts during the following days.

Here is a pic of us at the end of today's progressive journey...what a fuckin' day!!!!

Midi, Meters and Lyrics

Hi folks,

We were back to our studio for more jams, writing lyrics, doing meters and planning the sequence of songs for the album.

Sam recorded the reference drum tracks for 'Flashback' and we are scheduled to do our parts on Wednesday - we also will work around the new parts of Racing the Hours both instrumental and lyrics. Mike has new sounds for his Oasys and they seem like big inspirational tools to my ears, he always has some cool tricks and crazy/beautiful riffs he throws down each time he put his fingers on keyboards - that's why I call him the 'Merlin' of keys. Today I heard great stuff for the end sections of 'The Hill' and 'An Outer Body Experience'...can't wait to put my chorused distortions over it!!!

We got our planning over 'Outside In', 'The Hill', 'An Outer Body Experience' and 'Doppleganger' so we already know what are the best and weaker parts, we will focus on them and try to apply our concepts - all of these will be the following tracks in which we will put our spider hands and brains on!

Here I leave some pictures of the day, there's a lot more to come in the next days...

Videos, Interview and Studio works

Hello friends,

yesterday Mike and I were on the FS base to wire all equipment and prepare everything to the pre-production we will be doing during February.

As announced on our website we have chosen Daniel Flores (Sound vs Science Studio) as our mixing engineer and Mats Lindfors (Cutting Room Mastering Studio) so our 3rd album becomes a masterpiece; has everyone who is a prog&metal lover knows, Sweden has been a big factory machine of high quality music productions.

I wanted to work with Daniel since the Snooze album and his works with Mind's Eye are the proof of his qualities both as producer and musician! The Cutting Room has been a place were bands like Rammstein, In Flames, etc have been mastering recently so...all said!

Today I'll leave here some links to Forgotten Suns videos at Aula Magna and the interview I gave for Via Nocturna Radio Show on 30th Nov 2007:

Interview Via Nocturna - 4 parts(portuguese only) : http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=27030451

Mike's Keyboard solo on Senses: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R80f9aWJy94

Betrayed End Section : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab03RQWqaT4

The band will be working on studio at high rotation during February, there will be more live dates for 08 to be announced soon...stay tuned!

Drummer from Hell

Today is a day off at the studio for myself and Nuno, Sam and Mike will be there working.

Yesterday we had a very prolific writing session which got us even more enthusiamed and confident for the coming month. We were working around the instrumental section of 'Racing the Hours' and we incorporated a guitar solo in the middle of what we had done previously - remember that we had written almost 70% of the album before Paulo 'Snake' joined in - we also worked the 3rd verse riff instrumental in a change of up beat/down beat at tempo...Sam spent some time working drums for all those riffs and let's say that we have a real vibe of metal in this track.

We also decided how it would end so this track is almost done and we are now heading towards 'Outside In' instrumental section for an upgrade, this is a track we have been performing live so we already know what we want from it.

Here is a pic of our Drummer from Hell;)

Instrumentals

Hello again, another sunny monday morning and we're heading to the studio.
Today we'll be working on the instrumental and end section of Racing the Hours as well as planning the month of February. There are still 8 songs left to work on, so February will be a very busy agenda for writing/pre-production.
The following track should be the pair 'The Hill' plus 'An Outer Body Experience', these two tracks were written has being a sequence for the album's end...let's see what happens in the next few days; anyway I'm working on more lyrics and there's a lot of work to top on the remaing tracks.

Just a quick reminder that Sammy and Nuno will be out during next weekend performing with Ava Inferi (KJB/Barcelona and Sala Live!/Madrid) and Timeless (Dvd Presentation at In Live Caffé) respectively.

Men on a mission - no comments

Picks, Lyrics, Riffs...somewhere in time

Hello there,

Sunday night, 10:00 p.m...
My weekend has been very relaxing and inspired in many ways ...I got more lyrics done for 'The Hill' and I'm very proud with the results so far. Right now I feel my writing skills improving each time I sat at the monitor screen - I like to write lyrics at the CPU with all internet favourites opened for references. All song titles have been inspired on internet resources so we can start considering this album has a product of the cyber world from the very beginning...

It's been quite a challenge to make high quality lyrics supporting our concepts compared to our previous albums, but, I've been preparing myself for quite sometime by reading a lot from books, magazines or newspapers...on my trip to London I got time to buy some books that would work as "investigation material" as well as inspiring from the artistic point of view; that gave me a lot of insight and confidence to simply...let it flow:)

I've been delaying the following part of the post due to the amount of work I have with (for) Forgotten, my guitar studies as well as my classical guitar teaching. But I wanted to mention it here since 5th December 07, a few minutes after our opening show for Fish and now it's the ideal time for it.

Forgotten Suns have been collecting fans for quite sometime, we have also collected some other type of listeners, though some are worth of mention and once again (I've done him reference here after our Santiago Alquimista show on September 06 with his mobile photos) I would like to thank Peter 'Pine' Pinheiro for his honesty, friendship and support and also for the gift he sent me - a Somewhere Else' Steve Rothery's blue pick.
After our first show at Aula Magna I remember to throw him my pick while we were leaving the stage so I believe this is some sort of kind reply, thank you Pedro - Steve Rothery is the super melodic guitar player and one of my biggest musical root references as you know...

Since I received it from Rita(my wife) after we left the stage and since we didn't saw each other since then...here are the pics and some photos of myself while writing at home with my 6th string Bo-El.

all the best
7hawk

Bass & Guitar

Hello again!

To wake up early and to be on studio at 10.00 a.m was our goal, we had a few hours available to work the riffs and harmonies of 'Racing the Hours' and I came to found a blonde bassist recovering from a flu attack, his eyes were half closed...oriental type, anyway we were really enthusiastic about working our riffs and having a definition about this song structure.


There's no doubt about the opposition and progression that this song has itself compared to the 4 minute lenght approach like we have on other tracks (Phenotype or Flashback).

In the next few days I'll be working the lyrics for other tracks and preparing more riffs to work out this friday when we got ourselves back on studio again.

C-ya
7hawk

Racing the songs

Hello dear internet surfer,

this night post comes from a "mind full of riffs & odd signatures" guitar player who had a sick day on studio writing one of the most fantastic Forgotten Suns' songs ever - Racing the Hours.
It's funny, Sam and I got into the studio today almost in the same mood like we were in the first Racing the hours session, on which we wrote all the original sections, and guess what?Yep...we did a very interesting face lift to it, kind of a 5 times better track now, I'm thrilled just imagining to play it live...;)

Inspired by the new rehearsal place and by our small jam, I got a groovy riff that decisively changes the whole structure and the new chorus is nothing but pure dinamyte!
I'm doing some homework now for lyrics and vocal melodies and will work out a clean guitar part that will be a small and smooth feather falling on Hell - the type of contrast I really enjoy;)
I think this album will be something very special and this song...

Dinamic duo

Hi,

while on studio today, Sam and I got the recording machinery working properly for the following work of setting meters and record song structures.

We got "Flashback" drum and guitar tracks in a 'flash' and we are now heading towards "Racing the Hours" - while cheking my guitar sound I felt hugely creative and got some riffs in the vein of Flashback, maybe we will have some new sections on other tracks, or maybe who knows...a new entire track:) Anyway, we record them for what Future reserves.

This weekend there's a lot of 'homework' to be done; we're back on business on Monday.

Cheers

7hawk

Pre-production

First New Year’s post.
We've been thru a long period of writings, a demo, rehearsals, then some concerts during the last 6 months - it's been an enriching time for us.
Now we’re about to go for the final writing details and pre-production; what we’re doing is to prepare the whole song structure & metronome foundations on which Sam will lay his drum tracks so the other instrumental parts can follow next.

I've been thru a very creative day, last 29th December, and got my cell phone at hand all day long recording all the riffs that came to my mind...it's the result of go on short holidays without a guitar:)

Sam and I will be on studio today (I’m on my way there while writing) to plan the whole process and to define the last details – it will be our daily job on the next few weeks so it’s something we are seriously committed to.

I’ll keep you up with more news during this period,

Happy New Year 08!!!
7Hawk

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 2008!

Dear folks,

the band wish you all a good time during the Christmas and New Year festivities; we hope all your wishes turn real during 2008 - we're sure it will be a great season for us all.

Peace & Trust

Ricardo, Mike, Sam, Strap & Snake;)

Opening for Fish - a brief encounter

Hello friends,

Today, 13th December 2007, I got some time to sit down on my desk with a cup of coffee near me and some refreshing 10 hours of sleep backing me up. I've been into UK after Fish concerts on a short vacation period just arriving on Tuesday morning - London is a milk-shake of cultures and a beautiful land. Got some good time there and as always it was a cultural enriching experience. Despite the terrible weather (rain and freeze) during the weekend it's a must have trip for anyone. While there, Led Zeppelin gave a concert at O2 'The Bubble' which I was not available to see since I got my scheduled tickets for Tutankhamun exhibition just 400 yards away from the O2 venue...

5th December - Aula Magna - Lisboa

Everything set to return on a venue we love since some of our biggest influences and best artists performed there in the past - Dream Theater(Scenes from a Memory), Steve Vai(2 times), Fish(Misplaced Childhood 06) or Pat Metheny Group. Stepping the same stage where all of those great musicians were too is always something very rewarding - for me is a growing up feeling and kind of a happy nostalgia too.

Mike and I went to the studio to check if everything was ready to go; there I got in touch with our singer who was in deep suffering knowing that he was still under a flu attack, and completely lost his voice or to say the least, 90% of it. Anyway it was an important move and we all decided not to cancel the shows.
When we arrived there, Fish' band was already doing their sound-check and it was possible to see that the PA and lights were better than last year show; also Fish got more equipment to this tour: video projection, more back up guitars, keyboards, everything was upgraded, that was a positive influence for us too. I think JDO Productions and Mr. Nuno Silva should be proud and congratulated with that.
Our sound-tech crew was amazing since the first minute, great vibe between us!

In the backstage and dressing rooms we came to shake hands and speak with Fish, Frank, Steve and everyone else. They also felt it as a re-encounter, we have some pictures of it and we're collecting more from friends and people who post them on the net during the following days.
The band mood was great, Paulo was a bit worried because he knew that these two concerts were seriously compromised by his vocal problem though, with great courage we walked into the stage and we did our best.
It was a chronological set.
We started with an extended 'Betrayed' version from the Fiction Edge album, then we went to the 2nd album with 'Senses' and the last part we did a new track, which is on our myspace 'Phenotype'. To end also new tracks 'Flashback', 'Nanoworld' intro + Jam Session.
The aftermath was a time to recover Paulo's voice and protect him from the cold weather. Tomorrow it would be a new day.

6th December - Europarque - Stª Maria da Feira

One O'clock p.m we were on our way to the north. Strap, Sam and I along with drummer Miguel Samora (he is Sammy's brother and he's been an important drum tech/mental support on our last shows since we got Paulo with us) got some cool chat about general music and individual perspectives. Miguel share the same progressive mind though we live it on a different way - Music is a never ending world!
We were very surprised with Europarque conditions, it's a beautiful venue and acoustically well prepared. We realized it better when on stage during sound-check. We did it quickly and while arriving to the restaurant something was about to happen...

It is clear that when a band is on stage performing everything can be heard on the back stage hall and rooms. It did happened with me, I listened the whole Fish' performance at Aula Magna in the back stage, loud and clear.
I believe that Fish was aware of Paulo struggle both physical and mental to do a 2nd round within 24 hours - doing Aula Magna in that way, showing up for some of our oldest fans, being a new member of the group...it was not a kid's stuff. I was chatting and moralizing him during the walk until the restaurant so we both entered the restaurant side by side when we heard a Scottish accent calling us...

- "Hey, what's happening, what's the problem?"
- "I'm recovering from a flu and somehow I lost my voice...it hurts when I try"
- "Is it a chest or head pain?"
- "Both, it has been terrible days for me..."
- "Ok my friend, don't worry. Before the show just go to my dressing room and I'll give you some of my own vocal healers. I know what you're going through and you shouldn't worry, everything will be all right!"

Before the show Paulo went to Fish dressing room and he returned to our room very surprised with the power of Fish' treatments, it looked like his voice had improved in just a few minutes and he was smiling, ready to hit the stage.

This is a gesture of a noble person, a true professional and a great man.
We have to thank Fish for everything and for his true care and support of Paulo and the band.
We felt it and we did a great performance that night. In fact everyone felt it, in the backstage there were congratulations from everyone and the techs loved it too. Fish' road manager told me: "It takes a lot of character to play like this, I'm in this business for many years and you guys were just great, congratulations!"
After everything was set to go home, we enjoyed the show on the front seats and listened to Frank's incredible solo on Cliché and Incommunicado to the very end.
Nuno 'Strap' Correia and Steve Vantsis took some pictures and talked about Spector basses, Frank and I got some time to talk about his set up (we both use Line 6) and it was a cool mood in the air...maybe we see each other sooner than the next Fish release...for now it was just a brief encounter.

Thank you to my long time friend Filipa Bastos for these wonderful pics;)

Sound-check at In Live (29/11/07)

In Live Caffé/Via Nocturna interview

Hi,

the In Live Caffé gig was a great evening, there will be some pictures soon to show.
There will be an interview with a member of the band airing on 30th November 21:30 p.m at http://www.rrt.pt.pu for Via Nocturna Blog in the following of the Band of the Month election.
Check out this cool blog: http://www.vianocturna2000.blogspot.com/

regards

(portuguese)
Na sequência da eleição dos Forgotten Suns como Grupo do Mês de Novembro, decorrerá uma entrevista com a banda na edição de Via Nocturna(http://www.vianocturna2000.blogspot.com/) desta sexta feira, dia 30, pelas 21:30hrs. Pode ser escutada, para que é da região de Moimenta da Beira/Lamego, em 90.5 ou 100.8 ou para quem é de mais longe em http://www.rrt.pt.pu/.

Prog Work

Today we gather on studio to define the 2008 schedule, we will be finishing the writings for the 3rd album between December/January.
There's still many music, new sections and lyrics to be done so we can consider this album a true and actual sounding FS masterpiece.

There's prog work to be done in themes like 'Doppelganger', 'The News', 'Mind Over Matter' or 'Racing the Hours' - others like 'Phenotype'(which it's demo version is on our myspace running), 'An Outer Body Experience', 'Outside In' or 'Flashback' are closer to their final version.
We preview the recordings & mix between January/April for a late 2008 release.

You can catch us live next 29th November at In Live Caffé,
c-ya there!

New studio - closer to recordings

We have been a bit busy in the last few days moving to a new studio.

Now we're heading towards a new home for the band were we can write, rehearse, record and with a production environment so we can work in perfection for long seasons. The biggest upgrade is the drum section, now 'Sammy' will just use the electronic drums for demoing and his red Sonor kit for the real thing! We can crank the amps at last;)

We are now entering a new stage for this album, it's almost sure that we will had 2 or even 3 new tracks to the ones we have already. This means we will enter 'writing mode' in the next days: more riffs, more breaks, more solos, more vocals, more lyrics - we love it!:)

This will give us a more tight sound for this album and a sort of refresh since our last writings.

For those who missed the Santiago Alquimista concert, there will be a new chance to catch us on the road at In Live Caffé(Moita) next Thursday, 29 November - be there!

Live at Santiago Alquimista

The debut of Paulo "The Snake" Pacheco was a huge sucess!!!

The venue was full of new fans and old friends while

the band got a good vibe all the way with time for many new arranjements, sounds, solos which kept the audience very enthusiasmed until the end.

We managed to experiment 2 new tracks of the upcoming album: 'Phenotype' and the intro of 'Nanoworld', has we expected they are killer tracks:)

Our regards to all who went to see us, musicians and non-musicians, we're very happy for your consensual support!

There will be more pictures of this night at the official website in the next days, keep tuned!

all the best

Spider pigs

Some pictures of the band during a pause at the rehearsals on Shakra studio...funny mood going on;)

c-you Friday at Santiago Alquimista!

http://www.santiagoalquimista.com/

Phenotype Video (demo version)

Know more about phenotype here

Rehearsals

Hello,
there has been a time since my last entry here again...just a quick message to let you know the band is in the process of moving to a new studio with better conditions; meanwhile we're rehearsing and preparing the line up of songs at a friend's studio with Sammy again performing with his Sonor kit and my 4x12 cabinets roaring high n'loud.

We will kick off with a full show at Santiago Alquimista, it will be a great concert so we expect your presence there, if you are a true proghead you shouldn't miss this one....

regards
Rick

New Demo & Rehearsals

Just a quick run on this corner do drop a summary of what we've been doing...
We are closer to debut the new website, the last details are being polished and there's plenty of new info to read and listen.

Here are some pics of us during the rehearsals for the following shows and some other of us with Marta Machado our live VJ. She's collaborating with us for our new demo presentation while I was finishing the demo mixes.

Check out our myspace for a quick preview in one of the demo tracks:

http://www.myspace.com/fsuns

cheers

Rick

Live dates/Studio report

Hello there, we're back on earth to give you a few more lines about Forgotten Suns daily work. We hope you've spent a good time during the pause on this blog and we have some news for you that you might enjoy...;)

We started 2007/2008 season on 3rd September; in the last couple of weeks the band has already finished a new demo, now with Paulo on vocals and improved instrumentals. I think we did a very good job, we were quite demanding and meticulous during both recording and mixing stages and this will eventually lead us to a new record deal.
Any of the ways, we will start to re-write all album songs (which means upgrade them!) and we will do the pre-production starting in October.

Meanwhile the band will debut live with new singer Paulo Pacheco on the ranks, there's 4 live dates scheduled so far and more to come:
-09th November at Santiago Alquimista (Lisboa)
-29th November at In Live Caffé (Moita)
-05th December at Aula Magna (Lisboa, opening act for Fish)
-06th December at Europarque (Stª Mª da Feira, opening act for Fish)

Paulo Pacheco features on the 2nd Project Creation' album 'Dawn on Pyther'.
Another excellent album by Mr.Hugo Flores featuring great musicians singing great songs!
http://www.myspace.com/projectcreation

keep tuned,

regards
Ricardo Falcão