Dear Friends,
August appears to have come out of nowhere! I hope your Summer has been absolutely wonderful!! Though I've been a little quiet, it's for good reasons! I've spent my Summer working as hard as I can on a bunch of new stuff!! This email is an overview of what's to come for the remainder of 2017!
In-a-nutshell, here's what's going on:
- Enneagram Songs!
- All NEW Series of Space Music!
- The Sleeping At Last Podcast!
- NEW Christmas music (+ Vinyl!)
- More Micro Music Videos!
Here's further detail about each of those things...
As you may already know, I'm in the process of completing the final chapter of "Year Two" in my Atlas series. Based on the ancient personality typing tool, The Enneagram, I'm writing 9 songs for the 9 distinct Enneagram types. In the process of researching the Enneagram, I've learned SO much about myself and every person I know and love. It's been really incredible and beyond fun to put everything I'm soaking up into these 9 songs, which are written from the perspective of each type. Each song will feature guest musicians that identify as the Enneagram type that they play on. For example: The "One" song will feature only musicians that identify as Enneagram Ones! I am so excited to share these songs with you soon, and I'm so excited to let you know that they will begin to release this Fall, starting with the first song "One."
In the meantime, be sure to pick up my friend Chris Heuertz' new book on the Enneagram called "The Sacred Enneagram"!!!
It may not come as a surprise to anyone that listens to my songs, but I LOVE Space and all things Space! So I decided to do something about it. I'm SOOOOO excited to announce that I am launching (space pun intended) a new series of Space-inspired music! I'm calling it: "Astronomy."
Here's what it is: Astronomy is a series of new, mostly instrumental music inspired by upcoming astronomical events. Each year, I'll secretly choose which upcoming observable events in space I'd like to write songs for and without much warning, a song will release on the date of upcoming astronomical events! The idea behind these songs (in addition to the fun I'll have writing more space music) is to write a soundtrack of sorts for each of these unique and beautiful events going on in the known Universe around us. Plus, I loved the idea of the release dates being determined by the universe itself! My hope is that these new pieces of music will celebrate, document and explore the most interesting of observable astronomical events.
This project begins alongside the upcoming Total Solar Eclipse in America on August 21st! The title of the upcoming song is "August 21, 2017: Total Solar Eclipse" (catchy title, right?) Each song will be titled by the date of the astronomical event, followed by the event name. "Eclipse" will be out in time for you to consider it for your Total Solar Eclipse viewing experience soundtrack! Can't wait for you to hear it... and I won't have to wait long, because it'll be out everywhere music is before August 21st!
BUT guess what! you can listen to it early, this coming Monday, Aug. 14th, where it'll debut on my other new project... The Sleeping At Last Podcast:
Yep, you read that right: "The Sleeping At Last Podcast." I know, I know. Everyone on Earth has a podcast. But as I continued to write my "How It Was Made" blog posts, documenting the making of some of my songs (check 'em out here), it felt like it was missing a very important component: sound. This podcast is the evolution of my How It Was Made blog posts, giving me an opportunity to pull my songs apart and show you exactly what I'm talking about with words AND sound! I'll also debut new songs via this new little podcast home-base! It'll be fun, I hope!
I'm so excited to tell you that Episode 1 comes out next Monday, Aug. 14th and it's all about the aforementioned new song "August 21, 2017: Total Solar Eclipse" hear the song first, and how it came about! I hope you like the new song and the new podcast!
I plan on making episodes for each of the new Atlas: Enneagram songs as well!! Can't wait!
Also coming up later this year: My Christmas Collection will be available for the first time EVER on Vinyl!!! It'll feature 2 new Christmas songs and will release later in the Fall. The Collection will be available digitally as well! Was very odd to work on Christmas music in June, but I'm glad I did, because it means that this collection of Christmas songs gets to live on Vinyl for the first time. Details and news to come! Can't wait! Merry Christmas early!
Whew!!! That was a lot of information. I am so pumped to get to share all of this with you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for everything. Enjoy the rest of your Summer. I can't wait to share all of this new music, etc. with you just around the corner!!
Huge Love,
Ryan - Sleeping At Last