Thursday 13 February 2020

Holy Spirit of Calm - Album Now Digitally Available

I'm very pleased to announce that I've added another of my albums digitally, Holy Spirit of Calm is now available to purchase individual tracks or as an entire album on MP3, through CD BABY or through outlets such as YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, Napster and tonnes more.  Also available for FREE through Amazon Music Unlimited.  

Here is a NEW trailer for the Album:


Click here to visit the Holy Spirit of Calm page for CD or Digital Information, tracks etc.

Saturday 1 February 2020

Saint Alban Roe, English Martyr

At long last I have been able to immerse myself in the life of another English Martyr with our upcoming latest film "Saint Alban Roe: High Stakes".  We filmed for this in March 2018, almost two years ago, when we shot imagery for St. Gemma Galgani, Our Lady of Knock, St. Francis de Sales and St. Alban Roe.  The other three films have gradually been put together and released but poor St. Alban Roe was left behind for a while.  Until now!

St. Alban Roe Screenshot, filmed in March 2018
I love the English Martyrs, I am also a big fan of Eduardo Tarilonte, he seems to release sound sample packages right up my alley.  He brought out Era Medieval and then Era II, both of which I have.  Then he released the Vocal Codex which has the most beautiful voices!  



In my early days of college I acquired some soundfonts which my friend kindly converted into Kontakt samples for me to use more easily.  In our first films, St. Edmund Campion, St. Philip Howard and other martyrs I used a lot of Koblikzek, like a very old recorder.  Now I have access to so many more as well with the Era Medieval sounds. 

Saint Philip Howard film, released 2008
 It's been a while since we focused on this era so I have been itching to use them once more to their potential.  I love all the clothes, props, backgrounds, candles from this era that we include in our films and I used the visuals to inspire my music.

Saint Alban Roe Film Screenshot
A couple of weeks ago I finished my album "Holy Spirit of Serenity" and I have 10 tracks there to draw upon if needed.  As it happened I managed to work in my favourite track - track 3, into the St. Alban Roe film and it became part of the theme, particularly for his whole arrest.  There is a moving scene in the film where people touch the hands of the priests as they are led to the gallows, then gather up the bloodied straw.  

People gathering straw at the gallows, Screenshot
We captured these moments and the emotional track from Holy Spirit of Serenity was very moving for this part of the film. It's always a good sign when I am emotionally moved by the music I am writing as I know that the film has struck a chord with me and should hopefully strike a chord with others too.  Our aim has always been to bring the martyrs to life, the take their unknown stories and help people today connect with them.  We all share the same faith and these priests, these martyrs, sacrificed all for the same faith.

Everything else in the music score I wrote directly to picture and I was also using my new Celtic Era which I have fallen in love with.  

Celtic Era - new Sounds by Eduardo Tarilonte
I used "Burial Ground" soundscape to start the film which has a nice old bell sound; this immediately created the atmosphere of the past and tension.  I briefly used soundscapes from Cantus, the voices of monks as St. Alban Roe was a Benedictine.  I have now finished the score having spent the whole day yesterday adding SFX and levelling everything out.  I have passed it over to my sister and we now have a created master for the PAL version of the film for DVD.  This film will be released next week!

Alongside this I am making more of my CD albums available digitally and have been working on converting Holy Spirit of Calm album for digital download.