I'll rise with no other

I'll Rise With No Other by Magnus Reimer


This is so overproduced I'm tempted to call it my Sufjan Moment, but I tend to think of it more as my Tchaikovsky-meets-Satie-and-Sigur-Rós-at-an-Einstürzende-Neubauten-party. But who am I kidding?

I don't know where to begin. I started out in April composing this for piano and vocals only. I tried to make something different yet simple, using a lot of extended chords and quartal and quintal chords, then I worked my way back to "normality" using melodies and implied 3rds. I'm really proud of this song's harmonies, I can promise you noone has ever done this before. Couldn't say that about any of my other songs, so perhaps that's why producing this turned into such an arduous and stressful affair. The scaled down version sounded terrible so I began experimenting with different settings, a process that took 8 month. During the production I have, to mention one thing, played percussion on an oven plate with a chopstick (that's the swish-sound).

The insanely lenghthy production and lots of annoying difficulties with mixing almost made me lose interest in music, but now that it's finished I'm pretty damn happy I never gave up. After letting this song rest for a while, it was an obvious choice for opening track.

Lyrics:

There's a noise at the core of everything
I'm dreading the roar unraveling
So entirely unlived still
I'm waging a war on little things
Not dreading the core of everything
And I'll come back and I can try again

You can hide under a million things
But you can't hide that you've been suffering

I'm surrounded by a million morons
Waging war on a million morons
So entirely unlived still
There's a noise at the core of everything
And I'm dreading the roar unraveling
But I'll come back and I can try again

You can hide under a million things
But you can't hide that you've been suffering

And you, that storm, I'll rise with no other
rise with no other, rise with no other than
you, in that storm, I'll rise with no other
rise with no other, I'll rise with no other than...
...you.

Grand Finale and Open Horizon

This is meant to be the very last two tracks. I actually took a holiday from work in order to record and arrange Grand Finale, and it sure needed that. Delicate detuning of software instruments, seemingly hopeless changes in dynamics and most of all a very prominent feeling of loss. Oh, and before I forget, there's a part of this song when I always spiral off and sing/hum "Sound of Music". I had to look it up, and it doesn't really fit, but I plan to do it live anyways.

Open Horizon on the other hand was made in less than two days, a spin-off from a Tallest Man On Earth cover attempt, which failed miserably and led to an improvisation leading into a song. Oh, and if you hear it, the rain is real.

Lyrics:

I swore to plead the rising tide to come.
I await a final moment, a setting sun.
Farewell a hundred times but no conclusion.
For all these wasted times, no evolution.
Every night I wake up blind in an illusion.
Every night I wake up blind, no evolution.


What's to explain, just embrace me one last time.
Nothing has changed, just embrace me one last time.

.......
Open horizon
Open horizon
Not a cloud in the sky
I aim for your eye

You'd better damn well be right

You'd better damn well be right by Magnus Reimer

This is the first song in quite a while, and the first to be recorded with my new tube mic. Don't think I need to comment much on the lyrics, must be my most obvious work ever. I made this song after listening extensively to Josef&Erika's wonderful album "Floods", but funnily in the end it's very much Depeche Mode... Haha.

Lyrics:
And when I rest my head on you
You wear happiness with some pride
It descended upon me
Revealed my nothingness to be void

Yeah we could rise together
Roam the skies together
Turn over stones together
Fill our hearts together

And when I rest my head on you
I fear happiness is my trial
Cause if I'm cursed to see you go
Fear I'll wear nothingness without hope

Cause then we can't rise together
No roaming the skies together
or turn over stones together
Just breaking our hearts together

You say I'm wrong
well then you'd better damn well be right
...
My light
You'd better damn well be right...