HARVEST OF THE INNOCENCE

The story of Harvest of the Innocence begins in 1992.

It was then that I was working with some other projects (Web Construction and Souls in flight). Web Construction is a very dark matter, and the lyrics and music is showing all the underlying depressions that we were going through at the time.
The music of Souls in flight is more contemplating and softer in every kind of way, but also quite difficult to play and write.
I had been writing some stuff on the MV30 machine we bought for the Web Construction project, and had found some other ways of writing material, rather than dark and depressing, it was more just playing around with the machine.
It all changed one night after I had finished reading the Clive Barker book “The great and secret show” and I woke up by some sort of nightmare and with these tunes and feelings I had in my head, I sat down and wrote the very first piece that would be the start of Harvest of the Innocence project.

I have a vision in my head (or a feeling) of something important to me, and then I change this to tunes, melodies and instruments.
This is the way all of the Harvest pieces are written.
It sounds very simple, but it is very energy draining to work this way, alas I empty myself completely for hours on end. Some pieces I have to return to many times before I get it right, and to always have that feeling in you before it is completely emptied out into the piece can sometimes be very frustrating.

Back then, the project was called “Helter Incendo”, but later on I found out that there is another band with that name, so I changed it to Harvest of the Innocence, which kind of suits the project better.

 In 1994 the Souls in flight project had taken a different form and were no longer part of my selfish intellectual property, but for Harvest of the Innocence, Web Construction and the newly started project See Emily play, the melodies and lyrics seemed to intertwine into each other. An aware listener can find melodies being repeated in other pieces or parts, or even find that for “The lost”, the first part belongs to Web Construction, while part 2 and onward belongs to Harvest of the Innocence. There are a few parts and pieces that belong to several different pieces or even projects. This is because I have been working with the different projects at the same time, simultaneously. And that creates the intertwining of melodies, names, lyrics and themes.

I decided that it was time to check if this was in any way functional on CD.
So by November 1994 I went in to the studio of Mikael Lundin. At that time the studio did not have a name, but in time it would be called “Over the hill”. To say that it is situated over the hill is an overstatement; it is not that big of a hill.
The following six months was spent at the studio, with some great and funny anecdotes following. By May 1995 the four song demo was finally mixed and ready for release. Because I spent all the money on the recording, I lacked the money to do either vinyl or CD, so it ended up on a cassette.
I called it “In memorian” and, even though I knew it was misspelled, thought it was a suiting name for it, mainly because I had it dedicated to a friend of mine who had died a year earlier.

I brought the cassette to some record companies and always got the same response.
Yes, but no, because…
It all had to do with the start of one of the songs; “Garden of remembrance”. Me being a self-aware youngster and not at all willing to compromise, I thanked them and continued searching for that record label that could fully understand and appreciate why I had the song done this way.

Years went by and I continued to work with the projects around it, as well as Web Construction and See Emily play. By end of the nineties Web Construction was put to rest for a while and with my newly found job and the band I was playing with at that time, taking even more and more time, the harvest project got to play the second violin as to say. By the end of the millennia, both Harvest of the Innocence and Web Construction had fallen into a forgotten box for all those old sins you had.
It wasn’t until 2004 that Harvest of the Innocence was resurrected, and Web Construction too for that matter. It all happened because the music and the songs started to poke me for attention and in August 2004 I got the opportunity to really start working with them again.

So, I began working with both of the projects but realised quite soon that Harvest of the Innocence was not even half way done. Yes, all the themes are there, most of the songs, but in no way all of them. One of the themes has bits and pieces and a few halfway done tracks, but all in all no more than 15 minutes done. So with none of the themes ready in the nearest future, I decided to release the old cassette on CD as it was intended in the first place, this time re-mastered and, since I actually found it out myself, why none of the other record companies wanted to release the full version of “Garden of remembrance”, I made the decision to cut the piece into what is now released on the CD.
So by making that decision, I must say that I today, after being in the business for a couple of years, I understand that some things are better untold. Especially if you want to have a record that people actually can listen to without getting too upset.

So, here it is. The full re-mastered, fixed and edited CD version of the cassette with the new name “Harvest of the Innocence” finally released.

Unfortunately, the project takes time, a lot of time. And time is money.
This CD took me six months to complete. I didn’t spend every day in the studio, but way too many.
Now, when I have my own studio to record most parts in, it goes a bit faster to complete the recordings, but it still takes a lot of time. Give me a year or two and I should have one of the themes ready. Which one it will be, only my mysterious subconsciousness can tell, and it never replies to my questions.

At least, if you now have bought the CD, you do not have to wait another 15 years to hear the rest of the songs, as you would have if you had bought the cassette back then in 1995. 

By the time this CD was re-mastered, another friend had passed away, my old vocalist from an early band, so he also got a place on the dedication list. Of course, life is just what it is, unexpected and full of surprises, some good and some bad. By the time the CD was ready for printing, an unexpected death of another close friend took the breath out of me, and I put the CD on hold for a while. Since the layout was already done, he will be dedicated on the next coming album. I somehow believe that I write this music for my friends and for the memories we carry around together.

 I hope that you enjoy the music of Harvest of the Innocence.

Sincerely: Johnny Rosengren

 Update:

I have now begun the assembling of the “Solitude” theme with its nine tunes.
Solitude will thus be the first of the themes to be released.
Hopefully, if all goes well, I should be ready for full recording in beginning - mid 2009.