HARVEST OF THE INNOCENCE

This is an explanation of the different themes of Harvest of the Innocence and some info of the songs on the CD:

The Garden:

The Garden theme is about life; beginning, growing and dying and all in between.
To me a garden is somewhere where life can prosper, bloom and die. A place of beauty and decay. It is also somewhere where, if it is a big garden, it can be hard to comprehend the extent of everything. Somewhere you can lose your thoughts, or even get lost in. A garden during spring, summer and even autumn can be blooming and in every bit of way, exceptionally beautiful. But it will all die. We know this, and we take it for granted that it is so, but we still have this feeling of that we lost something. Though we know, and rejoice over the fact that next year, it will all bloom as beautiful again. And not to forget, a garden needs to be tended with care, otherwise it will grow weed and other unwanted features. It is just about everything life is about. Therefore I chose the garden theme for life in general.

The Lost:

The theme for the Lost is mostly about all the things we lost. Be it loved ones, things or even feelings. During a lifetime we will lose many things. First is our childhood, with that our innocence, then our youth, and with that, our sense of immortality.
There are so many things we lose during our lives, and to write them all down would take too long time and would not really change anything anyway.
The lost theme is the theme that has the least lyrics. Why it is so? I do not know.

Solitude:

The Solitude theme is slightly different than the other themes.
The theme takes on all these feelings we have when we feel lonely or abandoned. The specific piece on the CD “Harvest of the Innocence”, I wrote in my head when I was walking alone on a deserted road.
It was a cold winter day, it was snowing quite much, the sun was about to set, I was just out walking and got a bit further away than I expected. Not a single car came by and it felt very lonely, almost as if the world had passed on and forgotten about me.
It is those feelings that the Solitude theme is about.

There are two more themes which today are not named yet.
This is because I don’t really have all the pieces ready. I have a hunch about what the story is behind these pieces, but cannot really put my finger on it yet.
One of the themes is probably about the holocaust.
I went on a vacation to Auschwitz in 1995 just to see and try to gather some feelings from the scenery and what had happened there over 50 years ago. I got a little bit more than I bargained for, and was emptier when I came home then when I left.
My guess is that it takes some time for the feelings, that literally jumps into your skin, to settle. A few parts are already done. But no name for the theme has been set yet. The last of the themes is still so incomprehensible that it will take me some time to figure out what it wants to say.

Some information about the pieces on the CD:

The Garden (Pt: 1-2)
(From the Garden theme)

Originally this was called The Garden (Spring and Fall) as they where depicting feelings of Spring and Fall (or autumn).
Back then, I had a piece written called “The garden – Summer” but later on that part changed name and so I changed the name of these parts as well.
Pt 2 does have lyrics, but they where not ready when I did the recording.
The producer Mikael Lundin added some recordings he made through his window located towards his back garden, where the birds was singing in the soft spring rain.
I got the opportunity to have a guest play by Börs Anders Öhman, which I really appriciated.
Christian Hillborg, who does the male vocals, is now a respected actor.

Garden of remembrance:
(From the Garden theme)

This is actually part 2 of three parts of this song.
But the other pieces have a bit different names, like part 3 is called: Garden of remembrance – The travellers.
I really like how it turned out. Miriams vocals are perfect here, and the crying cello from Sussanne, which took hours on end to get right, is exactly how I wanted it to sound.
The song is about a child that dies, and it has turned out to be quite a difficult song to handle. Earlier there was a different beginning of the song, but that has been edited and the unedited version will be on a CD that will not be officially released.
When Miriam sang the lyrics in the studio, she had no idea what it was about, but she found that out when the Cassette version was released, and I believe she didn’t have very high thoughts of me at that time. But the piece turned out brilliant. At least I think so.

Solitude:
(From the Solitude theme)

This piece was called “On a deserted snowy road” from the beginning. This was due to the fact that I wrote the melodies in my head when I was walking on a deserted snowy road.
All of the instruments on this song are from the MV30 machine. Some of them have been altered to sound closer to what I wanted. The song does not have any lyrics, and at this point, I am not sure whether it ever will.
I actually like the thunder sound that is displayed from one side to another. It sounded like that when thunder struck around my house where I was living at the time.
Solitude is one of the oldest pieces for the project.

The Lost (Pt: 2)
(From the Lost theme)

The Lost is something very different to work with. The parts are very long and demanding. Some of them have just a tad of lyrics, like this part with only three lines.
Pt 1 doesn’t have any lyrics at all, while Pt 4 has a lot. Pt 1 belongs to Web Construction and will not show up on any album from Harvest of the Innocence.
Intertwining, remember?
I removed the drum section, in favour of the metal plate, aluminium ladder and the frying pan stick.
Lars Johanssons flute I really like. He really had to work with it. And the ending sequence from Mikael is also something that helped the song out. I do not really remember what he is saying in the end, but I recall that it had something to do with the recording itself.
All in all, I believe that the CD is a good demonstration of what Harvest of the Innocence is, and of what will come.