Quicksilver Night 2022-2023

Looking Back

On March 16th I posted “I hit 2.3K monthly listeners on Pandora a few days ago and now it’s begun to subside a bit. I’m fairly certain this will be the peak for the year; I’d love to be wrong about that.” I was right, however, and it was indeed the high point in our Pandora listeners for the year, no doubt due to three different tracks from the “Asymptote” album serving consecutively as “featured tracks” on Pandora, but I’m just fine with that. I hope to surpass that with this 2023’s forthcoming releases. 🙂

On April 12th we hit 10.7K monthly listeners on Spotify and that was our peak for the year as well and, in fact, the all-time high for Quicksilver Night … so far. 🙂
We released the digital-only single “Existential” and its lyric video on August 30, basically to provide some new and exciting music in 2022 and hopefully maintain an online presence while we continued to diligently work on produce yet more new songs for forthcoming albums.
 
Here, above, is the official lyric video for Quicksilver Night’s “Existential” featuring the blazing vocals of Hadi Kiani and some searing guitar solo work from Farzad Golpayegani. Hard-hitting rock music in a classic vein enhanced by some progressive elements reminiscent of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, “Existential” passionately articulates the dread we all sometimes feel against an ominously throbbing tribal backdrop. #rotorvideos #fazadg #hadikiani
 
“Existential” is available for streaming and download at digital retailers everywhere via https://quicksilvernight.com/existential/

Some Year End Validations

I was happy just to be nominated for a Friday Night Progressive “Inde Prog Award” but am immensely gratified to learn that Quicksilver Night was awarded third place in the instrumental category. This is no mean feat, especially in consideration of the ridiculously high quality of the other entrants across the board.

Here’s one of two screen shots from my 2022 “Spotify Wrapped” that I’ve chosen to share here.

…And here’s the other. 🙂

Looking Ahead

Quicksilver Night has a LOT of new music in the production queue for 2023.
#quicksilvernight #QNP #sandcastlerecords

“Ptichka”: Almost exactly a year ago, on December 13th, 2021, I announced a collaborative project with the enchanting Olja Karpova (“Dikajee”) on “Ptichka”, a song nearly eight minutes in length that, although perhaps it could be labeled as “progressive” in the broadest sense of things, touched upon several genres. Then I was doubly pleased be able to announce several days later that Andrew Negustorov (“The Andrew N. Project”) had agreed to provide his signature fingerboard-burning fretwork to the piece as well. Then on February 24th Russia invaded Ukraine; this aggression and ensuing sanctions by seemingly the entire rest of the world threw several spanners into the “Ptichka” works but we eventually got things back on track. The song “Ptichka” was originally slated for release as a digital-only single destined be later included as a bonus track on the forthcoming “We Are Also the Dreamt” album but the project has evolved. The song “Ptichka” is now slated to be the title song of a five-song EP of the same name that will span almost 30 minutes and be made available on physical CD. Please allow me to share here a couple of video clips that I imagine will spark your interest far more than any narrative I could supply, below.

#dikajee #marcoiacobini

“Seven Cities Blue”: There are a lot of moving parts to any collaborative project and it took us most of 2022 to finally get the “Seven Cities Blue” train properly set on the tracks. As 2022 comes to a close I am pleased to say that we’ve made very significant inroads into recording the four-song “Seven Cities Blue” mini-EP. About a year ago I announced that I was “set to include four tracks of hybrid jazz/blues/rock in the vein of 2020’s ‘No Contest’ and I have the usual collaborative suspects – along with a surprise guest or two – in mind for it.” Nothing’s changed except the timing of the thing. I can unequivocally state that all four songs of the mini-EP will feature Jeff Saunders on saxes and that my good friend Jason Cale has agreed to reprise his role as co-producer of all four songs as well as serving as featured guitarist on two of them. I am delighted also to share again that local guitar legend Jay Rakes has agreed to apply his fretboard skills to the title track. We’ve already begun the recording process for the songs “Seven Cities Blue”, “Shorten Suite”, and “Edifice Wrecks” and plan to hit the ground running in January with “What You Think”. Our immediate goal is to lay down and pre-mix all the guitar parts into the bass and drums guide tracks before we set to recording Jeff’s saxophone parts. Then we’ll go about coordinating with a couple of additional guest musicians. #jasoncalemusic

Featuring my friend Stephen Speelman as “The Unified One”, let’s not forget the digital-only single “Quintus Interruptus”. We finished our demo version of the song and dumped audio of the project into Steve’s lap right as things were ramping up for the holidays and it’s not a surprise that it’s had to take a back seat to some other ongoing things, especially when one considers that the song has some unusual qualities that don’t allow for a cookie-cutter approach to songcraft  A guitar-driven odd-meter rock instrumental, “Quintus Interruptus” would have been right at home on 2021’s “Asymptote” album; beginning as a joke, the working title “Quintus Interruptus” stemmed from a recurring bar of 4/4 that interrupted the 5/4 groove. We just sort of collectively shrugged and decided to go with it. You shouldn’t rush creativity even if you could and I am looking forward to the day it all clicks together.

I am being intentionally coy about this but I have written two additional songs that will see release in late 2023 and I’ve got two stellar vocal talents – and excellent songwriters in their own right – on board to collaborate with me on each of them. We will officially announce this two-song project in April or May and there are a few of you that might be surprised by it when we do but it’s very unlikely that any of you will be displeased by the content of that announcement. For those of you doing the math, that’s 12 Quicksilver Night songs across four releases in the production queue for 2023 so far. Here’s hoping. 🙂

Quicksilver Night 2021

Looking Back on the Previous Year and Ahead to the Next

We released five new songs as Quicksilver Night in the first part of the year, two as standalone advance singles and three as a digital-only mini-EP, and this was meant to keep things moving until we could release the full-length “Asymptote” album later in the year. Those songs were Hephaestus the Cuckold (in March) and The Galactic Edge (in August) – both featuring Farzad Golpayegani – and all three songs of April’s “Mr. Wizard” mini-EP featuring Jason Cale: Mr. Wizard; Power Curve and Parallel Play. All five of those songs were originally intended for “Asymptote” and all of them wound up on that album, either re-released or as bonus tracks, so I qualify that particular part of my plan a success.

Those songs are responsible for Quicksilver Night surpassing 5K followers and, at one point, nearly 8K monthly listeners at Spotify as well as gaining some significant traction on Pandora Radio. It was my hope and intention to have “primed the pump” for December’s release of the “Asymptote” album

We finally released the “Asymptote” album – the day before yesterday as of this post, actually – and it’s been a long time coming. “Asymptote” seems to have been well received so far and initial reactions have been greatly encouraging. It’s a little early to tell how it all might play out and the year is very nearly over but I suppose this is what I get for releasing new music in December. 🙂

As it says on the “Asymptote” discography page: “I laid down the bones of the album long ago and but it’s fair to say that we began actively recording tracks for ‘Asymptote’ right on the heels of 2018’s ‘Symmetry’ album. It’s been a long time coming however one might look at it; this figurative machine had a lot of moving parts to begin with and things were further complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic, notably for associated travel restrictions and for the detrimental impact on warehousing and physical distribution of CDs. It’s here now though, in all its glory!”

So, now let’s look ahead … I already posted about my plans for upcoming releases in 2022 and 2023 last May in a separate blog entry and those plans haven’t changed much but I’ve refined them a bit and here’s how things look for Quicksilver Night in the coming year:

We will begin laying down audio tracks early in the year for a vocals-oriented full-length “We Are Also the Dreamt” album that we hope to release in 2023. I have previously posted something of my plans for this album back in May but it should come as no surprise that the project has evolved since then (and will probably continue to do so). I’ve made some conceptual changes to “We Are Also the Dreamt” since I last posted and the primary shift has been to remove a couple of songs – including both instrumentals – from the programming of that album. In its current form “We Are Also the Dreamt” will be comprised of ten vocally driven new songs spanning nearly an hour – including the 10-minute “Somnium Liminalis” – plus two bonus tracks totaling about 12 additional minutes between them.

Listen to Dikajee at https://dikajee.bandcamp.com

I also have plans of recording and releasing a digital-only mini-EP in 2022, “Seven Cities Blue” is set to include four tracks of hybrid jazz/blues/rock in the vein of 2020’s “No Contest” and I have the usual collaborative suspects – along with a surprise guest or two – in mind for it. I’ve also arranged and licensed cover versions of Til Tuesday’s “Voices Carry” and Missing Persons’ “Words” – we’ve already begun recording both – and I am not entirely sure how we’re going to proceed with them but I guarantee that they’re coming in 2022 as well. As fun as they might be I view this mini-EP and the two cover songs I just mentioned as something of placeholders, not because they’re getting anything less than my full attention but because the “We Are Also the Dreamt” album, my primary goal, is dauntingly ambitious. There was a gap of nearly three years between Quicksilver Night’s “Symmetry” and “Asymptote” full-length albums and I am glad we dropped a few digital-only tracks in between those two albums to fill the void. I hope to repeat and refine the process this time around and provide more new music before “We Are Also the Dreamt” sees the proverbial light of day.

Stay tuned!