NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

  No matter how your Monday finds you, let's unwind with an album that meant a lot to me nearly ten years ago, the first spring I spent in Korea. I don't remember what first attracted me to Deas Vail 's third and eponymous album, but once I started listening, I couldn't stop. I also don't know much about where the band members are now, whether or not they remain in music in any capacity. What I do know is that Deas Vail captured a moment perfectly.  1. " Desire ." That being said, Deas Vail begins with my least favorite track. It's not a bad song, and it clearly has the guitar motifs and the husband-wife duet sounds which will be important elsewhere in the album. Lyrically, "Desire" isn't very interesting and it's skip-able. But that's my opinion. "Desire," does, though have the most streams of the album. 2. " Sixteen " begins the energy that is consistent in the rest of the album. Warm guitar tones bathe the ...

Edison Glass was a Christian indie band from Long Island, New York. Forming in 1998 as Mannafest (not to be confused with the Christian rapper Manafest ), the band released three records. Then they released an EP called Starting Over  as Edison. Starting Over produced a hit, " Forever ," that found its way to RadioU and its video to RadioU's sister music television channel TVU. The video for "Forever" is no longer available online, but it was one of the typical low budget videos of live footage with studio sound often played on TVU at the time by independent bands or low budget labels.   SLEEPWALKING . After releasing Starting Over Edison signed with Credential Records and changed their name to Edison Glass. The band derived their name from the inventor Thomas Edison and the composer Philip Glass . As Edison, the band equated creating music as a kind of experiment in the garage. The music business for them them was "1% inspiration and 99% perspiration....

Today we have another piano-based slow opening track. However, unlike Acceptance ’s Phantoms , promotion for Paper Route ’s debut record Absence was mostly word of mouth from the band’s existing fan base and getting on major tours with Paramore , Mutemath , and others, despite the band being on a division of a major label. The band’s established fan base, curated through touring and social media, had already been introduced to the band’s evolving sound on the Are We All Forgotten EP released on 2008 from the folk-electronic sound of their early efforts. Absence though was full electronic progressive pop. HE STOLE AS BEST HE COULD. The disorienting intro to the song " Enemy Among Us " is a reverberated piano. In the living-room-filmed album promotional performance video (see below) shows a drum set a top the electric piano as Chad Howat plays the song. I have no idea how the band recorded the song, but Absence is an album that I would like to know more technical specifics ...

A little over a month after their self-titled album was released, Deas Vail released a Christmas EP, titled For Shepherds & Kings.  The EP contains four Christmas classic hymns, performed in a way that is true to Deas Vail's sound. Of the four Christmas songs included, I was least familiar with "Coventry Carol." I had heard it by other artists and it was on some of the Christmas CDs I grew up with, but it wasn't immediately identifiable. It wasn't in the Seventh-day Adventist hymnal like "O Come O Come Immanuel" or "What Child Is This?" and it hadn't been recorded by enough artists to make it recognizable. HEROD, THE KING IS RAGING. "Coventry Carol" wasn't a standard Christmas Carol until 1940. From November 14 to 15, the Germans reigned terror upon city, and during the blitz Coventry cathedral was destroyed (pictured to the left). But on Christmas day, the BBC broadcasted a message from Coventry. Ending the broadcast, si...