Lost In The Storm

 

This song came together in 2010, with bits dating back to 2000! It is currently slated to be track 6 on “Hindsight”.

(The following was originally posted in a track by track breakdown on the Reinvision Substack page on Feb 8, 2023. Original post here Lost In The Storm – Substack Track Breakdown Entry)

Background

So this one is an interesting one as it simultaneously represents arguably the oldest AND (almost) newest music on “Hindsight”.

In 2010, soon after I got together with Crystiannia, some mutual friends of ours were going through some tough times, and she had written some lyrics about it. She is typically more of a story/book/novel type writer, but she made the foray into some lyrics to mix things up. We decided it would be neat to do a collaboration with her lyrics and my music. So after she wrote the lyrics and shared them with me, I went into composition mode.

At this time, Crystiannia and I were not living together yet, though I often found myself spending time at her apartment. So when I was there, it was usually after I was done giving guitar/bass lessons, so I’d usually just have my Ibanez 6 string, and my Steinberger 4 string bass with me, which are my main teaching instruments. Also I would have my Zoom, and my laptop. So my initial work on this was with just those items to get the basic ideas down. My earliest recorded files are from June 10, 2010.

As I started working on the music, I realized a chunk of the song worked really well with an older one of my demo songs I wrote in 2000 called “Distant Rains”:

(After I get through all of the songs for “Hindsight”, I may dig into some of my older demos like this one as I try to get them archived more thoroughly from my old 4 track cassette tapes)

(Also cut to approx 5:40 to hear the tail end of the solo and me breaking a string on the last note!)

As you can hear, that became the main intro/verse part of “Lost In The Storm” without much change. I came up with a heavier pre-chorus and chorus for it, as well as new breaks, etc. I programmed the drums and keyboards, and that became the meat and potatoes of it.

In April of 2011, I decided to update and re-record all of the guitars and bass and get this recording to be more in line with my other demos at the time. I kept the keyboards and drums, just updated the drum mixing, and re-recorded the guitars and bass.

Demos & Gear

As I mentioned above, all the guitars in this version were done with the Zoom, including the (rough) acoustic guitar simulation. I can’t recall if I used a Zoom patch for the bass, or it it’s just DI here. Probably just DI, as that was something I did a lot with the Steinberger bass. On this initial version it’s the Steinberger 4 string, tuned to Drop D.

On the 2011 re-recording, I used my 1995 Carvin LB76F fretless 6 string for the bass. The fretless will be making a presence on “Hindsight” as it’s still my favorite bass and it has such a great tone. It will likely be used on this track, as well as a few others, at least in sections.

This update also had my Universe for the electric guitar parts, through my Rocktron Chameleon (my standard demo setup), and then my Guild D-35 was used for the 1st break. While this guitar sounds especially good mic’ed up, this was actually done with the onboard Fishman Matrix Infinity piezo pickup and preamp I added to it. Often I will blend it with the mic’ed sound, which is what I will probably do for the re-recording on the album. But here it’s just that DI sound, which gets the point across.

As you can hear, the basic form of the song, the riffs, and even the solo were in place basically right out of the gate, and carried over into the “Hindsight” demo for 2022. I just had to do a mild update to the guitar tones to make them match the other tracks, and that was really it.

This was yet another song that was a natural choice for inclusion on “Hindsight”, due to the form, dynamics, and overall feel.

Lyrics

As I mentioned, Crystiannia wrote these lyrics. I believe I may have helped organize them to match up with the song arrangement, but they are her creation. It is in reference to a couple that were mutual friends of ours, and they were both individually going through some tumultuous times. The only solace they were really finding was with each other, with a lot of bridges inadvertently being burned amongst those they thought were close to them. These lyrics were written as sort of a gift to them, and ultimately the whole song was in tribute to what they were going through, and show them support.

Lost In The Storm – Lyrics (by Crystiannia Ryce):

As a bonus, here is a 2022 video I made demonstrating the solo, and the harmony bits. For the video I also broke out my blue Ibanez RG 6 string that I used on the original scratch demo:

Reinvision – Lost In The Storm: Guitar Solo on YouTube

Stay tuned for future updates as progress is made on this song.