Seanan McGuire: Stars Fall Home

So I received my contributor's copy of Seanan McGuire's new CD, Stars Fall Home, yay! I've been listening to the audio file that Seanan sent me but now I also get to admire the liner notes with Beckett Gladney's fabulous interior illustrations.

Recording flute for Dorothy

By Seanan.

As I've mentioned earlier, I played flute on Dorothy; you can hear a sample from the track by going to Seanan's CD page and clicking on "Listen" beside the fourth track in Stars Fall Home. Or just click here to listen to a sample; my flute isn't on this sample, but you can hear Kris Yenney's gorgeous cello.

Seanan's Dorothy song was inspired by a photo comic from Illusive Arts Entertainment, a dark re-interpretation of Baum's original Oz. You can find out more about the song on this page.

I recorded my flute part in my home recording studio with coaching from Jeff Bohnhoff and Kristoph Klover, then sent the file off to Kristoph via YouSendIt (it was a pretty big file).

Listening to Stars Fall Home

I've been listening to Stars Fall Home a LOT in the past few months. Not only are the songs well-crafted, but the vocal and instrumental arrangements are very strong. Every note, every line contributes to the song texture as a whole.

Michelle Dockrey (a.k.a. "Vixy") provided many of the backing vocals on the album; her voice and Seanan's sound FANTASTIC together. Michelle, by the way, is going to be one of the Guests of Honour at FilKONtario next April, along with the equally talented Tony Fabris.

With her arrangements adding interest to already good songs, Seanan has also added musical variety to her songs by inviting guest musicians and vocalists. I think it VERY cool that this album involved musicians from several different countries. This sort of collaboration would have been much more of a hassle in pre-broadband days.

What's also very cool: Seanan's bio page of all the featured artists who participated in the album, including caricatures of each person. Guest musicians on this CD: Paul Kwinn, Michelle Dockrey, Tony Fabris, Amy McNally, Kristoph Klover, Alisa Garcia, Luis Garcia, Margaret Davis, Deirdre McCarthy, Kris Yenney, Beckett Gladney, Arlene Hills, Mich Sampson, Debbie Ohi (woohoo!), Mike Whitaker, Steve Macdonald, Jeff Bohnhoff, Maya Bohnhoff, Erica Neely, and Merav Hoffman.

She also did a group picture (I'm the one playing flute) of the North American musicians:




Seanan has also done a fantastic job with using her Web site to supplement and promote her recording projects. You can read about the Stars Fall Home creation process in her Recording Diary, for instance, and she is also gradually updating a special Behind The Music section to give background details for each song on the album including the story behind it, arrangement notes, interesting trivia, and even artwork.

You can find out more about Seanan at her Web site.
You can hear soundclips and read lyrics of her CDs.
You can buy her Stars Fall Home CD for $17 online.

And THANK YOU, Seanan, for inviting me to be part of this project!



Me, playing Guitar Hero 2 at the gaming party.

Photo by Ray Vankleef.



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