Dokusan / Michael Barnett: After the Rain [CD]

Description

This CD contains 15 pieces of music. Most lyrics by Michael Barnett.

1. Song of the Wild Goose
- This track sets the tone for the album with very powerful and straightforward lyrics. I´m sure that everyone who lives the words in this song will create a silent revolution, not only in himself or herself, but also in the world. Just think of how life would be if all kinds of neurotic competition were to disappear ...
2. Just This
- If you don´t take yourself and your problems too seriously, a burden is lifted from your shoulders. You become as light as a feather, as if becoming a child again. A quite exstatic feeling that I have tried to capture in this song.
3. Summer Rain
- I love the rain as much as I love the sun. Like night and day, you cannot appreciate one without the other.
4. Because I Cannot Sleep
- These words are easy to sing. I don´t quite understand them, but it doesn’t matter too much. Something in them draws me to sing them anyway.
5. Last Train Home
- I think you become a traveller out of curiosity, because you always want to see what´s around the next bend of the road. But it happens that something in the landscape, a village you pass by, a lover that you meet, or whatever, gives you a momentary feeling of coming home, or a wish to settle down... That is what this song is about.
6. The Always So
- A love song! What is an album without a love song?
7. Surrender
- A cowboy song. The word ´surrender´ is not mentioned in the lyrics, but in playing the song I get a sense of ... letting go, leaving my old life behind ... Thus this title. It is from a live-recording with Surrender Cowboys.
8. Council of Fools
- One of my favorite poems of all times. A masterpiece! Maybe it was the words ´licking the ears of angels´ that took me into space, and the reason why this song goes immediately into the next track.
9. Bodyflow
- ... where I somehow imagine my body flowing in space, moving in slow motion with no volition, with no destination - ´joining the holy council of fools´.
10. Variations on a Theme
- Again, travelling has been on my mind while playing. And as the traveller always comes back home to be refilled with energy and wanderlust before he sets out on another journey, so also this piano-piece circles around a main theme, varying in tempo and dynamics to reflect the nature of a journey.
11. The Lord Is My Shepherd
- I have always loved this psalm from the Holy Bible because it captures the essence of my relationship with God and my image of Him. I think of God as an old man with long grey hair and a grey beard, sitting with his staff somewhere up in his Heaven with kind, loving eyes, not unlike the Gandalf-figure from ´The Lord of the Rings´, to me a symbol of goodness and love.
12. Sitting in the Sunlight
- When you least expect it, something miraculous happens. You hear a voice from nowhere ...
13. Raiding the Newborn Sunrise
- Another live-recording by Surrender Cowboys. When I heard the recording I was amazed how much silence there was in the piece. This is why it found its way into this album.
14. Raiding the Newborn Sun
- This is the twin of the previous poem. I tried to make the silence linger here and explore it. For this purpose I ended up using very sparse instrumentation, just a few minor strokes on the guitar to set the atmosphere.
15. After the Rain
- I love the sound of the rain and the gray thickness in it... It makes me stop and reflect, and sometimes it happens that I’m washed away.
Love, Dokusan

All music by Dokusan Henrik Svenningsen
www.linguamusica.com - www.surrendercowboys.com
except track 4 by Dokusan and Domini Kenneth Plon, track 6 by Domini and track 12 by Kleio Christian Uhrskov.

All lyrics by Michael Barnett
www.MichaelBarnett.net
except track 4 by Rumi, tracks 5, 7 and 9 by Dokusan and track 10 from The Holy Bible.

Musicians
Domini Kenneth Plon: bass on tracks 6, 7 and 12, keyboard on tracks 7 and 13 and harmonic voice on track 7.
Gunnar Mühlmann: solo guitar on track 2, rhythm guitar on the first part of track 5.
Kleio Christian Uhrskov: guitar on track 13.
Max Bering: soprano saxophone on tracks 3, 8 and 11.
Misha Simona Svenningsen: solo voice and harmonic voice on track 12.
Ummon Niels Viggo Hansen: percussion on tracks 7 and 13.
Vasuda Emilie Thalmay: solo voice on track 6.
All other instruments, voices and sound effects by Dokusan.

All music mixed and mastered by Dokusan, except tracks 7 and 13 by Domini Kenneth Plon.
Energy Drawings by Michael Barnett
Cover photo by Sanne Møllegård
Layout by Shintai, www.zenDzign.dk
Produced by MBOneLife, www.MichaelBarnett.net
This album is dedicated to my beloved wife Nadano Michela Svenningsen.

Additional material:

The CD comes with a “booklet” containing lyrics, Energy Drawings and detailed track information on contributions. It can be downloaded as a pdf file HERE