Well, my friends the creation process continues. So far I have composed the framework for 5 of the tentative 12 moments in the chronology of my interpretation of Milton’s Paradise Lost.

To bring you all up to speed from the last post, I am mining inspiration from three characters of Paradise Lost: Devil, Sin, Death – and their incestuous interpersonal relationships.

Interestingly enough, the character of God has also become an increasingly important character in what I consider the Devil’s internal debate and external dialogue, though one sided conversation (fittingly enough).

The song titles tentatively have become the following for the first five:

1. The Beginning: A proclamation of the Devil immediately after the war/initial fall from heaven, speaking directly to God.

2. The Gate: An appeal of Sin to her lover/brother the Devil and declaration of adoration and devotion for him against the instruction God has given her to guard the gates of hell from being opened.

3. A Tether: Death is the child of the Devil and Sin’s copulation, and in tradition with Greek tragedy, his Oedipus’s complex for his mother Sin and resentment of his father the Devil, inspires an accusatory and longing tenor.

4. Gepetto: The Devil’s continued dialogue with ever silent God, and his naive assumption that he has free will and made a choice to separate himself from heaven and that he if not is equal in force, equivalent in desire.

5. Whisper: Sin’s formidable lust for the Devil and her absence of morality, a Pele-like goddess, she destroys and creates without regard for the assumed rules of man or God. She has the power to carve, like water over stone, but my interpretation of Sin is also flavored by a level of regret. Because though she has this ability, she still longs to unite with her other half, however oblivious he (the Devil) is to all of this.

So, this is what I have forged with the framework of my musical palate this far. In the coming weeks we will be posting snippets of the sonorities that are created with Todd and my collaboration and creation… and perhaps a another cover song or two along the way.

Thank you for your continued support and more to come soon…

- joshua

well, its been a while since the last update, but i figure now is as good a time as any: so currently i’ve been working on an album based on Milton’s Paradise Lost.. at first it was just going to inspire the reflections of the personalities and concepts in the story and then as i’ve worked on it more and more, the reflections have turned into three personalities that I’m taking from three primary life tenses: Past, Present, Future – the characters in the plot are the Devil, Sin, and Death – i’m trying to imagine and examine emotions as each of these characters experience stages in their life’s cycle – their histories, their present, and their future… all of these stages flavored by various Graces from Greek and Roman mythology and various Muses from Greek and Roman mythology – then tenor all of these influences by Aristotle’s Emotions (a list that apparently to live a complete life, one must understand each and its source)… i’m still in the words phase of the process, trying to finger and layer and extract lyrics that will tenor the sound and the overall feel for the work… i’ve become slightly apprehensive that the concept is overall too dark, but i know that what forces guide my pen, my heart, and my head – that it will at least be reflections of parts of myself, in various stages of life and know that as i have aged the timeline of reflection begins to flatten out and isn’t spiked by too many ups and downs – hindsight, if you will.. the real beauty of the concept is when i bring it to Todd, together we truly begin to weave and craft a musical story – more to come, soon more to
listen.. – Josh