Spleen Arcana

Playlist February 2010

Anaon — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:03:34 +0000

Still into Transtlantic and Magma last album which are absolutely great. I bought Talk by Yes and if it’s not a masterpiece and I’m not really a fan of this era, “Endless Dream” is a great epic track.

I played for the first time 666 by Aphrodite’s Child from Spotify, great to find this album there, it’s an awesome album! I enjoy a lot Bat For Lashes as well, her two albums are really beautiful, emotionnaly creative.

And I play a lot Neal Morse’s albums, Sola Scriptura is so great! It’s probably my favourite album from him. I came back to his last one, Lifeline, which is not as good but its eponym epic track is still awesome.

Feel free to share your playlist…

Review in Classic Rock presents Prog magazine

Anaon — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:52:10 +0000

Some months ago, a dream became true for a lot of progressive rock fans : The birth of a magazine devoted exclusively to progressive rock under the name of Classic Rock presents Prog

The Field Where She Died, Spleen Arcana’s debut album, is reviewed in the February issue of Classic Prog which is really great news (and truly means a lot to me)! This issue features Marillion with an exclusive cover by Mark Wilkinson!

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1601032754

Myspace : http://www.myspace.com/classicrockpresentsprog

Twitter : http://twitter.com/ClassicRockProg

Click on the thumbnail below to read the review

Many thanks to Classic Prog’s team!

Video clip for “A Picture…”

Anaon — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:49:41 +0000

I’m glad to share with you a video clip that a team of students from Portugal – Catarina, Joana, Pedro, Vanessa – created for the song “A Picture Of Two Lovers In The Mist”

YouTube link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyJ91OdwVSc

A huge thank to the team for their interest in the song and for their work!

Playlist January 2010

Anaon — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 12:40:40 +0000

Still a lot of music to start 2010 in the best possible way! So as you can see, Transatlantic’s new album is still on “heavy rotation” here! Sure it’s maybe not as good as the first two albums but it’s still my favourite 2009 album and a great epic progressive rock opus. Crises by Mike Oldfield… I didn’t like it in the past… Not really but somehow, I learnt to like it and now I can say that “Crises” is one of my favourite epics from Mr Oldfield. Elegant Gypsy by Al Di Meola is one of my favourite album at the moment, the guitar work is really awesome! I came back to The Incident by Porcupine Tree and I like it better than before, when I bought it. And there’s always some great classics like Pink Floyd’s albums…

As always, feel free to share your playlist…

Download a new little tune

Anaon — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:39:42 +0000

Here is a new little tune to celebrate the end of the year called “The Platypus” (Why not?).

Registered members of spleenarcana.com can download the tune by clicking on its title just here : The Platypus (28)
Find more information on the song in the Download Club

If you aren’t aready a member, register here.

Playlist November 2009

Anaon — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:46:34 +0000

Obviously, heavy rotation of November is The Whirlwind by the giant Transatlantic and the new release by the mythic Magma called Ëmëhntëhtt-Rê. Easily two of the best albums of this year in my opinion. The Whirlwind is a huge epic prog party with a fantastic production (Pete Trewavas bass sound is excellent, as his playing of course), I had a lot of expectations regarding this release and I’m not disappointed at all! Ëmëhntëhtt-Rê is a great release too, from the darkest side of progressive world, otherwordly enigmatic.

And I’m still listening to the last Porcupine Tree, Guilt Machine and some other titles :
- Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John
- Tommy by the Who
- Cosmic Egg by Wolfmother
- The Scope by Subaudition
- And a huge revival for the Flower Kings : Flower Power, The Flower King, Retropolis, The Sum Of No Evil, Back In The World Of Adventures…

Epic November, isn’t it?

What about your playlist?

Review of debut album on Progressor

Anaon — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:10:34 +0000

A review of The Field Where She Died has just been published on the great Uzbekistan Progressive Rock website (check out their “Tops of Prog” page, fantastic way to discover great old albums!)

You can read the detailed review here or by clicking on the banner below

Thanks to Progressor and Olav M. Björnsen!

M-Audio Oxygen 8

Anaon — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:23:16 +0000

Some days ago, I found this used M-Audio Oxygen 8 for my new setup. With its 25 keys, it’s the smallest of the family (Edirol PCR50 and Fatar TKM88) but it’ll be great for small places like my new studio corner. The problem is there is no Windows 7 driver yet as it’s an “old” keyboard but it’s currently under development hopefully. I can’t wait because I’m seriously thinking about something (before recording the second album) which requires keyboards, a lot of keyboards…

Cockos Reaper

Anaon — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:07:57 +0000

As you can read here, I added some days ago a laptop to my recording setup. I plan to use this laptop mainly to play my VST synths and record my demo tracks here in Paris. I will probably install my Samplitude Pro which I use for audio recording but my main “vst software” was Tracktion 1. Very simple software but I wanted to test something else : Reaper. I’m still in the “30 days evaluation” allowed by the daw and it seems to be a very efficient tool. I created a “project template” (left picture) which loads my most used VST synth with some custom icons. A feature which is really great is how you can manage tempo and time signatures changes. It’s so simple and you can easily render the click source as a .wav file so you can export it in another daw (Samplitude in my case). The fact is I will certainly add Reaper to my recording tools and use it to record my second album.

By the way, here is the beginnings of my new musical “home studio” corner in Paris :

It should evolves in the next days with a dedicated workstation (Studio RTA Mix Station), a USB audio interface and some other stuffs… Stay tuned…

First step towards second album recording

Anaon — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:57:17 +0000

And its name is : Toshiba Satellite L505-10P! Some weeks ago, I wrote about a mobile recording setup (and asked for your opinon in the forums here) but I was a bit lost in the laptop world. I spent a lot of times reading about laptop models and I finally decided to take the Toshiba road. I’m really excited about it because it means that I can start working on demos for Spleen Arcana’s second album. This model is a bit more powerful than previous model I thought about because I felt it would be safer for recording. You can read more about this model here.

I just installed Reaper actually to run some vsti like the great Elektrostudio vintage package which I had on my USB drive and never tried it yet. I have to install Samplitude Pro as well to record drums and vocals. At the moment, I’m using the Asio4all driver to test Reaper and the laptop. The next step is a USB audio interface for a better sound quality, thinking about a Focusrite Saffire 6 usb to record vst synths, bass and guitars (and the great thing is I could use my RME Multiface if I get an Express card to record the drums and vocals which will be recorded at Le Refuge). I’m still not sure about programming. I like to create some demo drums tracks to work on the songs and I’m searching for ideas about this…

To be continued…

PS : Debut album is still available for free for registered members (register here) : The Field Where She Died (128kbps) (1604)