Sunday of work

I'm working on a freelance project. It's coming along. I'm actually doing some design work which I haven't done in a loooooong time. I feel inspired to write tho, but I have to work on this. Damn it. Why is it that my inspiration comes at night most of the time.. Music is helping too, my Dream Theather station in pandora plays very good music. It fuels the inspiration. I guess on the flip side I'm channeling my drive towards work.

I have declared my favorite band: Ayreon.

So I had an epiphany a few days weeks ago. I was at work and I was listening through my mp3s when I started to listen to Ayreon. This a band that was introduced to me by my good friend Ace. The very first track that I heard from this band was "Computer Eyes". Interestingly enough, it's about video games and a virtual reality in a dark and abstract way. Coolness. This was back in 2001 and that was all back then.

Not until several years later I stumbled upon the album "The Human Equation"... and I was blown away by the range in lyrics, music and concept. As I was listening it reminded me of something, then I remembered that song I had heard years back! So, as my interest grew in this album and band, I dove into who and what was behind it.

Ayreon is a progressive rock/metal Dutch project of Arjen A. Lucassen. He invokes and gathers musicians from other bands for his projects. To name some: Michael Romeo, Damian Wilson, Daniel Gildenlöw, Floor Jansen, Neal Morse, James LaBrie, Lori Linstruth, the great Erik Norlander and many more. I listed mainly vocalists, guitar players and a keyboard player, but the repertoire is much broader, from flutes to even the Didgeridoo.

Anyways, my path on the Ayreon track went to listening to "Into The Electric Castle", a great scifi rock opera which I think is one of the best albums I've ever heard. Then I got to "The Universal Migrator". This project consisted of two albums, Part 1: The Dream Sequencer geared towards a progressive feel and the other one Part 2: Flight of the Migrator was towards a more metal feel. Both great, but I identify more with metal one. The next album was "01011001", a culmination that ties all the previous albums and portrays how humans came to being. Only until lately have I really gotten into the other albums "The Final Experiment", "Actual Fantasy" and "Ayreonauts Only", which the first one is really good, but in the words of Ace: 'I had to train myself for it' and it's about this ministrel who receives a message from the future through a technolgy called "Time Telepathy" about how humanity comes to an end by destroying itself... How is that for a mouthful? Continuing, "Actual Fantasy" is not a concept album and the songs are independent of each other and very loosely tied, I have a special connection with this one because it has the song "Computer Eyes". Finally "Ayreonauts Only" is a compilation of alternate versions of songs released from "The Final Experiment" to "The Universal Migrator".
I need to make a special mention to the most recent album released: "Timeline". Which is a second compilation of select songs and a previously unreleased track.

I cannot choose a favorite album nor a favorite song, because each is different and depending on my mood I may like one or some over another. The following however, I keep coming back to and are in constant rotation in my ipod:

• Merlin's Will
• The Charm Of The Seer (and the alternate home demo version)
  
• Abbey Of Synn
• Computer Eyes
• Back On Planet Earth
• Isis and Osiris
• Time Beyond Time
• The Garden of Emotions
• Evil Devolution
• The Two Gates
• My House On Mars
• 2084
• Carried By The Wind
• And The Druids Turn To Stone
• Chaos
• Dawn Of A Million Souls
• Through The Wormhole (and the alternate version)
  
• Out Of The White Hole (and the alternate version)
  
• Carpe Diem
• Into the Black Hole (alternate version)
• Eyes of Time (alternate version)
• Day Two: Isolation
• Day Three: Pain
  
• Day Seven: Hope
• Day Eleven: Love
• Day Eighteen: Realization
• Day Twenty: Confrontation
• Age of Shadows
• Liquid Eternity
• Beneath The Waves
• Ride The Comet
• The Earth Extinction
• Unnatural Selection
• River Of Time
• E=MC2

Yeah, that's about it. :D Ayreon. Right on.