Cover for the Julean and the Rai album "Here."
Last week, the 2008 LP “Here.” (Vol. II) was released at the official store at TheRaiBand.Com, alongside “Muse Tree” (2007, Vol. I) and “Alexandria, Falling” (2007, Instrumental EP). The album is Julean Rai’s ninth recording release, and the second release in the seven-album CHRONOLOGY project, which includes “Muse Tree” and the upcoming album “Secrets and Stains”. Available in both download and physical formats, “Here.” is the story of the “Muse Tree” character beginning the process of growing up and separating from his hometown and his past, and is a sequel to 2007’s “Muse”.
Lately, aside from opting not to add this album to thier iTunes, Amazon, and eMusic catalog, the Rai Band has made some interesting decisions regarding their discography releases, including offering 2007’s “Muse Tree” as a free download.
“Offering up [Muse] and making “Here.” only available at the website was kind of a choice of my own,” Julean stated in a recent interview. “Since we’d been a while without an official website, I wanted more of the focus to be on the new site. I also want to experiment with the band maintaining full control of the album sales for a short time. “Muse Tree” is a great to get to know my music, and I see no reason that can’t be free for at least a little while as we’re getting the site together. It’s just a way to reach more people. I don’t plan to do that with any of the other albums, expect for maybe the live shows.”
A slight contrast to the carefree and intentionally haphazard tone of “Muse Tree”, “Here.” is a carefully constructed acoustic album with more aggression, more emotion, and more lows than highs. While certain stand-out songs (“Darlene”, “Sin”, “A Wedding for Laura”) still carry the forgiving and patient songwriting undertones of many of the songs from the previous album, “Here.” begins the slow course for distaster that eventually crash-lands at the beginning of the “Secrets and Stains” release.
“The songs from [Secrets and Stains] are definitely more macabre, more drastic, much darker … with just a few exceptions, which I guess would be kind of manic, if anything. In fact, I don’t think the story really lightens up until [Vol. V] “Effortless”. Maybe that’s part of the reason these are all being recorded in groups, rather than one-at-a-time …”
The previous three releases were recorded without a band by Julean solo over a grueling 40-night session in February, 2007. Recording them all at once, and without a band, made the three albums Julean’s recording project an 18-hour a day venture, non stop.
“I couldn’t find a band where the studio was, so I kind of had to take it all on myself — drums, vocals, girl parts, boy parts, bass, leads, everything. That studio was littered in instruments and at some point I got so into it, I basically slept at the studio, just a few inches from the recording area. I mean that way I could get up, make a cup of coffee, listen to the tracks from the night before, and start again. I originally planned to only record “Muse Tree”, but I still had time, so I guess in the end it was a matter of being motivated to work on the [CHRONOLOGY] project. I recorded everything in order, though, because “Muse Tree” had to have a certain, slightly different tone and “color” than “Here.”, which I wanted to be a slightly more professional work. Since [Muse Tree] is mostly songs and stories of an earlier age, I thought it might be interesting to intentionally make it a little messy. And that wasn’t hard, given the situation. For “Here.”, I upgraded some of the equipment and applied some knowledge of working with the space for “Muse” and “Alexandria” so each track was simple, each track was organized, each take was clean. I wanted the album to have a very, very consistent sound. Mostly because [Muse] *is* so crazy and “Stains” is going to be dark and heavy … maybe even slightly electric. “Here.” is a stepping out story, so it had to be a little more grounded; not just in story, but in sound, as well.”
Surprising listeners and fans by offering “Muse Tree” as a free download, especially after the commercial success of the album of last year, Julean feels that experiments like this exemplify the new movement of music and the digital age.
Stream the 2007 “Here.” LP for Free
“People are used to downloading, and to be honest with you it’s just for a little while. I think it’s a good way to reach people and help them find my music. Eventually, I’ll put [Here.] into regular distribution and “Muse Tree” back in the catalogue, but for now I want to see how this goes.”
“Here.” is available for instant MP3 download on the discography page at TheRaiBand.Com for $5.49, and as a physical CD for $15.99 (shipping and tax included). Individual tracks are available for $0.79 per download.
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