New Acoustic Project is Here! Watch Music Video of the first song + More updates about Kekal.
New Acoustic Project is Here! Watch Music Video of the first song + More updates about Kekal.
Message from Jeff, April 2024.
Greetings!
Jeff again here. This is the 2nd message posted on Substack. Thank you for taking time reading the previous message (March 2024). We've had almost 1,200 visits so far for that message, which is a very good number for the first post using the new platform. I’d like to personally thank all of you who subscribed to this e-newsletter. There are some more updates that I wanted to share right now.
Continuing from the previous message (click to read it here if you haven’t yet), I had been contemplating of re-tuning my instruments to 432 Hz for about a couple of years, but was still undecided at that time. Now that I've lost interest in doing aggressive type of music with distorted electric guitar, I feel that it's time to do some stripped-down acoustic guitar based project and record some stuff with 432 Hz tuning, something that I haven't done consciously before. I always like to do something new as opposed to repeating the same old cycle over and over again, because I take music as an adventure that's connected to the soul’s learning process. Now I feel I'm completely done in doing music with 440 Hz tuning, the most intuitive first step is to do more simple and organic music with an acoustic guitar as the main instrument. I want to feel the 432 Hz tuning myself during recording.
Introducing K432
This acoustic project I'm currently working on is named K432. This is not a new "band" or "artist name", but a sub-unit of Kekal dedicated to acoustic guitar based music. Any material will still be released under Kekal umbrella but with K432 tag on it, and releases under K432 will not become a part of Kekal's main releases, but under this sub-unit. This is mainly because the acoustic project will be presented and marketed outside the metal circles as the nature of the music that is entirely not metal. All the material will be a re-worked of existing Kekal songs, with different arrangements fitted into acoustic guitar and clean-singing format. Please note that this is not merely an "unplugged" version of the existing songs, but a completely re-arranged version with some sections getting different chords, melody-lines, etc. and even re-worked lyrics if needed. K432 will be an ongoing project that runs in parallel with Kekal’s future releases.
The first song is now ready to be released as a digital single sometime next month (will be available for streaming on Spotify, etc. and of course for download on Bandcamp). The single is called "K432 - Born Anew", basically an acoustic guitar rework of the song "Born Anew" from Kekal's 2022 album "Envisaged". It's not yet released officially, but you can watch the music video and listen to the song on YouTube (now still set as unlisted).
Once the single is released, album title for this project will be announced as well (stay tuned), and more individual singles will be released digitally until the full-length album is formed. Currently looking for any indie/alternative/folk label partner (non metal-related) who might be interested in releasing this project on vinyl and/or cassette tape formats. Any interested party or if you have some recommendation please email kekalband@gmail.com
To answer your questions regarding new material for the next Kekal album (Kekal's 14th full-length album), this is something that hasn't been on the working schedule so far. I'm still writing some new lyrics and have no thoughts about the music just yet until the lyrics for about at least 8 songs are completely done. And speaking of music, because now I've re-tuned my instruments to 432 Hz, I won't be able to use many of my favourite soft-synths that have been used in Kekal albums (like the choir synth and orchestral strings) because they are completely set at 440 Hz by the manufacturer. Some "analog-simulated" type soft-synths do have a possible fine-tuning capability to 432 Hz, but the choice of using synthesizers will now be minimal. I will need more time to resolve these issues.
Remastering of some Kekal albums into 432 Hz tuning!
I am also beginning to do some "experimental" remastering of some Kekal's past albums to bring the entire music as close to 432 Hz tuning as possible from the original 440 Hz 'standard tuning' that we used to record those albums. The first album I'm currently working for remastering is "Autonomy"; Kekal's 9th album released in 2012. This is the 'least-popular' album from Kekal and it hasn't been re-mastered since the original release date. The uniqueness of this album is that it has more focus on chords and melodic textures with much less aggression, and the vocals are all clean singing as far as I can remember. Transposing/re-tuning it to 432 Hz means the entire pitch will be pulled down just a tiny bit, and also the tempo will be affected as well as the running time, but the difference won't be noticeable unless you compare both versions back to back.
I am using pitch-shifting method by cents (intervals). According to calculations, the cents of down-shift to mirror the change of frequency ratio from 440 Hz to 432 Hz should be at -31.76665363342928 So here I put the amount at -31.8 on the pitch-shifter. Shifting by cents like this is very much doable when you are going to tune the entire mix of any music to 432 Hz. I can guarantee that shifting to 432 Hz will make any less-chaotic melodic music to be more enjoyable because of its harmonic resonance with the human body. See previous post regarding my decision to move away from 440 Hz 'standard tuning' for my music.
This remastered version of "Autonomy" album will be released on Bandcamp as a digital download (replacing the original master), and it will also be released on digital streaming services for the first time. I don't have the release schedule for this just yet, because my focus is currently on recording the acoustic project as the main priority.
Stay tuned! Thank you. Feel free to share this message to your friends as you see fit.