New Musical Track: "Lonesome West" (Patreon)

The Western, as a genre is an integral part of America's cultural DNA. Images of wide open spaces, endless skies, lawless towns and frontier justice invoke the same sense of mystery and adventure that sailing adventures did a century before. We're so enamored with these themes that we've  combined them with every other genre and created an endless number of sub-genres. Western horror, Western comedy, sci-fi Westerns, cyberpunk Westerns. The list is endless.

Because of this there is nothing that we can't 'make Western' by the addition of  a few well placed touchstones. Space exploration is 'Western' in that it's a dangerous journey to the unknown. Add dusty leathers to the crew and give the captain a down-home twang and you've got Joss Whedon's Firefly.  Add buckets of blood and you've got everything Cormac McCarthy ever wrote. Add robots and you've got Westworld. Add Zombies and you've got Red Dead Redemption, whose opening theme gave me the inspiration for this track.

I wanted to create a musical track that had a Western vibe, but wasn't a Morricone soundalike. (I adore Morricone, for the record). Also, one of the things that I never get to do in commercial projects is play live instruments. Given time and budgets I would but the reality is that revisions, timing adjustments for new picture, more revisions, means that live performance is just impractical.

So here's my ode to the dark Western genre. A 10 minute, meditative piece for (mostly) piano and violin. (Yes, that's me playing the violin).  There's enough ambience here to place you in the West if you want, but you could really take this anywhere.

Thank you all for your continuing support,

best,

Tim