Category: Writings
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Did I Write Anthems for War?
Part 1: The Theories of War Prologue: The Myths We Fight For War continues in the world. Some conflicts may end, but new ones emerge – like hydras growing new heads. Personally, I find it astonishing how many resources – let alone human lives – we sacrifice for war. Second, our inability to stop these…
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Player Characters in Dialogue: The Weight of Our Choices
This summer I was reading Plato’s dialogues on holiday (as one does…) and got to wondering: what if the characters from my Player Characters album had their own philosophical conversations? Not the formal Socratic stuff, though, but something messier. More like what happens when three people realize they’ve all made choices they can’t take back,…
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The Narrative Arcs of “Player Characters”
When you listen to a music album, do you hear individual songs, each with its own melody and emotion or do you perceive a larger story, like in concept albums such as Kate Bush’s “Hounds of Love” or David Bowie’s “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust”? I recently asked myself this question about my…
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About “Lover Costing Average”
The Story The inspiration for “Lover Costing Average” came from observing the dating culture in today’s world, where apps and algorithms often dictate our choices. The song is the story of an investor playboy who maintains multiple intimate relationships simultaneously, treating them like investments to see which one yields the best return. He’s a strategist,…
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The Ancient Manager’s Chess Game: When Students Outsmart Teachers
Introduction A king playing chess with a student (or peasant) in the middle of the night, while two dogs fight in the corner—this medieval woodblock print from Pérez-Reverte’s “El Club Dumas” provides an example of several forms of power in action (French and Raven, 1959). In addition, the positioning of the characters in the picture…
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About “Stand By You”
The Story “Stand By You” started by me reading one of my favourite sci-fi books ever, Arthur C. Clarke’s fantastic novel “Childhood’s End“. The book explores humanity’s transformation through the arrival of mysterious alien Overlords who guide Earth toward a new cosmic destiny. While Clarke’s story focuses on the global impact, I wanted to zoom…
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About “All These Worlds Are Yours”
(Listen to the song in here) “All These Worlds Are Yours” was by far the most painful song to write for the “Player Characters” album and took five months to write. Here’s a video about my frustrations from that time. I have no idea why it just didn’t come out like the others did. Sometimes…
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About “Red And Blue”
The Story I got the thematic inspiration for “Red And Blue” from Luc Besson’s movie Nikita: a secret government organization fakes the death of a female prisoner, then recruits her as a secret agent. She becomes good at it but struggles to find balance between professional and personal life. The song also references William Gibson’s…
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About “Ancient Manager”
Ancient Manager is the myth of the Flying Dutchman set in the modern corporate world. Listen to it here. In my verision, the Ancient Manager is struggling between corporate forces of customer demands, legal requirements, employee worries and top management pressure, but manages to turn the tide and bring the company back to green with…
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About “Player Characters” album
The singles An investor playboy with questionable morals maintains multiple intimate relationships to see which of them starts working out the best The history of mankind in three minutes from an agrarian society to joining the stream of other races in the universe A secret agent in a big city dreams of a quiet life…