Opaline - the first official full length CD by Jef Bear is a collection of hard rock instrumental guitar grooves. written recorded,mixed and produced by Bear in his small home studio,it started as a 3 song EP,but a creative writting and recording [+]Opaline - the first official full length CD by Jef Bear is a collection of hard rock instrumental guitar grooves. written recorded,mixed and produced by Bear in his small home studio,it started as a 3 song EP,but a creative writting and recording binge produced many songs. 10 of those songs became the Opaline CD.
The disc sessions were fueled by Jefs enthusiastic consumption of absinthe,which seemed to feed his creative process... "it just seemed during writting and recording,when I was drinking absinthe,I cared only about the process of creation,...I stopped worrying about things like being commercially accessible,and pretty much just wrote things I thought I might like to listen to...while drinking absinthe (laughs)" Bear stated in a casual discussion about the project in early 2005.
and what of the title of the disc,opaline? "It was originally just a title to one of the songs on the disc (track 1) but when I was sitting around,trying to actually to find something to call this thing,I decided it would be a good title for the entire project as well." he continues.. "It was taken from a poem by Ernest Dowson,titled 'Absinthia Taetra' about one mans absinthe experience,...and I really just like the imagery in it." he points me to his computer screen,and calls up a website which has the poem on it ---
Absinthia Taetra
by Ernest Dowson
Green changed to white, emerald to opal; nothing was changed. The man let the water trickle gentle into his glass, and as the green clouded, a mist fell from his mind. Then he drank opaline. Memories and terrors beset him. The past tore after him like a panther, and through the blackness of the present he saw the luminous tiger eyes of things to be. But he drank opaline. And that obscure night of the soul, and the valley of humiliation,through which he stumbled, were forgotten. He saw blue vistas of undiscovered countries, high prospects and a quiet, carressing sea. The past shed its perfume over him, today held his hand as if it were a little child, and tomorrow shone like a white star; nothing was changed. He drank opaline. The man had known the obscure night of the soul, and lay even now in the valley of humiliation; and the tiger menace of the things to
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