Only 500 were printed and this item will not be re-printed.
ALL CD's SIGNED BY PETE TREWAVAS and ERIC BLACKWOOD!
Comes in single EP Cardboard Sleeve. There is no booklet with this disc.
Includes unlimited streaming of In The First Waking Moments... (The Making of "In The Last Waking Moments..." Demos & Alternate Tracks)
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
This is perhaps one of the most important songs on “In The First Waking Moments…” in terms of the direction that ITLWM would take. After Pete met up with Transatlantic, it would be nearly a year before the two would again get together to record. In the meantime, they both worked on projects separately and shared those new ideas on Skype usually twice a week. The Hudson Film Group had asked the two to begin thinking about music for 2 upcoming horror movies including scores and soundtracking. Eric and Pete sent about 30-40 song ideas back and forth and came up with many musical possibilities. Eric took a look back at the old “creepier” Genesis days of Entangled and Supper’s Ready and examined the 12 string guitar approach that Steve Hackett would take and began writing an epic song called Silhouette which would clock in at nearly 25 minutes. The Longing (which would be inserted temporarily into the middle of The Awakening only to be removed in favor of Slow Burn), took on some very exciting variations once Eric sent Pete the early mixes. Pete’s remixes of the song were so interesting in fact that, Eric decided that The Longing should be removed from The Awakening and instead be used in 4 parts on the next record in the same manner that Fallout makes it’s appearances in Fallout 1, 2, 3 and 4th Kinds. As the soundtracks continued to evolve into full fledged songs, Pete realized that they had more than enough material to finish the album… as long as they were able to work on these tracks together. That moment came in the weeks surrounding the Marillion 2011 convention. Pete and Eric rented a chateau north of Montreal in the ski resort of Mont Saint Sauveur, with the intention of finishing the 25 minute Silhouette, the 4 versions of The Longing, A Cold Grey Morning, Strangers Not Friends, The Reaping, Stranger In A Foreign Land, Spine, Sadness of Ice, Solstice, As The Crow Flies and Future Like The Past.
Just before they got together, (in an effort to speed up the recording effort), Eric Blackwood bought the corresponding Roland VG-99 guitar synth, that went with his new axe… the Godin XTSA, which allowed him to plug the guitar right into the board and right into the recording system with no loss of sound. No mics were needed for guitars and since the VG-99’s acoustic capabilitiies sounded better than Eric’s Martin guitar, no acoustic micing was needed either. With the addition of the GA73 Pre-Amp, the bass ran into the GA into the VG and into the board as well, so no bass amps were needed. The sound in fact was so good that they were now completely mobile and actually sounded better than most professional studios. Eric began to learn all of the inner workings of the VG-99 and started testing its capabilities. While doing so, just before Pete arrived in Montreal, Eric was inspired and wrote a science fiction-like piece of music which he initially titled “The Awakening” but would soon change to Fracture. E.B. kept layering tracks over a “heartbeat” in lieu of a drum until he came up with this sci-fi sounding delayed song. He would even put the microphones directly into the VG-99 to see how he could “effect” the vocals, putting lyrics… “A Laser Beam… Like Out of A Dream… Paralyzed”, upon the layered tracking.
“I said Pete… I know you are going to absolutely hate this, and you will never hear it again. I just want to play this for you once… and once you are done listening to it, we can put it away, but just listen for 3 minutes”. So Eric played Pete “The Awakening” … aka the soon to be renamed “Fracture”. “Pete looked at me briefly and obviously had some thoughts running through his head and began writing a unique drum pattern behind the vamping delayed guitars which just elevated the piece to a new place. As he began messing with the piece, Silhouette seemed to no longer a priority that day”. Pete in fact didn’t hate the song. In fact, he continued to build and build upon it, including adding “The Last Refrain” portion to it. Soon the pair began working on songs to complement this interesting new sci-fi based song and during this period, they became tremendously prolific, writing 8 new songs. It became apparent that Silhouette, which was supposed to be Edison’s Children’s signature song, was not even going to fit on the new album… neither in length nor theme… as ITLWM had gone from a haunting album to being about a man who initially believes he was abducted by a UFO. As his friends and family begin to doubt him, he soon begins doubting his own mind, wondering if any of it had actually happened or if he was on the verge of insanity. Soon, every single song that Eric and Pete had previously written for In The Last Waking Moments… was cut, with Dusk being the only track to make the record (though even Dusk would get an entirely new treatment, being sped up considerably, and with new lead guitars and some new lyrics as well).
Fracture was indeed the track that changed it all. If Eric had not played this song for Pete (believing full well that he would “hate” it), In The Last Waking Moments… would have been a completely different record.
Fracture 1.0, exactly as Pete had heard it when he arrived in Montreal before it was ever touched, is heard here for the very first time in its entirety.
lyrics
A laser beam
Like out of a dream
Paralyzed
Muted screams
Like a movie theme
Light up the sky
Light up the skies…
Don’t pretend I know the answers
Don’t you kid yourself
Maybe you’re the reason you’re self destructing
Is you were always meant to die…
supported by 15 fans who also own “Fracture (1.0 - Original Eric Blackwood Version)”
In the wake of buying the Welcome To The Planet I also went for this older "EP" (clocking in on 70 minutes a rather big big EP...) as a final farewell to a very bright bright star that sadly doesn't shine anymore. Carsten Pieper
The Long Island metal band's third album etches arena-sized hooks into their jagged compositions, deftly balancing experimental and poppy inclinations. Bandcamp Album of the Day May 12, 2022
supported by 13 fans who also own “Fracture (1.0 - Original Eric Blackwood Version)”
The album takes off nicely with David Longdon's "The Strangest Times", but then gets into immediate free fall and deeply underwater for the next few tracks, quite unexpectedly. Fortunately, it recovers with Nick D'Virgilio's "Apollo" (hey, this guy CAN write good music, although he hides this ability most of the time) and the remaining three tracks, one of which is another Longdon masterpiece. So in the end the final impression is somewhat in the positive range. Sven B. Schreiber (sbs)
