Just a couple of days ago, a Canadian musician going by the name of Magnetic was featured on Jamendo.com’s “Album of the Month” but at the time of this post, it has dropped off of this list. Fortunately, all of Magnetic’s music is still available on Jamendo here.
The artist’s description reads:
Magnetic was conceived in early April 2004 by Mark Weiler (Formerly of Edge 102.1 New Rock Search Finalists ‘Trigger’, and Sextant recording artists, ‘Ripped’) as a vehicle for creating new and exciting music. After a lifetime of playing traditional rock bands led by other people, Mark felt the need to take control of a new project that would allow him to flex his creative muscles. Mark knew that this project had to be a drastic departure from his previous bands and he wanted the sound to be reflective of his musical interests. So…he began writing and recording and trying to develop the ‘Magnetic’ sound. After many false starts and plenty of songs that didn’t quite fit ‘the vision’, Mark finally decided to strip the sound down, back to the roots. It was at this point where things began to come together.
Magnetic’s first album, ‘the desolation coast’, was soon released and was very much influenced by the ambient music that mark was listening to at the time. This is clearly evident when you hear tracks like ‘the angle between us (part one), stillness (for ew), and the title track. Although there was some positive response to the album, Mark was not entirely happy with it. So, he began to write songs for a new album.
Recording sessions for the new cd began in early May 2005 and were completed at the end of September. [the magnetic north] marked a slightly different direction for Magnetic. At first, the tracks followed in the same ambient style as the first album, but over time they began to take on a more ‘rock’ oriented vibe. [the magnetic north] was released in October 2005 on the Desolation Recording Company label.
The newest project ‘magnetic II’, which has been a year in the works, is a far more organic release than the [the magnetic north]. Mark began to record the demos for ‘magnetic II’ around the time the last disc was released and decided to carry on with the new, more rock oriented direction. Traditional rock instrumentation like piano…organ…guitar…strings…and even brass can be found all over the new tracks, especially the lead off single ‘golden’ (which actually began as a jangley pop song…). As well, there is a much more concious effort on creating strong melodies that will stay in your head for a long time after the cd has finished. ‘magnetic II’ will finally see the light of day in late August/ Early September 2006.
As for future projects, Mark is in the initial stages of recording a ’solo’ ambient album. Look for release sometime in 2007 along with another Magnetic album.
You may notice that the work is not licensed under the Canadian jusisdiction, seemingly because Jamendo.com does not have support for CC jurisdiction yet. This seems to be a recurring problem: artists are not using the deed that pertains to the laws in their country. Often this is because the content curation sites do not support jurisdiction, although I have heard that some Canadians intentionally refuse to use the Canadian deed because they do not agree with its translation into Canadian law. I’m going to continue blogging Canadian Creative Commons content whether officially Canadian or not. Keep in mind though that in order to be on our featured web content you MUST use the Canadian jurisdiction of the Creative Commons license.
