https://beatsofallnations.bandcamp.com/album/smithereens
"Smithereens" is yet another one of my journeys into bringing visual stimuli to sonic fruition. In this case, my prompt and inspiration was Neo-Impressionism, particularly Pointillism. Last year I created an instrumental that eventually went on to be the title track of this project. The song was so complex in nature; I couldn’t even tell you where my mind was when I was arranging it. It wasn’t even a recording that I was sure I liked at first, mostly because of its frantic and composited structure. In an unrelated instance (or maybe it was related, subconsciously) I was reading about Georges Seurat and his role in leading the French Neo-Impressionist movement in the late 1800s. It occurred to me that this style of visual art was the only way I could describe the song that would eventually go on to establish "Smithereens" as a project. Initially when I began to lay out supporting instrumentals, I made stringent attempts to abide by the complexity of the concept song. I found that it couldn’t be done, and that the beat was truly a moment in time. I then decided to continue studying Pointillism/Divisionism and some of its key characteristics— the progressive yet realistic use of primary colors, lighting, contrast and also very importantly, movement— as my guide in arranging new instrumentals in their own unique way, while still keeping with the prompt. "