Sometimes a song just hits the right spot with people. "Hold On" is a simple little love song that we released a couple of months back, and it's had an unusually good run on SoundCloud. It's like "the little engine that could". It just keeps on keeping on. By now, without any help from anywhere, … Continue reading The love song that also can – “We Needed Us”
Hungry Eyes, that we've just released, is about the eyes of subjects in portraits looking back at you, while you stare at them - the same as in the song, The Portrait. This time, the eyes that look back at you are alive, not painted. Hungry Eyes describes the moment when a glance across a … Continue reading Something delicious that’s just out – “Hungry Eyes”
—"Perfect You" (POEM) And "THE PORTRAIT" (painting) Image and poem from: Soul Collective - Poems and Paintings, by Marthe Bijman (July 2025, 2nd Ed., Blurb Books, ISBN 979-8-31-996715-2). Painting: "#101 - The Portrait (Classic Redone)"; Acrylic on canvas; Artist: Martha (Marthe) Bijman. Poem form: Quatrain. PERFECT YOU Trace the outline of his face —The amber … Continue reading “Soul Collective” – Paintings that became poems
Two more tracks from our latest album, Bound with Gold, have been released - the title track, "Bound with Gold", and "Blue Sunday". The five-track album is due out by the end of October 2025. BOUND WITH GOLD This song was inspired by kintsugi – Japanese: 金繕い. Kintsugi is the Japanese art and philosophy of … Continue reading Bound With Gold – Two tracks, similar bluesy moods
The year so far has been crazy busy. We've been producing new music and now is the time to start releasing the tracks on our latest album, one by one. Each song is special, so each one deserves its moment of glory before it becomes an item on the playlist of the album. The album … Continue reading Just out – new track “Hello Moon”
I've always thought that if someone shows that they don't like cats (well, all animals, but particularly cats) then I probably won't like them. I have a suspicion that they have a nasty streak in them, because what's not to like about a cat? Even if you're allergic to them? Nothing. Cats are delightful. So … Continue reading A song about a cat – since very few people don’t like cats
So, ladies and gentlemen; this is the state of A.I. for the purposes of visualizing music: Now, you can generate video of a computer-generated figure "lipsynching" to your song. And believe you me, it looks as real as damnit, as my Papa used to say. The particular platform that I am subscribed to is Runway … Continue reading If you can’t be filmed, a meta-human will stand in for you!
(Or, the Long & The Short of It) Radio edits: - a song between 2 min. 50 seconds, and 3 min. 20 seconds long. Well, that's the ballpark - say, get it down to 3 minutes in total. There is a hardline discipline to cutting your favourite composition down to something that short, with an … Continue reading The Long Listen
On my new album, "Ticket to Mars", the fourth track is "The Great Wall". The Great Wall This song is about people separated by a wall - metaphorical or literal - and desperate to be together. They are bound to Earth as much as they are bound to places far from each other. So many … Continue reading Borders, separation, longing
Following the title track with the same name of my new album, "Ticket to Mars", I've released three more songs, starting with "Hello". Cōdae · Hello Mixing and mastering by Luke Garfield, Banana Llama Studios. Lead vocals by Ben Alexander. Hello - first contact The interesting thing about the alien in the lyrics, is that … Continue reading How DO you greet an alien from outer space?
I've released the latest song on my album, "Howl", and it's called "Dreams May Come". I wrote it because I have had these incredibly real-feeling dreams of people who died many years ago - my brother, and my father. In my dreams, of course, they are not sick, or old, but in their prime. My … Continue reading Dreams so real, you think the people who you’re dreaming of aren’t dead
The lyrics of this song, on my album "Howl", are pretty self-explanatory. It's on my album, "Howl", and it's about being introverted, keeping to yourself, and opting out and saying "no" when you don't want to get involved. It's about staying sane in a very crazy, noisy world. It expresses how I often feel. I think … Continue reading Thinking like an introvert: “Present Company Excluded”
"Howl", the title track on my new album, also called "Howl", was released on SoundCloud today. Ben Alexander is the vocalist and Luke Garfield is the mix engineer. The songs on "Howl" are about anger, frustration, confusion, and sadness, and feature instruments that have a harsh, howling sound, for instance, bagpipes. The songs express how … Continue reading “Howl” – new song is out today
This year, in stead of sending Christmas cards and all that, I wrote a Christmas song that expresses all my thoughts and wishes this season. I wrote it specifically with our friends and family in mind, but I reckon there are many couples like us who live in one country but have roots in another … Continue reading A Christmas song instead of Christmas cards
https://vimeo.com/870132148 HD Lyric Video "Invenies Me Mane Caelo" is the latest track from my album "Divan" to be released on SoundCloud. It is unusual in that the lyrics are in Latin. "Invenies Me Mane Caelo", one of the songs all based on ancient texts on my album "Divan", is Latin for "the wings of morning". … Continue reading “Invenies Me Mane Caelo (On the Wings of Morning)” – A hymn in Latin
The lyrics of all the songs on my album "Divan" were inspired by ancient historical documents. This one, "The King's Ballad", is my modern take on the Tudor Era ballad, “Pastime with Good Company” (a.k.a. “The Kynges Balade”), which was written by King Henry VIII of England in about 1513. His lyrics express his royal … Continue reading Updating King Henry VIII’s directive on having a good time – “The King’s Ballad”
This weekend, I released the first track from my new album, "Divan". The word "divan" means "a collection of poems". I called it this because the ten tracks on the album were inspired by very old - ancient - texts, many of them in the forms of verses or poems, that date from about the … Continue reading A song from the “Poetic Edda” – “The Last Poem of Guthrun”
As a child, my Dad tried his best to teach me to play the piano, and since I was stubborn and lazy, I cheated and taught myself to play by ear. I never did get the hang of reading notation and using proper technique when playing. I can barely pick out a tune on a … Continue reading “Yellow bird, up high in the banana tree…”
The word "shag" in the name of this song refers to the dance called the Carolina Shag, which is a relaxed partner dance, often done to "beach music" - whatever that is... I named this song for it, because that's the feeling of the song - it's got a steady beat for dancing to, and … Continue reading A little light music -“Soft Shoe Shag”
No. 4 on Time Shift - Africa-style Trip-Hop "The Veld" is a song that expresses my nostalgia for the veld (or veldt) of South Africa - the wide open, wild landscapes of the interior of the country. There are many types of veld: the bushveld, the highveld, the lowveld, and so on, and my favourite, … Continue reading My version of ‘The Rain in Africa’
I've just published the first track on my new album, "Time Shift". The album is the result of a little walk down memory lane in 2022, particularly just before Christmas, remembering the standout things in my former life in South Africa: the local music scene, the wildlife, the wide-open spaces, the sounds that you only … Continue reading First track on “Time Shift” album: “Groove was in the House”
Track 8 of 9 on the album "Painting Music" took major effort. It was the most difficult track on this album and the one of which I'm proudest. I started it on Sept 9, 2022 and finished it on Oct. 6, 2022 - 4 weeks of working on it every day, all day. Doing this … Continue reading The most difficult and the best result – “Exquisite Machine”
Busted Piano is the result of playing around on the Plink platform, and in the video you can see the visualization used on the platform - a moving line, waveform of little blobs. I chose a particularly whiny, mechanical sounding synth for an instrument on Plink. To my ears, it sounded like a badly maintained … Continue reading Track 6 on “Painting Music” – “Busted Piano”
Track 5 on album "Painting Music" Appleblossom Blink is a somber melody with some sweet chords. It's an original instrumental created from sounds generated on the web audio generation platforms Google Arts & Culture Paint with Music and Plink by DinahMoe. The composition is in the Japanese Hirajōshi scale, and features the melancholy shakuhachi flute … Continue reading “Appleblossom Blink” – A bit of East & West to a trip-hop beat
The melody of Swagger & Swing started as notes on the fourth option on the “Paint with Music” platform, the “Street” canvas, which looks like a granite wall or pavement (shown below, left). This canvas has a more atonal sound than the others, and includes effects like scratching and hissing, which give a more grunge-like … Continue reading “Swagger & Swing” – Track 4 on “Painting Music
A.I. Opera: It Started as just fun and ended up as real - and really nice. Dealing with very short audio clips like these ones, forced me to keep things focused and tight, and did not leave much room for getting fancy. The parameters impose their own discipline in the creative process. In the visualizer … Continue reading Track 2 on “Painting Music”- “A.I. Opera”
The tracks on my latest album, Painting Music, are the results of me experimenting on online platforms that produce both sounds and visuals from a user’s input. One of these is “Blob Opera”. All the platforms are experimental, meaning that as users use the platform and upload their creations, the database is expanded and the … Continue reading Singing opera with Blobs
Cōdae · Hirajoshi and Sky All the songs in this collection contain small clips or samples of machine-generated musical notes. I used online platforms that produce both sounds and visuals from a user’s input, the main one being “Paint with Music” (which is why the album has this name) which uses Google Magenta’s DDSP (Differentiable … Continue reading Track 1 on “Painting Music”: “Hirajōshi and Sky”
I make music in ways that interest me, and in ways that I can get my head around - bad grammar, but what it means in practice is that with every song I produce I make a bunch of mistakes, and learn something about myself or about music, or about the creative process. And then … Continue reading My New album “Painting Music” has dropped
Sometimes, you can work at a composition until you have tried every trick and technique you know of, and it still doesn't sound right. Something went wrong with the programming. Recently, Lex Fridman (computer scientist, artificial intelligence researcher, and research scientist at MIT) interviewed world famous, pioneering programmer and developer. John Carmack. Carmack said something … Continue reading When the only way forward is to can it – A new “Sunrise”
