LATEST RELEASE
A Shepherd's Song
🪔 "A Shepherd's Song" (EP) 👉🏼 Tibetania Records
🪔 "A Shepherd's Song" EP - My collaboration with eXtreme4.
Released exclusively by Tibetania Records.
Available on on Beatport and all other platforms.
Incredible remixes by:
Released 1st September on Beatport , and all other major platforms.
A SHEPHERD'S SONG - A story of family, suffering, reconciliation, healing, and love.
🎶⛰🏔🐏🐑🐐🐐🐑🏔⛰🎶
📜"A Shepherd's Song" is a labor of love, a gift from the Balkans to heal, encourage, and unite neighbors and family, old ways and new. 📜
🎶⛰🏔🐏🐑🐐🐐🐑🏔⛰🎶
📜The fire of love begins already to burn bright in the Balkans with this song...Toni (eXtreme4) and I are humbled, grateful, and happy. This journey profoundly changed us. It took nearly a year to complete this song, and Toni and I are beyond pleased to release this with Tibetania Records!📜
📜 I had a vision to bring the music of shepherds to the people of the world a long time ago. As a child growing up in places in the world where shepherds still lived and tended their flocks, I was attuned to their rhythm of life early. Later, as a young man, while working on a cattle ranch, living alone in a cabin, with nothing but cattle and dogs and the rest of nature around me, I had time to play the guitar and deal with a lot of personal issues, wounds, and loneliness. Ultimately, I realized that we as human beings absolutely are lonely to the point of death when not confronting our deepest fears while being alone. Being alone does not mean you have to be lonely. In fact, being alone brings us the most powerful and high form of connectedness, if we let it: self-love and inner peace. In loving ourselves and being at peace, we transcend the broken, scarred, imperfect shell of our mortality and ascend the holy mountain in the spirit, to places where time is infinite and the light always shines, where love truly reigns, and where there are no more tears. It was a time where I lived like a holy monk or hermit, or at least tried to begin to live this way. It is a hard, but immensely rewarding way. It was a transfiguration on the mountain for me, much like Moses and the other holy men and women of all ancient religions. Fast forward about seventeen years, in the darkness of the new COVID era unfolding, the light shone from within me, within my soul, connecting me back to the line of my own ancestors, to the men who walked lonely paths through the mountains with their herds and flocks, braving the elements, fending off wolves, bears, and bandits, never sleeping much, always ready to lead, protect, and provide for their herds. In a mystical way, there is a wholeness, a completeness to this life. It is not really a lonely life. It is a life with deep purpose and connection to the earth, to the meaning of life. We need this spirit, this way of life more than ever in our modern world. My memories of my life and memories of my parents' stories of the wilderness of the Balkans, of Sicily, of Iran, of the US, of my time alone in a near hermetic solitude came rushing back with unlimited power and deep, soulful sound. I began to play out sounds. It was just the beginning. I was blessed to be introduced by a mutual friend, Torsten, to my good friend Toni (eXtreme4), from North Macedonia. We connected instantly on many levels, and very specifically in the area of this song, and bringing forward the ancient tradition, culture, and music of the mountain people and shepherds of North Macedonia, but also bringing in sounds of nearby similar cultures, such as Armenia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Iran, all of which share a common ancient root. The year was personally challenged for both of us and our families, but we persevered. We never gave up. The mission, the calling, the vision was always strong for us. This song was far bigger than us, and we knew that it needed to reach the world. When we at last finished, it was time to find a perfect partner to release the song with. There were very few real options for us, not due to a lack of options, but due to only a few labels sufficiently focused on this sound, this vision, this story, this path. The decision was quite literally already made for us by God, we believe, in that it just so happened to be that Tibetania Records was based in Skopje, North Macedonia. Marga Sol was a friend of Toni's already, and I always loved the label, but the pieces hadn't shown the true power of the Unbroken Circle right away. It really dawned on us when I realized that Tibetania was based in Skopje, under the parent label, M-Sol Records. I immediately submitted it to Tibetania. There was no hesitation whatsoever in my heart. I called Toni about Tibetania being there, and he immediately realized the connection with Marga and M-Sol. Of course, we still weren't 100% sure, as Tibetania had to listen and see if it was a great fit for their incredible sound. Blessedly and thankfully enough, it was most definitely a fit! In fact, they had been following me for some time, and we were all realizing the scope of what was now transpiring here. This song was indeed bigger than us all. Through some great communication, open-mindedness on both parties' parts, you can now hear the fullest embodiment of the dream, the vision called "A Shepherd's Song". Thank you, Toni, thank you, Tibetania Family, thank you shepherd's of the world for this gift which we all give to the world, to provide love, peace, hope, light, faith, connectedness, healing, purpose, vision, and so much more with! 📜
📜 In many men and women, the heart of the shepherd lives. It is a heart that remembers the way through the mountain and the desert, that protects against the wolves, that nurtures little lambs and goat kids, that always seeks to lead the flock and the herd to good pastures. Through snow, wind, hot sun, dry winds, cold winds, rain, through pleasant days of Spring and Autumn.
📜 This story is about two stories. The one story is about a wedding in a mountain village in North Macedonia. The other story is about a single family, which is a part of the village, where a father and son are in deep disagreement, almost alienation, due to the son seeking a new life and new ways, not interested in the father and the old ways, with the mother seeking desperately, with love for both, to reconcile the two. The father, in the way that an older man knows that things will play their course, remains steadfast in what he knows, yet realizes that his relationship with his son is suffering. The son, fervently leaping forth in modernity, wants little to do with the old shepherd's ways and all the ways of the traditional life of the village. The mother sees the past and the future in the father and the son, but she also sees the present...and in that present moment, to which we are brought through the progression of the song, hear the noise of the wedding break through the conversation of the family. 📜
📜 The father, the son, the mother suddenly forget their problems and now remember the solution: love. It is love bringing man and women together in a new life, with all the village celebrating. The father and son tearfully embrace, soon joined by the mother. It is time to live, love, and sing "A Shepherd's Song". 📜
🎶⛰🏔🐏🐑🐐🐐🐑🏔⛰🎶
Current Release
A Shepherd's Song (EP)
