About the Project
Life Story is an album that combines both sound and language, exploring the link between narrative and music utilizing nine original pieces of music, lyrics, thematic writing, extra-musical audio and accompanying narratives to tell an original story within its sonic landscape. The album was born out of a desire to find the storytelling power of music, exploring everything from programmatic music to film scores to how we perceive the concept of narrative as important in our own lives.
Life Story takes a tiered approach to engaging with its narrative. Tier 1 is listening to the album of music as you would with any other album, experiencing the music as a standalone project. Tier 2 involves engaging with the website, synopsis, program notes, lyrics, and extra-musical audio placed in the album to gain a sense for the narrative that is unfolding. Tier 3 involves reading the Story in its entirety; a collection of narratives that flesh out the world entitled The Journal, The Records and The Logs. The Journal takes place directly from the Daughter's perspective as she experiences the events of the album, the Records take place from the perspective of the unnamed doctor who treats the Daughter while she is in her dream, and the Logs take place between the events of Of it All and Life Story (track), with the Daughter recounting her experience within the Dream to an unnamed psychologist. Climbing the tiers is optional, you may make of the narrative what you would like, but the threads are there if you wish to pull on them.
This album was written as a narrative experience. You may engage with this narrative in any way you would like, but on the first listen it is suggested to listen from beginning to end for the best possible experience. Along the way you will uncover this story in the melodies, the music, the words, the sounds and more as you experience the world of Life Story.
Story Synopsis
Life Story tells a sliver of the story we all experience, life; from birth to adolescence to parenthood and beyond. The story centers around one family: a daughter, a father, and a mother.
Read through the journal, the records, and the logs as you follow one family's story across generations as they encounter a mysterious Dream that threatens to envelop everything that they know and love. Can you tell the difference between what is real and what is not?
Tragedy strikes when the mother of this newborn daughter passes in childbirth, leaving the new father to grieve and care for a new member of the family. We follow this new daughter as she grows up, through friendship and hardship, good times and bad, all shadowed by the absence of her mother in her life. This harsh reality weighs heavier as she nears adulthood, with her longing to meet, even if just for a fleeting moment of connection.
With this lingering thought, the daughter drifts off to sleep, only to awaken on a grassy hill under a great tree, with a terrible storm brewing off in the distance. She has awakened inside of her own Dream, teeming with demons and obstacles to conquer. She must make her way down the hill, on the path, across the river, and through the Storm if she has any hope of escaping and re-awakening in the real world.
This is her Life Story.