Scott Brazieal

Those who know me, know: Songs from the Empire has been a labor of love--and frustration--for several years now. And in the end, the baby is delivered here.
My deepest appreciation and gratitude for all those who contributed and helped me along the way (musicians listed below), and for those others who encouraged and "kept on me" to finish it. Again, Thank you.

Those who don't know me, don't know: I have played, recorded and toured with several groups - with Cartoon and PFS on <a href="http://www.cuneiformrecords.com">Cuneiform Records</a>, as well as 5uu's and Thinking Plague on <a href="http://www.rermegacorp.com">ReR</a>.
A recent interview about such things can be found <a href="http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=47274">here</a>.

These songs were conceived and composed in 2003-04; Recorded/Engineered with Tom Hood in Portland & the Chehalem Valley, Oregon over the past three years, and eventually mixed and mastered in 2007-08 in Portland and Westfir, Oregon.

Finally, I want to emphasize that this album was conceived and is intended to be listened to in its' entirety - as one continuous piece, (it's my damn "classical" pedagogy) ...although, not to intimate that it doesn't work within this current cultural paradigm of single-song downloading...
Thanks for downloading and listening.


<b>Musicians</b>
Scott Brazieal: everything except...
Tom Hood: Bowed Guitar on 6 and 9; Guitar on 7, engineering and pre-mixing
Ali Ippolito: vocals on 1, 3 and 4
Adam Hurst: cello on 4 and 6
R.D. (Dave) Hardesty: Vocal narrative on 11

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<i>
Nations and empires flourish and decay,
By turns command, and in their turns obey.</i>
<strong>-Ovid</strong>

<i>
"Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The stag ungalled play,
For some must watch while some must sleep,
So runs the world away." </i>
<strong>-William Shakespeare </strong>Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2

<strong>
Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen</strong>
(I Have Lost Track of the World)

<i>I am lost to the world
with which I used to waste so much time,
It has heard nothing from me for so long
that it may very well believe that I am dead!

It is of no consequence to me
Whether it thinks me dead;
I cannot deny it,
for I really am dead to the world.

I am dead to the world's tumult,
And I rest in a quiet realm!
I live alone in my heaven,
In my love and in my song! </i>
<strong>-Friedrich Rückert (Mahler Songs)</strong>

<i>
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. </i>
<strong>-Yeats </strong>