About the Music
Art of Life Records is proud to present "Recalled to Life - Chapter Two", the follow-up release to Steve’s 2016 debut recording, “Recalled to Life - Chapter One” (Art of Life AL1046-2). Steve was a member of the British group 'Igginbottom which recorded the album "Igginbottoms Wrench" in 1969 which also included guitarist Allan Holdsworth. "Recalled to Life - Chapter Two" is a continuation of the music that appeared on “Recalled to Life - Chapter One” and includes fourteen original compositions by Steve. Three of the songs on “Recalled to Life - Chapter Two” originally appeared on “Recalled to Life - Chapter One” and are included here as alternate versions featuring different musicians. Also included on the album are three previously unreleased bonus tracks that feature Steve’s compositions written for strings and string quartet. The album features Pat Schroeder on drums, Dave Bryant on drums, Steve Zerlin on electric & acoustic bass, Denny Lalouette on electric bass and Avzal Ismail on keyboards. Recorded at various locations in South Africa, India, United Kingdom and the U.S.A. All tracks mixed and mastered by Paul G. Kohler at Art of Life Studios in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015, 2016 & 2021.
Producers Notes
In October 2020 Steve and I had made plans to resume working on his second album of material at the end of January 2021. Sadly, Steve passed away on December 30th, 2020 in South Africa. Fortunately, most of the tracks for all of the songs had already been recorded back in 2015 and 2016 by all of the musicians except for one bass track and one drum track for two songs. During that time I worked closely with Steve to create rough mixes of most of the songs on “Recalled to Life - Chapter Two”. I had also saved all of the email exchanges between Steve and myself, over 3,000 messages, and was able to go back through all of the emails and take notes so I knew exactly how Steve wanted each song to be mixed.
After Steve’s passing, a friend of Steve’s, David Novis, reached out to me via Facebook and asked me about music that Steve had started writing for an album of his original compositions for a string quartet. I confirmed with David that Steve and I had indeed planned on recording and releasing an album of his original songs written and performed by a string quartet at some point in the future after the release of both of his albums, "Recalled to Life - Chapter One" and "Recalled to Life - Chapter Two". Steve had already begun writing some of the music for the string quartet album back in 2016 and 2017 and had sent me several MIDI files of what he had written so far. After exchanging messages with David, along with his suggestion that I find a way to make the string quartet music available, I decided that it would be a nice touch to include a few of the MIDI tracks of Steve’s music composed for strings and string quartet even though the pieces remain unfinished. The “Untitled Strings Composition” dates back to 2006 and the “Recalled to Life” (string quartet) track features many of the melodies and themes from Steve’s two albums, “Recalled to Life - Chapter One” and “Recalled to Life - Chapter Two” written specifically for a string quartet. By including these bonus tracks on the album it gives us an idea of what might have been. R.I.P. my dear friend, you will be missed but not forgotten. ~ Paul G. Kohler, Art of Life Records
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Originally Posted by interbellum
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