The Lowlands

IMPORTANT: This music on this CD has been written as a single work. The individual tracks are for preview and ease of navigation purposes. Please set your music player to “gapless album” for uninterrupted listening. Thank you .

The Music -
As a descriptive work, the work follows an imaginary journey. Each scene evokes an image of a far off place, the traveller moving seamlessly and timelessly through each experience.

However, “The Journey” is as much an imaginary travel log as an allegory of life. We all make our journeys, each of us travel paths trod in by no other. Sometimes the journey is taken with friends and loved ones, and at other times we are utterly alone. We find great joy and over come unsurmountable obstacles, but eventually we get through and hopefully reach a point of acceptance and oneness of who we are and our place in this universe, our own personal Nirvana.

The titles of the tracks speak for themselves and are meant to guide you, the listener, through the journey. As such, I feel a more detailed description is not necessary, as it would only detract from using your own imagination in creating images to the music you hear.

All journeys start with the decision that it is time to move on. We can delay no longer. After all, Time Waits For No Man. So with small steps we step onto the path, not entirely sure of our decision and head towards a place where we feel we may able to find some direction.

Our first destination is the Holy River. It is a place to collect our thoughts and prepare us for what it to come. We seek guidance for path that lies ahead. Many travellers also come here, each seeking their own paths for journeys that lay before them.

The Holy River is a place of great beauty and it pays to rest and take in the scenery, smell the roses as it were. Gazing at the Reflections Of The Hills Over The Water, we enjoy a tranquil moment before moving on.

We first traverse The Lowlands, the path leading us onward into the mountains and great adventure. The journey is pleasant, lined with green fields and clear streams and steepens as we progress.

In the mountains we encounter the local Tribes of the Mountains, full of life and gypsy camaraderie. We have a great time, dancing, feasting and enjoying life free of strictures.

Eventually it is time to move on and we head down the other side of the mountains to join a Caravan Across The Desert. This is a long journey and undertaken with much spirit. The caravaners are a colourful bunch taking the difficult terrain in their stride and making the most of an arduous trip.

Exhausted, we finally reach the Fields of Grey, a forbidding and desolate place where we must muster our strength to face the demons ahead. For this part of the journey we are alone, but there is no turning back.

To reach our final destination, we must first pass through The Dark Forest, a place of brooding menace. Demons, real and imagined, test our strength and resolve.

Breaking Through to the other side our perseverance is rewarded with much celebration and relief. Our spirits stronger having conquered the recent obstacles.

We meet up with friends and other travellers at this point (A Reunion Of Friends), each having taken their own paths to get this far. There is joy and relief and sense of shared experience through our triumphs.

Naturally, before we take our final steps toward the end of our journey, we turn to Thoughts Of Home. Of our loved ones and all the promise that home once held.

Our journey ends as we enter our own Nirvana (Entering Nirvana), embracing journey’s end with an acceptance and oneness of who we are and our place in this universe, our own personal Nirvana.

The Composition Process -

As a composition, the work began with the first few bars and then just continued to evolve through the various stages until the close. The work was written as a single contiguous piece of music with tracks later inserted at logical points to help the listener navigate to each chapter. The evolution was spontaneous, each chapter developing as a natural progression on the previous one allowing the chapters to flow seamlessly in a constantly evolving journey.

The work was originally created over a period of several months in early 2010. It was then left for a while and revisited in April 2011. Minor changes were made, mainly on the production side, before going into final mastering and subsequent release in August 2011.

All tracks written and performed by Diederik de Jonge.
Created and recorded in Bali 2010/2011
Mastered by Juergen Eppinger
© 2011 Diederik de Jonge