Glenn Murawski – Art-Inspired Tracks Vol. 1

Glenn Murawski – Art-Inspired Tracks Vol. 1 – EP Review

“Stalwart & Ready For Battle” you say, eh Glenn?  I wouldn’t have it any other way my friend!

While it has long been proven that he’s just about the only artist out there in the scene that I can’t even keep up to with respect to how many keys I can type in a day and his astonishing rate of production, I’ll tell ya firsthand folks – they don’t make many people out there better than good ol’ Glenn Murawski.  He’s always a pleasure to talk to behind the scenes and he’s among the most dedicated artists I know of.

And he’s back in action, after remastering ALL of the 250+ tunes in his catalog.  No joke, that’s a real thing.  As to WHY Glenn is OBVIOUSLY allowed to have 28 hours in every single day when the rest of us only get 24, I do not know – but he’s always up to something other there in his home studio fortress.

After looking at the artwork that inspired the first track “Stalwart & Ready For Battle,” I think it’s safe to conclude that Glenn is likely very much looking forward to that new D&D movie coming out.  I’m not even a fan of the game and know absolutely nothing about it, yet I feel like I’m looking forward to that movie too.  Anyhow.  The artwork likely has nothing to do with that at all, but it is a fantasy-driven piece and it made my mind go there…so there ya have it.  I dig what Glenn’s come up with on this first tune though – it makes visual and audible sense, you know?  I’m sitting here staring at this warrior dude with a kickass beard thinking that, YEAH – he IS “Stalwart & Ready For Battle” as far as I’d ever be able to tell, and this here soundtrack Murawski’s got along with it sounds perfectly suited for this wonderfully hairy hero.  Art inspires art if you let it – and as you’ve probably experienced through past reviews of Glenn’s music here at our pages, he’s even provided my own writing with inspiration at times along the way too.  The sound is crisp, the production is sharp…there’s drama, tension, and a whole lot of big drum sounds – it’s like the kind of song you’d hear out in the ol’ courtyard of a kingdom right before a gladiator battle to the finish.  It’s a bit on the soundtrack-side of what a song is in the sense that it’s probably not gonna be the kind of cut people are rushing to jam all day every day, but it’s really well-conceived & executed.

All-in-all, this NewGrounds site he’s been lookin’ at for inspiration is pretty nifty.  If I had more time on this planet to do anything other than music-stuff, I imagine I’d be lookin’ at pictures too.  As to how Glenn gets around to doing anything other than re-mastering a million songs, I have no idea – but lucky!  He based his song “Where Even The Monsters Cry” off of a picture called ‘Pit Of Despair’ that’s pretty damn cool lookin.’  It’s like the aftermath of Where The Wild Things Are years later, or the haunted variation of it.  I’m no aficionado on the world of art and can only semi-legitimately draw the world’s most basic stick-man myself, but this definitely looks cool to me.  I AM an official aficionado on the catalog of songs from Glenn Murawski out there online though…at least most of’em…and I think what he’s got here on “Where Even The Monsters Cry” sounds great!  I like that you can check out a visible reference to where he got his ideas for the sounds & songs you hear on Art-Inspired Tracks Vol. 1 – to be honest with ya, it makes quite a difference and really helps you understand his frame of mind when he went into his creative-mode.  Those desolate violins or violas or whatever the heck he’s got at the start with the low-end of the cello sounds…I mean…good gravyboat lighthouse, it SOUNDS like a ‘Pit Of Despair’ y’all!  I know, I know – that’s the kind of description that’ll send you running right to your favorite streaming site to have a listen, am I right?  Trust me…you actually won’t regret it if you do – it probably sounds a whole lot better than I’m making it sound if I’m being completely honest with ya.  I felt like this was a genuinely engaging track from start to finish, with mysterious & haunting overtones.

I find it interesting that, for example, I didn’t feel nearly as attached to a picture like ‘Tree World,’ and ended up feeling just about as detached from Glenn’s track “The Essence Of The Moon” too.  I don’t really know what we’ve stumbled into here, but someone out there should definitely study what has just transpired.  Is this a chicken & the egg thing?  Would I have felt the same way I do towards the song if the picture that inspired it had really grabbed me like it did with Murawski?  I mean, we’ll never really know now will we, because I’ve already peeked.  You might wanna test things like this out for yourself though as you have a listen…see how you feel about something like “The Essence Of The Moon,” and then see if you feel attached to the picture that sparked this song to life.  Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t hatin’ on the visual complement or the audio that was inspired by it, but I’m not feeling all that inclined to advocate for them either.  They’re both good pieces in their own mediums, and to me, more-so than perhaps anything else, serve as a great reminder that art & music consistently create their own impact on us all as individuals in different ways.  For Glenn, this picture got him up outta his chair to create a whole new song when he probably had another several hundred tracks to remix and remaster again – and for me, I see a bunch of nice colors and textures that are inoffensive, but not quite moving enough.  It’s one of those real no judgments type of situations – art is an interpretive thing for each and every one of us, and how it speaks to one person will be completely different from how it speaks to another.

For the next track, I tested my own theory out.  I listened to “State Of Refuge” first, and got my impression of it…which was…alright.  I’m not gonna say it was the track of all tracks to me – it’s got some good moments, and kind of reminded me a bit of like…you know…those old cartoons you’d see on Sunday mornings where like, the sun would rise up over the meadow, casting out the darkness of night, and life would begin to start bustling anew as the daylight came back & the creatures of the forest woke up.  I don’t know that I’m all that attached to “State Of Refuge,” but I can appreciate the sound of what I hear and the serenity it offers.  Soul-soothing in its own contemplative way I suppose…that’s how I’d go about trying to describe it I guess.  So now…let’s see how I did here…let’s have a look at the ol’ picture…  INTERESTING!  I feel like I wasn’t TOO far off, and yet, here I am thinking that I like this image even more than my description by a long shot.  It’s kind of got that Into The Wild type of vibe to it, albeit in a more cartoonish form…but yeah…isolated & alone, there’s just one person chilling in a camper truck of sorts in the middle of the forest, staring at the world surrounding her.  It’s very peaceful stuff when it comes right down to it, and so too is the music that accompanies this inspiration.  Murawski’s a smart dude to have made music with this method of inspiration…I don’t think I’d generally be able to get as close as I just did in most circumstances of trying to guess what a sound would look like, but I gotta say, I’m kinda proud of the fact I got as close as I did with “State Of Refuge” – and Glenn should be more proud than I am!  It’s one thing to guess, but it’s another to interpret something we see into something we hear.  That’s what you’d call ‘gifted’ dear readers, dear friends…and I’ve always felt that Murawski truly is that.

The ominous tones of “Ruins In The Darkness” were a good fit for the picture image once again – and the first thunderclap surprised my speakers in a new way they weren’t used to…which is a weird moment I don’t think I’ve ever actually had before in everything I listened to.  Sounded like the initial pop was too much for them…so I went back & listened to that moment again to see if it was a mix thing, and it completely sounded fine the next time around.  Bizarre right?  Must have been me.  Maybe I was feeling jumpy to begin with or I’ve had my usual too much caffeine.  In any event, I think the picture is pretty good, I think the song is even better…in fact, I’d go as far as to say it’s probably my favorite in this lineup overall.  At the very least, to this point in the record…it is TENSE to experience y’all…it’s like “Ruins In The Darkness” harnesses the power of impending doom and natural disasters yet to come, all at once.  It’s really cleverly designed and very gripping to listen to overall…definitely a massive win for Murawski’s music in my opinion, and a freakishly good tune that’ll cling to your bones long after it stops.  Oddly beautiful too in the best of ways…it’s a master-class of contrast from the maestro on this cut here.

“Don’t Look Back” becomes the coolest title on the record considering the fact that the picture to inspire the song is no longer with us, and has been taken down.  How rad is that, right?  Maybe this IS what inspired Glenn to begin with…maybe he really wanted to see what this picture was, and the artist behind it was already onto the next thing, and all he came across was the same error message I’m looking at.  We’ll never know!  Forward I say, in all circumstances anyhow – “Don’t Look Back,” there’s nothing you can do about that stuff anyhow.  Part of me really likes this song, and part of me is less sure of it…I had spins through it where I liked the intensity…I had a couple other spins through it where it felt very…Murawski-esque and familiar I’d say…and I had a few spins through it where it seemed like he was doing a bit too much with this one, and maybe going beyond what the song felt like it was calling for.  Conflicted, I suppose is how you’d say I felt about this track overall…not a bad tune by any stretch of the imagination, but one that I never felt like I got a complete grip on either.  Maybe that’s the natural effect of not having a visual image to associate with his music now…look what you’ve done to me Murawski!  I was my natural blank slate of a man coming into this review, and now I NEED to see things in order to hear’em?  What has my world come to?  “Don’t Look Back” can be a lot at times…anxiety-inducing in its own way I suppose.  It was like a few previous tunes I’ve heard from Glenn, but with updated technique in the production aspect, or better plug-ins being used; I’m never sure which it is, but I betcha he knows.

Now this final track, is straight up META y’all.  We’re talking some serious full-circle type shit!  The image that inspired the last song “Dark Covenant In The Violet Woods” is called ‘Zeit,’ which apparently was inspired by a recent Rammstein single…perhaps of the same name?  Gimme a second and let me see if I can figure that out…  Ahh yes – not only a single with a video, but also the name of the album, which I could have easily told ya if I felt like anything by Rammstein was worth listening to, which I definitely do not.  “Du Hast?”  Du fucking NOT Hast if you ask me.  I’d happily listen to all seven hundred and seventy-nine billion Glenn Murawski originals, remixes, remasters, parts one, twos, threes and on to eighteens before I spun my way through a Rammstein record, but that’s probably just me.  SOMEONE out there is listening…and if you know them, do the right thing and give them a Will Smith album to listen to instead.  Anyhow…I digress.  I like “Dark Covenant In The Violet Woods” quite a bit…I feel like it really hits its stride in the middle, and it’s quite the twisted beauty being featured here.  The final shift where the added Electro intensity comes into play with about a minute or so left on the clock…it works, but I’d say I was probably of two minds about it.  Sometimes that hit like the perfect finale to this idea, and others I felt like I wanted to stay locked within the malevolent beauty he was already workin’ with from start to finish.  This has got some really great ideas & tones & frequencies & textures to it like so much of his work contains…and it does make for a solid final cut.  I very much appreciate how Glenn dove into a whole different medium of art for inspiration to create his latest record, and I look forward to hearing the subsequent series of volumes & sequels & prequels that’ll likely be spawned from this unique concept from here – and you should too.

Find out more about Glenn Murawski at this official multi-link:  https://li.sten.to/gp9he0mb

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