The Veil has been re-released with brand new cover art and new nine page digital booklet. You can pick it up at any online retailer for just $5.99. The booklet is available through iTunes only, or you can download it by clicking here.

The new art was done by the talented Seth Lunsford.

I recently shot four acoustic videos with my string quartet. Have a look and let me know what you think.

Head over to my YouTube channel to watch the rest of them: http://www.youtube.com/larskatz

-L

Words truly cannot describe what it was like for me to hear real string players playing my music last night.

When something takes so much time to come to fruition, you almost automatically convince yourself that it will never happen. I released The Veil almost three years ago and started writing the music two years before that. Honestly, it took me some time to start believing that I hadn’t just released a record that was completely unplayable. Reworking the string parts into quartet arrangements, producing sheet music, and finding able and willing players took a generous amount of time as well. But last night, I sat in my studio listening to four incredibly talented string players tuning to the A that I had just given them from my acoustic guitar, and thought, “this is really happening.”

What followed was a two-hour run-through of the entire record, start to finish. It quite simply blew my mind. Listening to four people add their own musicality, feeling, and embellishments to the music that I have poured my heart and soul into for so many years was breathtaking. I’ve been trying to recall what my expectations for the night were, but I can’t seem to find them. Maybe I just didn’t let myself have any. But for a first run-through it was nearly flawless. It feels show-ready after just one rehearsal and that is so much more than I could have hoped for.

I forced myself to sit down and write this this morning because since last night I have been quite speechless, allowing myself to enjoy one of my life’s highest peaks and forgetting momentarily that there are valleys out there. But I knew I would enjoy writing about the experience and sharing it with you all, so with that I offer a heartfelt thank you to Maren Haynes, Jenn Glenn, Emily Shih, and Dustin Peskuric for an unforgettable evening, and set off to start looking for venues to book shows.

-L

Hello all,

The video game project is going very well. I’ve been getting emails with some of the early character animations and I just can’t stop watching them with a big grin on my face! I’ll see if I can get permission to share some of them here at some point.

I’ve been keeping myself busy composing lots of music for the game and I’m really happy with how it’s turning out so far. It’s such a different experience than making a rock record. I’ll have to write about it in more detail some time. Suffice it to say, I’m having a blast and staying continually inspired.

After composing a handful of pieces, I started realizing that the soundtrack really needed a core theme in order to be memorable. I’d been leaning toward more ambient ethereal pieces in hopes of a high re-listen value (nothing’s worse than hearing the same 4 bars over and over while you spend hours stuck on a level). Still, I felt something was missing. Every game soundtrack that I love has some kind of main theme associated with it.

So I tried to write one. I kept adding layers to it over a few days, and was pretty surprised by how cool the end product turned out. So I thought I’d share it with you. It’s in the player below. Still just a rough mix, but pretty listenable I think. It will probably be used as some kind of battle theme. Check it out and let me know what you think!

-L

Hi friends,

Those of you who have been asking about live shows will be happy to hear that I finally have a string quartet lined up and am ready to start rehearsals for some upcoming local shows. At first I will be performing with just the quartet, with myself on acoustic guitar and vocals. I’ll then add the full band (drums, bass, keyboards) to the mix after the first few shows.

It was a lot of work rearranging the string parts on The Veil for quartet, but I am very pleased with how everything turned out. I will be sure to document the rest of the process well, and will post some videos of rehearsals and performances as they occur. I’m looking forward to sharing this music in person with you all soon!

<3,
Lars