SKYHARBOR

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Dear Friends,

Today Skyharbor made the announcement that we have amicably parted ways…This may come as a surprise to most but as you can imagine, stepping down as the band’s singer and frontman was a difficult decision to make and a complicated affair. I’m sure this will raise many questions and cause disappointment for the many fans that have shown steadfast support since ‘Blinding White Noise’

My circumstances have changed dramatically over the past few years and the need to prioritise my time has become ever increasingly obvious. I felt that for a number of reasons that I was holding Skyharbor back from developing into a fully fledged international touring band and after a long time discussing this through we concluded that this was the best for the band. We all remain absolutely the best of friends and plans are already in motion for the future!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank every one of my supporters for your continued love and encouragement as I continue my career with TesseracT and the projects I’m a part of, including ‘White Moth Black Butterfly’ of which Keshav continues to be a part of. We have a strong friendship and a working relationship that will undoubtedly endure.

I wish the band every success and having heard new material I can safely say that my replacement has already taken Skyharbor to a new level.

Here is the official statement from myself and the band.

Hello everyone,

Please take a few minutes out of your day to read this post.

After months of deliberation, Dan has decided to step down as our frontman and singer. This has been the hardest decision we have ever had to make in our history as a group, and it comes after months of discussion about the future of Skyharbor. We owe you an explanation, and we hope this following makes it clear as to why we reached this decision.

In a nutshell, things have developed with this group far quicker than any of us expected, and we have been getting some amazing opportunities to take our music around the world. We have been lucky enough to be able to play sporadically in India, Europe and the UK, but we have always wanted to take our music further afield to territories such as North America and Australia, and for longer periods than Dan could commit to. As many of you will know, Dan is a husband and a father, and touring for long periods of time with little financial security made it very difficult for the band to be active, and Dan felt strongly that he was holding us back from good opportunities.

Keeping this in mind and the fact that Dan rejoined TesseracT last year, we realised we had to make a choice – we could continue with Dan but as a studio project only, or we could move forward with a dedicated and focused lineup to help Skyharbor grow freely and achieve what we all hope to achieve with it. All 5 of us have collectively and amicably decided that the latter option was the best for the band.

We love Dan as a brother, and are incredibly proud of the two albums we’ve created with him and the times we have shared on the road. Words cannot describe how grateful we are for all he’s done for this band, and the passion and dedication he put into each show. He will be sorely missed, but will always remain close to us.

Here is what Dan himself has to say:

“I’m incredibly sad to be parting ways with my amazing friends Keshav, Devesh, Krishna and Aditya. We have collectively come to the decision that it is in the best interest of the group that I step down as the frontman of Skyharbor. From the very start I have put my heart and soul into the project but circumstances have made it clear that I am holding the band back from opportunities too good to miss. We all agree this is the best thing for everyone. We will always be close friends and I wish them only the best for the future.”

Which brings us to the good news:

We are very happy to welcome Eric Emery to Skyharbor as our new full time singer. Eric is a fantastic talent and we are all very excited to write and play music with him. When we reached out to Eric in the hopes of finding someone to fill Dan’s shoes, we were all delighted by the quality of his audition and his enthusiasm to fill the spot. As a Grammy nominated engineer, Eric brings to the band not just his voice but his music production experience and knowledge, and we look forward to performing live with him, starting with our first US and Canada tour later this year, details of which we will announce shortly.

As tricky as the last few months have been, we truly believe that everything has worked out for the best. We couldn’t be more confident in our new lineup and our future.

We’d like to thank you all for the constant messages of support and requests to see us perform all over the world. You inspire us to continue taking this band forward. We hope for your continued support and understanding through this transitional period and hope that you enjoy the exciting new phase of music that we will be sharing with you very soon. See you on the road!

Love,

Keshav, Devesh, Krishna, Aditya and Eric

THE BIG BIG BIG UPDATE 2015!!

 

TESSERACT

 

It’s been a while since my last update but finally here we go! So much has happened and continues to develop in 2015! Tonnes of exciting news…Firstly, if you didn’t already know, after a 3 year absence from the band, in July 2014 I returned to TESSERACT and signed a brand new record deal together with KSCOPE. My first show back with the guys was opening the main stage at Sonisphere Festival and I’m fired up to be back and working with my good buddies.

 

 

So now I’m currently writing and recording with the band for the 3rd studio album and we’re incredibly excited about the new TesseracT sound as we sonically explore new territory both musically and lyrically. We look to release new material later in 2015 however, we are also preparing to drop our first live DVD / CD (Scala / Odyssey) recorded during last October’s tour around Europe.

 

 

SKYHARBOR

 

After an incredibly successful Pledge Campaign, in November 2014 SKYHARBOR finally released ‘GUIDING LIGHTS‘ the long awaited follow up to ‘BLINDING WHITE NOISE‘. As a direct result of the campaign we were able to produce two incredible music videos for ‘EVOLUTION’ and ‘PATIENCE’ our two lead tracks, the latter of which, was created by none other than the incredible ‘JESS COPE‘ of ‘OWL HOUSE STUDIOS’. On top of that we were also lucky enough have our album mixed and mastered by the very talented Australian Producer / Mixer ‘FORRESTER SAVELL‘ Needless to say ‘Guiding Lights’ has taken me on a very special journey of artistic expression and spiritual satisfaction.

 

 

 

IN COLOUR

 

Everybody asks me ‘What is happening with In Colour?’ I understand people’s frustration, so let me give you a little update. After releasing ‘LISTEN FOR THE RAIN’ in 2012 and then dropping ‘THE MESS WE’RE IN’ a year later ever since we’ve been procrastinating for a long time over the music and the future of the project, that and a few stumbles along the way have meant a delay in releasing any material BUT we’re working in the background to bring you a release soon! All I can say is watch this space.

 

 

 

AND FINALLY

 

WHITE MOTH BLACK BUTTERFLY

 

After releasing our debut album ‘ONE THOUSAND WINGS‘ 2014 saw WHITE MOTH BLACK BUTTERFLY nominated for a PROG AWARD in the ‘Limelight’ Category. We never expected that in a million years so we were naturally blown away to have been honoured with that privilege. After I’ve finished writing for the new TESSERACT album Jordan, Keshav and myself will be sitting down and writing the new WMBB album. In fact we’ve already got over an albums worth of material but as always we need to spend some time perfecting the sound and raising the bar considerably after OTW.

 

 

AND FINALLY FINALLY

 

I want to wish a massive thank you to all my friends and supporters for your continued love and encouragement. It’s been 10 years since I committed to being a ‘lifer’ to music and after my beautiful wife Emma gave birth to our little boy Jack Ocean my life could not be better. So from me, Emma and Jack and on behalf of all the amazing projects I’m involved with, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for helping us to live such creative and liberating lives.

 

Peace, love and light,

 

Dan x

WHITE MOTH BLACK BUTTERFLY RELEASE NEW VIDEO ‘RISING SUN’

 

White Moth Black Butterfly (WMBB) is the ‘experimental’ creation of UK singer / songwriter Daniel Tompkins (TesseracT, Skyharbor, In Colour) and Keshav Dhar (Skyharbor). With influences stemming from the likes of Massive Attack, Enigma, and Sigur Ros this cross continent studio based project emanates huge cinematic soundscapes, juxtaposed with classical, acoustic and electronically infused songs, nested with powerful vocal performances.

 

WMBB’s debut album ‘One Thousand Wings’ released in November 2013 (recorded, mixed and produced by both Tompkins and Dhar) has seen critical acclaim being hailed as “An absolutely essential work’ by Classic Rock Presents Prog Magazine and “Wildly experimental and curiously accessible” by Metal Hammer. Now in April 2014, WMBB focus on a new record and release their brand new single / video for ‘Rising Sun’.

 

 

PRESS:

 

“An exceptional album from Dan Tompkins. An absolutely essential work. Experimental, accessible and quite brilliant. This ranks high amongst this year’s progressive releases.” – Classic Rock Presents Prog Magazine.

 

“Wildly experimental and curiously accessible” 8/10 – Metal Hammer

 

“The incredible sincere delicacy of Tompkins’s vocals is a perfect compliment for the programmed beats, plaintive strings and pulsing electronics throughout this album.” – Windswept Edge

 

“Above all, the impression that “One Thousand Wings” gives is one of talented musicianship and a desire for sonic exploration, resulting in quite a hypnotic and memorable experience.” – This is Not A Scene

 

“Sublime and emotive; ‘One Thousand Wings’ is fantastic.” – A Metal State of Mind

 

Unlike the technical one-upmanship and solid low-end groove that shroud Tompkins’ metal outings, White Moth Black Butterfly strips down the man’s songwriting to its most visceral form yet. The leftfield ambient project also features some of the most eminent musicians to have grazed his vocal prowess, and for all their grandiose instrumentation and spectral soundscaping on record, their aural synapse in the live domain is definitely something to look forward to – Vh1

MAEVA LIVE IN THE STUDIO

 

 

Hello everyone, I’ve been meaning to make a little post like this for a while but have been so busy with writing / recording and changing nappies that I’ve struggled to fit it in! So for any singers / vocal students out there or people looking for vocal coaching you may find this video interesting or of use to you on some level.

 

I recently made a close up, live performance of ‘Maeva’ from our Skyharbor record ‘Blinding White Noise’, which was released in April 2012 Basick Records. As well as being a lot of fun to do, I personally feel that this is a good example of being able to vocally execute a song that I consider (for me) to be quite difficult to perform and stay in pitch. It isn’t the greatest example by any stretch but I thought it would at least be good for my students to watch as they know I’m always banging on about staying relaxed! 

 

Unbeknown to the majority this is probably one of the hardest songs to sing that I’ve ever written and it takes a great deal of effort and concentration to nail! So this will hopefully explain why I’ve changed the execution from the album version to cater for a live performance. It’s a fairly diverse song with the need for a lot of control in many areas. There have been a few people comment on how it appears to be ‘effortless’ which is a lovely compliment but in reality there’s a lot going on.

 

While my range is currently G2 – D#6, ‘Maeva’ is performed between A3 – D5 so it’s not the broadest range I’ve ever executed on a song. Although if you listen closely it’s quite a varied performance using a variety of voice types from the application of characteristic / pitched / compressed vocal fry to chest / mix / head / falsetto and mezza voce. As the resonance is constantly moving this means the more diverse the vocal performance the more need for control so this reflects in my posture and the placement of my head, which is all about control and feel, thats also another reason for relaxed vibes.

 

Breathing and breath management / control really plays a large part in being able to stay focussed and decompressed enough throughout to actually pull the whole song off in one go, especially in a sterile environment like my sound proofed studio. Getting a good monitoring sound obviously really helps. As you progress through the track into the ending there is an element of compression building on the voice, breathing and staying relaxed is so important, that’s why it looks like I’m chilled but in my head I’m working flat out.

 

Without all the control, pitching is sacrificed to a degree. The hardest part is executing the pitched vocal fry right at the end and co-ordinating my voice to connect into a high chesty mix for the end phrase! Have a closer listen and enjoy…right back to demoing new Skyharbor!!

 

Anyone looking for coaching or vocal production and mixing please do get in touch at rockwithdan@gmail.com

 

Thanks, Dan

DIGITAL SENSELESS BY ‘DZYEN’ Ft Daniel Tompkins

Hello!

Hope you’re all doing well as we approach the busy Christmas period! Now as many of you know I’m an active vocal coach. Sometimes…just sometimes I like to be creative and have some fun with my students…Here’s a great example of that! Digital Senseless by DZYEN. Go check out the track and say hi to the band 🙂