2025-Jan-04 - Dreaming In Cryostasis
This week's randomly selected song Dreaming In Cryostasis is track #6 from disc #3 of my triple CD album It Was All Just a Dream.
Dreaming In Cryostasis first appeared on my 2019 album Electric Sky. This song is a weird and quirky mix of avant garde, electronica, and funk, with a health dose of straight up fretboard shredding. Joining me on this song is my very good friend Tom Atkins, who lays down the first guitar solo at the 3:07 mark. Tom told me after the fact that he was so vigorous with the whammy bar on his guitar for this solo that he ended up snapping it in half! In my opinion, Tom's killer guitar solo made the sacrificed whammy bar totally worthwhile!
The song started as a convergence of two completely separate ideas. The first was the electronic bass groove that starts the song, and the second was the funk groove from the chorus of the song. Initially these two ideas were slated to be entirely distinct songs, but when I noticed they were in the same key and roughly the same tempo, I tried putting them together, and it worked perfectly! 🤯
The majority of my songs start as a story idea – often in the form of a song title – and I'll write music that I feel best tells that story. In this case the song came together first. It was such a surreal and quirky combination of grooves, I had to just let my imagination run wild to come up with a good title. At some point (likely after watching some sort of sci-fi) the thought occurred to me: if you were to be placed into a state of suspended animation in a cryostasis chamber for weeks, months, or years, could you dream? And if so, what would years or even decades-long dreams be like? Surely it would be pretty weird. Then it occurred to me that this odd thought experiment would be a perfect theme for this quirky song.
I used three guitars for Dreaming In Cryostasis. I played my Fender American Elite Stratocaster for the funky rhythm guitar parts supporting the choruses and bridge. I played my guitar solo on my Ibanez RG5120. And I played all of the other melodic parts on my Ibanez JS1CR30 "Chrome Boy". I played all of my parts through my trusty Mesa Boogie Mark V:25 using the Fat and IIC+ voices for the clean and lead tones, respectively.
If you love what you hear and want to support the music I make, please consider purchasing It Was All Just a Dream on CD or digital download. I will gladly personalize and autograph your copy.
https://chrisstark.com/it-was-all-just-a-dream
Keep an eye out for next Saturday's song spotlight, and as always, thank you sincerely for all of your support!
Love, Aloha, and Rock!
❤️😎🎸