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Information about "The Silent D"
Where the original songs come from
Like our first album, many of the originals come from improvisations that we did for dancers. We record live performances and when we play an improv that feels right, we go back and build that into a tune. Sometimes we find a small 30 second bit or just a riff and then we develop it into an entire song.

Our weekly gig "Djam at Je'Bon" has become the testing ground for the new songs. We play them during open floor and see how people react. It takes a while to get a comfortable feel to a song and really get it down to what you hear on the CD.

Lesson II
We like the idea of creating mythology. With "A Lesson", the intro to the Middle East Side, we were riffing on the idea of bellydance instructional LPs from the 60s. This was our take on a music instructional companion to those recordings. Brad put on his best square gameshow voice of authority announcer and Pete added the old and scratchy to it. We love that we've actually had people ask "Where did you find that?". Along the same lines, for 'Lesson II:See and Say' Carmine picked up a See and Say talking toy from the 70s on ebay for $20. Pete sampled the sounds of the toy and the sounds of the band. Add Brad's voice of authority and you have a Djinn-centric See and Say from way back when.

Lesson III
The Silent D is Brad as the voice of authority trying to help people pronounce the name of the band. We're tired of being "De-Jinn" or "DJ Inn". It's a silent D. (D)jinn as in gin. As in Djinn on gin, our favorite Rakkasah after party beverage.

Diagulation
A lot of the rhythm of this tune is based on the rhythm changes of the PURE foundation music (which Brad and Pete helped compose). Melissa added some Hurdy Gurdy noise to start us off, Carmine threw in a bit of a Rush riff, and Brad added some electronic chaos and Diagulation was born.

Double Sixes
The song has two different 6's in it. Can you spot them.

Hellfire Cotton Candy
Surprise to all of us. Pete used to play trumpet!

Lucifer Goes to the Circus
Melissa "The Loud" says:
Lucifer Goes to the Circus was inspired by my friend Draven, who, while dancing with flaming torches as part of the Accidental Circus, set the stage on fire, then stamped it out on the beat. It was great. "Lucifer" means "light bringer." It's the name of the last "star" of the morning, the planet Venus, that seems to bring the sun before it fades. There's a passage in the bible about the fall of a Babylonian king, calling him "Lucifer" like the star to make the point that he's faded like a star fades before the sun. Later readers of the bible confused this Lucifer with that other famous fallen one, Satan, so now some people think the names are synonyms.

Special Kae (drum solo)
"Kae" is a hint to Kaeshi Chai's name. We wrote this drum solo for her.

Monkey King
A tune inspired by the Chinese story, Journey to the West. In it, the monk Xuánzàng, is on a pilgramage to India to recover lost Buddhist sutras. He is protected along the way by a half-man/half-pig, a water demon and the monkey king, Sun Wùkong. Pete came up with this insane drum riff, and taught it to the rest of the band. We spent 3 full rehearsals just practicing the rhythm changes of this tune. Then Melissa added her Hurdy Gurdy magic.

Laylia 2.0 (drum solo)
Carmine says, "If you look on youtube, you can see a video of me and a dancer Laylia from Ohio. The drum solo at that show was completely improvised. People really liked the solo so I brought it to the band. We reworked it a bit and recorded it for this CD. The '2.0' in the title is for the solo being a revised/updated version as well as a nudge to my dancer friend to take the next step."

Remixes!
A remix is a huge compliment. It means someone enjoyed your music enough to listen to it again and again and chop it up just right. It's amazing to hear two different people's interepretations of the song. We're flattered Maduro and Jim Boz took the time to make these remixes.

The recording process
We recorded at a studio in Dumbo best left unnamed. When we arrived there early on a Saturday morning to record, the engineer was no where to be found. After almost an hour, we called and found out he was just waking up. An hour later, when he still didn't show, we found out he was bailing his friend out of jail. After 3 hours of waiting we nearly gave up and went home. However, with band schedules and Melissa's pregnancy, this was actually the only weekend we could organize to record this CD. Four hours later he finally showed. It wasn't a great start, but everything worked out in the end.

Melissa The Loud was pregnant during the recording. She was worried she wouldn't have any lap left to put the hurdy gurdy on. Her beautiful music appreciative daughter Thelma arrived months later (before the CD). At rehearsals, Thelma actually cries when we STOP playing. Awesome!

Pete List from our group did all of the mixing as well as additional recording at hEADLESS bOY sTUDIOS, (his Brooklyn Apartment). We recorded all the basic tracks live in the studio (except for the drum solos). However, there are lots of additional tracks of bells, shakers, davul, and electronic bits that were put on later at Pete's place by Pete and Brad.

What's news...
Fung Chern Hwei
Violin wunderkind Fung Chern Hwei is now a permanent member of the band. He performed with us at Rakkash West and Spring Caravan. He's an amazing musician who picked up all of our new songs quickly and is already creating new tunes with us. It's a new Djinn flavor. Whizzle down!

Carmine Guida
new instructional DVD: Begintermediate Doumbek Workshop

Pete List
new CDs - Beatbox Guitar as well as a new solo album A Charming Demise.

Djinn
You'll be hearing some of the new songs on upcoming DVDs by World Dance New York.
A third CD is already in the works. We have lots of new material we're working on already!
Kaeshi from BellyQueen is putting together a tour for us in China!