Happy to announce that the music video to our latest song
"Come And Get Me Now" is ready and up on YouTube.com. The making of the video for me was a long journey to decide on what the message was. Although everything emotional is and can be related to our troubles with the pandemic in 2020, I still wanted to maintain a brighter side of a character in the story of our music video who is lonely, left alone in solitude and yearning for the days gone by. We first shot essential footage at a church in upper east side late May with Bernadette and Emre while we were doing the photoshoot for the cover of the single. We came a long way with the post production, but I still was not in love with the dark side of me that was exposed. I looked ugly, I looked old and I looked tired. It was bothering me.
Right after that day we shot the footage, I went to Fire Island and stayed there for the entire summer thanks to my friends Gene and Steve. It was great to be away from the city during the pandemic, and the protests going on. I was admiring the scenery of the island. Somehow seeing the environment on a daily basis made me discover new corners and details about the place, although I’ve been there at least once or twice every summer through the years. I was taking all these pictures day and night, sunrise/sunset, full moon/stormy weather, sunny beach/deserted beach, and everything I took daily was landing on a last picture of the boardwalk that connected our unit to the beach. At one point, my friend Al suggested that I take periodic footage of the boardwalk just to see if it would bring any inspiration.
It’s an interesting concept almost like writing a diary to see what changes the nature suggests to a stationary object with differing conditions. The fact that I was able to edit the things I was filming instantly with Final Cut Pro made me ask myself “why not use this for the upcoming single’s music video.” To bring a brighter view to the story we wrote in the song with Bernadette was intriguing. Things we suffer from past choices, future doubts of incompetence, and its effect on the present— they would all be optimistic to find a way to deal with just like how the nature finds its way with everything—even pandemic. This routine went on till September 13. That's when I started editing the full song video.
spotify:album:2WHmOsYmsak3whVNEj6zLm
Among the people in my network who I mostly rely on to play my ongoing work for early insights and critics is Lauren. I am always comfortable showing early stages of my work to get a constructive feedback when I feel I'm too much involved with the project. Her eyes and ears are very well trained to get a vision of the artist and his/her raw work during its formation. Plus our relationship allows her to be sincere without holding back any aspect. So when I showed her the first edit, she gave me all these thoughts on the phone. The same day she sent me three different takes of her dancing on the track just in case I needed to use. I ended up using her footage that she sent from the West Coast in the instrumental outro thinking what better way to relieve stress and strain that we bring with the song than a water-ballet turning the track into a dance number by throwing cyber lights and entertainment, with multi images of sirens dancing on the waves, making you feel like you’re watching a Vegas show. At least that became the vision in my head.
It’s November 2 now. I finalize the music video with a fulfilled heart and a content soul.
The music we recorded were all made possible with the talented and renowned musicians I work with who understand my style of music-- they almost feel like my band and very gracious to be involved in my productions namely Mike Sorrentino in drums, Carras Paton in bass guitar and horn sections, Emre Yilmaz and Gene Blank in guitars, Rob Preuss in synth and keyboards, Thomas Gallaher in piano. And besides these names, Keith Fluitt, Jerri Bocchino and Lauren Rathbun add additional and background vocals to give it the Abba vibe that I die for.
Cagri Keskin designed the artwork for the project. I am proud to feature his work with his company Donum Noktasi as our display on every project bringing in the cover of the record from suggestions into reality. In the meantime Chuck prepares the wording of our presentation. His writing becomes our press release, and in many cases turns into the liner notes of the record we are producing. Just like Bernadette and Emre, I am grateful to him for being there all along since day 1, sharing our enthusiasm and positive vibes with every record since 2007.
Looking back, I realize Bernadette and I have been working, writing music almost for 15 years. on and off here and there this and that. Our partnership goes beyond business where I accept her as one of my true closest friends in life that I can trust and enjoy the time with.
Our new song is out. It comes with a challenging story at a challenging time where we all face a little bit of doubt about future. Our intention is to spread out light with fire when the thoughts are at their darkest. Please leave us some comments on YouTube.
Ayhan
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