Rituals by Dave De Rose Records

As I followed closely the footage of the intense and widespread attacks that the state of Israel carried out in Palestine following the Hamas led operation of October 7th, I found myself completely drained and at a loss for action. I could not take my eyes and mind off the violence. We in the West should all see and know how Colonialism operates to this day and how our privileges - most importantly the privileges of the ruling classes - are made and maintained by it.

As I stumbled around the house in tears and despair, my wonderful partner Stathia came along with an offering : “Ok, but you also need a project, something to keep your creativity alive, this isn't helping anything."

I listened.

In these times of Western supremacy where some of us are so privileged to have access to everything under the sun, it felt important to set some limiting parameters to operate around.
I was going to work daily making short tracks using only my guitars, hand percussion and voice. I would perform these straight in to the computer like a tape machine in order to maintain a raw, organic and live feel to the recordings. 15 track in to the process I allowed myself to broaden the palet by adding effect pedals and a synthesiser.

When Stathia heard the 1st track I’d made she said : “Nice, it's like a ritual"

“Rituals" then is a collection of short pieces following some kind of thought-diary between November 2023 and Feb 2024.
I worked fast on instrumental ‘beats' and sometimes wrote very short lyrical content to empty my mind of the many contemplations that arose.

Musically speaking, the star of discovery for me in this collection, is my modified Telecaster bass strung with piccolo strings. Anything you hear that sounds like a guitar is that instrument and it really helped shape the sound of the record.

I chose to initially release these one by one in video format on Instagram, the same platform that was broadcasting the genocide to me. The posts were limited to 1 minute, and i worked the tracks to this length. Here I have extended them slightly where it felt that the endings were too abrupt for the audio only versions. I also reordered the pieces for a sequenced listen.
credits

I hope these can bring some form of relief to you as they have done for me.

collaborating, motivating and instigating original creations in rhythm and sound : Agile Experiments, Rave At Your Fictional Borders, Mulianne Joor and more

davederosemusic.com