Nickels: HAWKEYE (album notes and credits)

Artist: Nickels (Nickels Hawkeye)
Album title: Hawkeye
Label: Mysterium Media Group
Release date: August 9th 2011

Track List:
1. The Emperor's New Clothes
2. Perpetual Motion
3. The Shattered Vile of 10,000 Souls
4. If found, please return to the Pied Piper
5. American Idols - feat. Mark Driscol
6. Between Dark Havens
7. Cidade Maravilhosa
8. Fascinans
9. Go the Distance
10. Rosewood
11. Colossus of Rhodes
12. The Human Condition
13. Project Mayhem: Obliteration
14. The Five Boroughs
15. Woolgathering
16. Seattle City Light

First, let me begin by thanking you in advance for your support! Each album that is purchased is greatly appreciated! Mysterium Media Group has been growing and flourishing lately. Hopefully, you will enjoy watching how it continues in the future!

This album is essentially a collection of instrumentals I've made with the intention of a vocalist accompanying it. These were never intended to "stand alone" as a composition piece. Please bare that in mind when listening. The process of releasing finished projects can take a very long time and I grow restless at times, so I decided to release these as an attempt to let my listeners hear what I've been doing over the last few years. I hope you enjoy listening to them as much as I enjoyed making them!

I will be reflecting upon the details of each track as I listen to them.

1. The Emperor's New Clothes
The intro snipit is one that's I've saved for this release. It pretty much explains itself. The reason for naming this came from a line of thinking I had while in the car. The idea of trying to persuade one to purchase an album without words is comparable to a tailor persuading a king to purchase clothes that he can't see. That's quite a feat if you ask me! This style is an experimental one. Its fueled by my recent interest in Dub-Step. It isn't Dub-Step, but definately has some influences that derive from it. This instrumental may be used on Grayskul's (RSE) next album... who knows, thus, here it is!

2. Perpetual Motion
My wife and I had a conversation about how this made her feel. She described being on a long, seemingly endless, road trip. I could relate to that. Endless, lethargic driving spells late at night... touring. This was originally created for Azrael of Oldominion and my project "Az the Crow Flies", however at this rate, I have a hard time imagining this instrumental seeing the light of day anytime soon... so, here it is!

3. The Shattered Vile of 10,000 Souls
I've always loved these kind of titles. This one has a more humorous background though. Remember on KungFu Panda when the panda breaks that vase carrying "souls" and each time the vase was bumped there were the sounds of wailing souls? That's what this background sample reminds me of. This was supposed to be used by Onry Ozzborn of Oldominion/Grayskul and featuring Candidt of The Th3rd, but never made the final cut evidently.

4. If found, please return to the Pied Piper
This was titled because someone said it sounded like the chorus, and parts of the verse, resembled their image of a "piper" playing a pan flute. I thought about the idea of using, or rather finding, this pan flute and putting its sounds in my music. Maybe there would be a label with the used title written on it somewhere... I just let my mind unfold from there. The snipit is of an artist on MMG named @ransomnightfall this was a real outtake from a studio session we had a while back.

5. American Idols - feat. Mark Driscol
This instrumental was made without a sequencer or any quantizing. (Tech terms producers understand) Surprise! This one has words! This is an idea I got from Reuben AP of Comunalien & Oldominion. He called reading (not rapping) the scriptures over beats "Sword Storms." I took that and expanded it to contain sermons too! This was intended to be a Black Lemmings track, but again, this never came to be for various reasons. The little snipit at the end is a rearranging of some of the samples used previously. Just to give a different twist.

6. Between Dark Havens
The samples in this one were found by Matt "Doulos the Verbose" Ober. He is the co-host of the Mysterium Media Group Update Podcast (MMGUP) and a long time friend. Stream our shows from www.mmgup.blogspot.com or find it in the podcast section of itunes! This title came from considering the battle between flesh and spirit and how hard it can get sometimes. No one is perfect and we all fail. Our hope of salvation from our sin is Jesus! The hard part is actually trusting Him like we should. That internal struggle is what I hopefully captured in this song.

7. Cidade Maravilhosa
Which translates "Marvelous City" which is a nickname for Rio De Janeiro which is the city from which the musical style of Samba came from. The live drum sample in this piece is from a television production I had the priviledge of running sound for produced by my family's good friend Kumari Suraj in Portland Oregon while my wife and I were dating. (Run-on anyone?) During this period, I was listening to Keane (a popular rock group from the U.K.) a lot. This influenced the lead synth in the chorus. I tried to fuse some of the pop & trance synth sounds into the verses. Always liked this one.

8. Fascinans
Which translates to "fascination" in Greek. I've always liked the sound of the Greecian phrase "Mysterium Tremendum" which is not only the inspiration for my record label's name, but also it translates as "The Great (or tremendous) Mystery" which is corelated with the "presence of the devine." However, Tremendum equates itself with the "fear" or "frightening" characteristics of God; while Fascinans refers to the "fascinating" or "wonderous" things of God. Instrumentally, I was trying to return to the basis of break-beats and a rock and roll sample. Also, I used an interesting drum roll here which I had noticed some of my favorite producers including as well. The reverb heavy piano in the chorus was inspired by Coldplay and Keane as well. I love how the piano part ends the song with a huge, long lasting extention into the clip of Rick Morranis.

9. Go the Distance
This is a song that has been locally released through twitter as a free download. It featured Kay Bee (MMG), Jazz Digga (MMG), & Soul the Interrogator (MMG). The song was an impromptu piece created and finished within the same day. I will make the completed song available to you directly upon receipt of an email requesting it. Please email me at nickelshawkeye@gmail.com This piano sample was originally intended for a song with Comunalien (my group from 1993-1999 with Reuben AP), but it was never made until now. I hope to see your email soon because it truly is a gorgeous song!

10. Rosewood
The beginning piano sample was taken from a CD that was created by Church of the Beloved. Church of the Beloved has an "intentional Christian Community" in Edmonds, Washington that my family and I used to reside in. This was made during our time there. My favorite part of this instrumental is the drum rolls. This was intended for use by the MMG group J.P.S. for their second release. The group is in hiatus, but has an EP available on itunes etc. which is called "Weaponry EP" if you happen to search for it.

11. Colossus of Rhodes
Rhodes is a philosopher, a song by Portishead and a legendary electronic piano. Most of this was sampled from several phone messages I received when I was a teenager. The use od the Rhodes piano is mostly why I named is this. Also, I believe "colossus" is Greek for something abnormally large or grandios. You have probably noticed the fast paced, jumbled break-beat in the background. This is an attempt of mine incorporate the subgenre of "jungle." The bass is nice too; no?

12. The Human Condition
I was up late one night watching the movie where Robin Williams plays a robot with the ambition to become human. When his character finally does, and starts to die, his partner in science said a very impacting sentense that I've never forgotten. He said "Welcome to the human condition." My mind flooded with scenario after scenario of situations surrounding that truth. We are frail as a human race and we don't last forever. "Life is short" is a popular phrase, but one that is almost more true, but less popular is "life is long." The choices we make today last and effect tomorrow. It seems like this principle is slowly being forgotten about by the younger generations. A plea of rememberance is how this song feels to me. Musically speaking, this one has no samples. I learned this progression when I was a youngster, playing around on my uncle Jon Johnson's keyboard and have since refined it to this point. I hope it moves you!

13. Project Mayhem: Obliteration
As many of you know, Project Mayhem is directly attributed to the movie Fight Club. This is my favorite movie. The reason for the additional word, obliteration, is because I've always thought they should make a video game about Project Mayhem and their "tasks." One version could be called Obliteration as somewhat of a sequel to the first game. I'm a hardcore nerd. #NERDCORE The snipit between this song and the next is intentionally quieter than the others for comedic effect. You may have to rewind it.

14. The Five Boroughs
Simply put, this song reminds me of New York City and my family's vacation there. It was a truly relaxing and life changing trip!

15. Woolgathering
This is another word for "Day Dreaming", which is what I catch myself doing to this song all too often. This song was supposed to be used in a project featuring Malachi Perez (or currently known as Avery Davis), which also never transpired. The vocals to this song were supposed to be the main thing separating the chorus and the verses, which is now only defined by a slight key change.

16. Seattle City Light
This is the sounds of downtown Seattle during peak traffic and commute. Check out the two guys trying to sell me newspapers and watches toward the end of it. This was recorded using my cell phone.

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Our BANDCAMP page has 6 albums uploaded for preview and purchase right now! We've only been able to post one artist so far. It's quite a time consuming task, and we didn't anticipate that. Here are the albums that are up so far. You should check out the site and read the track listings and look at the album covers! There are several comments left by Nickels Hawkeye about the music he's made on that site as well!

Nickels Hawkeye: Crying Out Loud
Nickels Hawkeye: Anti-Depressant
Nickels Hawkeye: Space
Nickels Hawkeye: Something to Sleep On
Nickels Hawkeye: Hawkeye
Nickels Hawkeye: In the Ways of the Old Code

Take a moment to look around this site! It really does have a lot of interesting and inspiring information!

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Nickels Hawkeye - Something to Sleep On (album review)

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1> Enchanted - This instrumental is interesting to me because it was created late one night in the "lojique" studio with my man Sergie, who now plays in a very popular band that I forgot the name of... anyway, we were both really into Muse at the time, and I still am. I was looking for him to play a dark and errie and somewhat sinister piano over a loop that I'd been working on, so he played this incredible, midnight sounding piano off the top of his head. Thus all the little imperfections. At first I wasn't sure if I'd want to put it out because of all that, but it grew on me and I learned to appreciate what he'd done! It is marvelously enchanting, so I named it "Enchanted."

2> It'll All Go Away - This one took a long time to make. There are so many old computer game sounds in this one as well as several movie clips etc. The first little break of the song I wanted to make sound like a smoothly running machine and then towards the middle and end have it sound like it's getting too hot and starting to malfunction. The movie sounds it has in it are from yet another movie I have forgotten the name of. Some good I am at trying to remember my samples from 2005. Anyway, I liked what it'd said because it spoke about the supernatural and the number 5. Which is of course my favorite number. I have a version of this song with JUST the music and I picked this one simply because of the words and the effects... which were new to me at the time. I still like the beat. I was exploring a new kind of sound at that time. I have always tried to break away from my signature sounds, so this was yet another attempt at making something fresh that didn't sound like anyone else. I like the way this one ends too because it's almost like the track is kind of saying "Game Over" in it's own way.

3> Tall, Cool Glass Of Water - This one was made with out using any sequencing equipment or quantizing. I looped a little drum loop on my CDJ and built on top of that sound using it at my metronome...(did I spell that right?) So all the individual drum sounds and keys and scratches and bells and whistles and samples were played (kind of) live! You can actually hear a few mistakes and wrong notes I chose to leave in. The intensity that developes during the song is another favorite thing about it.

4> Submersion - This was another instrumental with a similar method of creation. As you can tell from the beginning, I used a breakbeat as the backbone of the drums. I have always loved that break. The keys and synths I used were from a yamaha corny little swap meet keyboard I used to use as a midi controller. It was such a pain having to try and rig up that thing to use it's internal sounds! I hated it but for some reason everytime I used it in a song, it added a real warmness and a comforting feel to it. This is a shorter track with a very moving and touching exit. I hope you like it!

5> The Greatest Trick - This was the only song I chose to rap on with this album. I don't regard myself as a rapper or an emcee. Just a producer/DJ who likes to get on the mic every now and then. The message of this first verse is one of dispare and begging for forgiveness for sins that have distracted me from Christ and my lifestyle of trying to immitate Him! It's a very heart felt verse and is very meaningful. There aren't many verses of mine that meet me right where I was at the time I wrote it than this one does. The second verse is one I wrote while in Comunalien that I never did anything with but I'd always liked. I like the flow. The message at the end of the song was a very real feeling of being dissed by so called friends throughout the year. No one was calling me but everytime I saw them they said they'd call me or hook up with me some how. Never happened. I hate that stuff. I need people to be real to me. Hopefully, that feeling when I recorded this will not be repeated because it SUCKED!!! My daughters are in Baltimore right now and I wasn't able to visit them even back then, so my daughters, if you listen to this, I LOVE YOU!!!!!

6> Nestalgia - This (if you haven't realized) is a sample from the Original Nintendo Game "METROID!" I made a track with this sample in it a long time ago that also has a sample from the introduction to "Zelda" in it as well, but I had lost those masters...(I have recently found them again so who knows!) But I wanted to put this out because this was my favorite of the two samples. It's so mysterious and yet epic sounding... with a lo-fi feel... I have offered this beat to several emcees and no one has been able to write anything to it. They either can never tell where the chorus is, or it was too "deep" for them. I don't get it sometimes. Why do we want music that doesn't make musical sense sometimes??? This one makes musical sense to me. Doesn't it to you?

7> Lost Souls - The pastor in this song is pastor Frank (Dimazio??) from City Bible Church in Portland Oregon. I was going through the membership classes during this time of my residency in Vancouver Washington and when I missed a session, they let us "check out" a CD that was on the topics of what they covered. This is one of the messages of those CDs. This was yet another sequenceless instrumental. I love my CDJ!! Now I FINALLY have two! I used to be pseudo-famous for only have one for about 5 years. YAY!!! So, this is a very serious message. It's a hard message to put out because of HOW serious it is. I pray that everyone knows where they're going when they die. If you don't, then you can... (read the end of this blog to find out how) - also if you're a pastor and would like to appear on a song like this one, please send me a message on this site and I'll give you information on how you can get your sermons to me!

8> Four Point Surround - The vocal sample right at the front of this one is from Comunalien's Reuben A.P. from the album Manifest Destiny (available at sphereofhiphopstore.com) My good friend Zebulon Dak of Oldominion actually made this beat. I loved it from the first time I heard it and felt that it captured a feeling that I only wish I could capture. It's deep, soothing, thoughtful, peaceful & remenicing of a time when our mutual friend Reuben was alive. We both loved him very much and the feeling in this song is also the feeling similar to the sorrow we feel when we realize we're without our friend.

9> Phone Peace - This was actually the soundtrack to a very dramatic arguement back when I lived in Federal Way between two girls and one of their mothers! It resulted in peace. I wonder if the fact that such a peaceful instrumental was looping behind their arguement was part of the reason why they ended up making peace so quickly. We'll never know... maybe I'll as Jesus that when I get to heaven. Me and my wishfull thinking. The electric keys were sampled from my Wurlitzer keyboard my grandma and grandpa Johnson gave to me before they died. I miss them.

10> Translucent Whisper - This is the mythical song that Pale Soul of Oldominion and myself recorded one dark and foggy night at my parents house when I still lived with them and was just being introduced to all the Oldominion heads... Then called "The Infested Heads" then went on to be called "The Concentration Camp" then onto "Oldominion." (coined by Reuben AP) The three core guys, Pale, Onry Ozzborn and Sleep would come over and listen to beats I'd made and one time Pale came through and we made this with my white Fender Strat and my EPS 16+ Ensoniq Sampler. (The same one that Public Enemy used back then) This beat is Oldominion legend!!

11> Open Breathe - Onry Ozzborn actually found this sample and used it first, but I lost the beat he did on my EPS. All but the main sample. This one. I used it to make it what it is now. I figured, "why should such a great sample remain unreleased?" But full credit for finding this sample goes to Onry Ozzborn!!! (He probably doesn't even remember)

12> Leave & Cleave - This is an instrumental I originally made with and for Malachi Perez. He never used it. I always thought that it'd do real good at the clubs and a show or what not. I suppose we'll never know now. This is ONE of TWELVE I made him that he never used... Oh well, I love the guy anyway. I like the piano sample on this because it reminds me of Peter Pan for some reason. I'm reading the second of four prequels to the Peter Pan novel right now and these feelings are as whimsical as the story! Especially the tinker bell character. You should really check these books out when you get a chance! (they'll probably be made into movies soon since the publisher is Disney - who knows? Just a guess.)

13> Thought Life - This musicial who created the sample for this is a personal hero! I love this man's work! I honestly feel like I didn't do justice to the song he made. I didn't have the ability to sample in stereo or for any longer than 6 seconds so I couldn't capture how INSANE this original song was... didn't have the ability to recreate any of it at that time either. I kept hearing people say they loved this beat so I put it on here. I like it too, but you really should just buy the original artists album.... that is, if you can find it... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

14> Spirit World - This instrumental was originally made for The Black Lemmings (DJ Because and my group) but it is SO BLASTED HARD TO DO ANYTHING WITH THAT MAN!!!!! I just don't understand why someone would pay for a phone they don't use or pick up? What's the point? I'd LOVE to do Black Lemming stuff, but the scheduling stuff is so rediculous to deal with that I fear nothing will ever come of it untill I'm dead and gone! Hopefully it doesn't get that bad. But as things are looking, it seems like it will. So I couldn't feel right about harboring this one from listening ears any longer... I hope you understand Because. You're my mate and all, but I put out junk that fools SLEEP ON!!!! (thus the title)


The point of all my work is Jesus.

If you read what I wrote in the middle of this, and want to know how to ask Jesus into your life, it's easy to start. Just repeat this prayer and mean it!!!


God, I know that I am not perfect.
And I understand that you are.
I need you to come and live in my heart.
Guide me in my everyday life.
I can't do this life without you in it.
It's by grace that you've died on the cross for my sins and rose again on the third day.
I believe this.
I believe that you died for me.
Individually.
You said you'd never leave me or forsake me.
Please show me what it means to follow you for real.
Show me who YOU ARE!!!
Help me to know you so I can know what you're NOT like.
You love me and knew me before the foundations of this world.
Now I want to know you.
Please lead me to a church I can call home. With real people who love you!
Give me people I can talk to who believe the same way I do.
Help me to read my bible with understanding and pray to you even when it feels akward.
Help me to trust you as Lord from this day forward.
I believe that I am saved by Grace through faith!
Teach me to live a life that honors YOU out of a responce to what you've done for me.
Teach me to have no other God's before you and to love my neighbor as I love myself.
Thank you Lord for promising to be with me even to the end of this age.
In Jesus' name, AMEN!!!!


That's it! You're in the family!!! Check out the podcasts at http://www.thecity.org and specifically find the one titled "Grace Builds The Church" and it will help you to better understand what just happened in your spirit! If you don't feel anything in your body, it's okay! Just believe through your faith that it was real, because after all, you DID mean it... RIGHT??? =D