Released 4-15-26
Richard’s first album since Phenomenation, and quite possibly his best work ever. In typical RZ fashion, flavored with his multi-genre influences, and filled with inovative sounds and arrangements. Of course, no RZ album would be complete without his signature fret-work that ascends to new heights on this release.
Inside album cover
Artwork used on cover and disc
The meaning of Running with Horses:
I personally find much of my inspiration in scripture. Long before this album was ever concived of, I found myself frustrated as a composer, trying to find a place in the world for the music I was writing. I soon came across this verse in my daily reading and it stuck with me. If I find this challenging, how will I respond when things get more daunting?
If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? And if in the land of peace, in which you trusted, they wearied you, then how will you do in the floodplain of the Jordan? Jeremiah 12:5 NKJ version
If Racing with mere men, these men of Anathoth has wearied you,
how will you race against horses, against the king, his court and all his evil preists?
TLB version
- ... Electro-Symphonic-Rock: Lending it's title to the album, this track expresses the energy of having faith to overcome insurmountable odds. Based on Jeremiah 12:5
- ... Electro-Symphonic-Rock: This song draws on sources of influence as diverse as Amadeus Mozart and Carlos Santana.
- ... Electro-Symphonic-Rock: No Guitar in this one; mostly Electronic sounds with Orchestral elements and Cinematic transitions.
- ... Contemporary Jazz: Starting with Solo Piano, it adds momentum one instrument at a time, until fully converging as a Big Band Orchestra.
- ... Electronic-World Music: This could be a Dance piece, drawing influence primarily from the Middle East, it also contains a splash of Funk.
- ... Electro-Latin-Flamenco-Funk: It's a unique genre for sure, but could have commercial appeal in certain corners of the globe.
- ... Soft Rock/Smooth Jazz: One of my least complex compositions, this was born in the first week of the Covid Lockdown of 2020, hence the title.
- ... Electronic-Punk Rock: This is actually a Spiritual song, with a bit of an edge: a Musical Metafore of our trials and tribulation on Earth.
- ... Electro-Symphonic-Rock: The only Vocal song on the album. I wrote it as a teenager, and there's still live band recordings from clubs in Madison.
- ... Electro-Funk-Jazz: Definitely in a genre of its own; I might be biased, but I love the grooves and transitions in this piece.
- ... Electro-Symphonic-Rock: A collage of movements with extreme tempo and stylistic changes; kind of like the weather in Springtime.
- ... Electro-Symphonic-Rock: Written for the Coronation of the King of Kings when He returns to establish His Kingdom.
Add Your Heading Text Here
The Story of Running with Horses
With the onset of 2024, the winds blew favorably toward starting a significant project. I had been mulling over ideas for an album for some time, but debated with myself about what type of album.
Over a lifetime, I have compiled a considerable personal catalog of music that includes secular songs, spiritual songs, orchestral themes, and guitar-featured music. Asking myself, as a fan of myself, what would I most like to hear? The vote came back unanimously (me, myself, & I), a follow-up to 2006’s Phenomenation, with a little bit of everything, and of course, lot’s of guitar.
I’m a firm believer that good music is timeless, and it’s the production that time-stamps it. I knew there was at least a couple albums worth of good material available from the early 90’s collection. Following my days in the Filmscoring program at UCLA, I set up a functional studio at a rented house in Glendale, making use of an Akai analog multitrack tape machine, along with a synchronized Akai Midi sequencer that had been used on the Zamar album. The console was a 16-channel Carvin board, along with a couple synthesizers and drum module that were part of Zamar’s live show.
The recordings from that era were a good representation of the songs, but nothing that could be directly ported over to the current production. I wound up selecting 4 songs from that collection that made their way onto Running with Horses, with the first one being… you guessed it, Running with Horses (track 1). The other 3 songs were Wonders (track 2), Springtime (track 11), and The King is Coming (track 12).
These 4 songs had to be completely recreated from scratch. I knew the analog guitar tracks were unusable, but intially tried streaming the midi files from the hardware sequencer into the computer, to see if they could be used to build starting templates for the songs. Once I did get the midi files loaded into Nuendo (Digital Audio Workstation), I realized it would take more time to edit and restructure the old files than to just start writing new parts.
Music production technology has changed so much in 30 years. I seldom use hardware synthesizers anymore, in favor of vitual instruments. My current arsenal includes the Vienna Ensemble Pro server with 2 Tera-Bytes of Vienna Symphonic Library samples. There’s also an extensive collection that includes models of pretty much every hardware synth that has ever existed.
I do keep a real Tama Rockstar drumset miked up in the studio, but again, it seldom see’s use when compared to the performances I can program with Superior Drummer 3. However, one constant remains, in that I definitely prefer playing guitar through the miked up Marshall JCM-900, compared to the assortment of virtual amps in the computer.
It almost seemed like I was waiting for the technology catch up before recording this album. My studio is finally to the point where I can confidently say, “I can recreate any sound that I hear in my head”. As much as I see this as a proud achievement, I lament when looking toward the future, and what the next round of technology may bring. With AI looming large, will we eventually see a day when no one writes new music, or learns to play an instrument? (pause for drama) OK, enough of that.. let’s move on.
In the year of our Lord, Two Thousand and Twenty Six, I, Sir Richard of Oakshire, do hereby decree that the 15th day of April, formerly known as “Tax Day”, shall from this day forward be knownst as “Running with Horses” day.
So, I then took inventory of my more recent material, that was created using much of the current software that I’m using now. These songs included Dark Nature (track 3), Epicurean’s Last Dance (track 4), Hold on Tight (track 6), Unplanned Vacation (track 7), Armor Bearing Intern (track 8), and Kingdom Swing (track 10).
Most of the elements of these songs were usable, but a lot of tweaking, remixing, swapping sounds, replaying some parts, and adding new sections was required to bring these tracks up to finished album quality.
This leaves just two more songs. Foreign Exchange (track 5) was created not long after Phenomenation, so definitely with old computers running old software. It was originally created with a looped based DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) called Acid, that allowed tracks to be created quickly by throwing pre-made library loops together on a grid. This could then be augmented with recorded tracks, and of course, you could make your own loops. It also had limited midi sequencing capability too.
I only used Acid for a few years, and later transferred my best compositions into ProTools, where I could take everything to a higher level. Since I still use ProTools, it made things easy to do the remixing of Foreign Exchange for the album.
This brings us to the last tune, Verses of Destiny (track 9) that wins the prize for oldest song on Running with Horses. This song actually comes from My band in Wisconsin with my brother Tim, and High School buddies Gary and Stu. I was probably 17 or 18 when I wrote this one, and was particularly proud of the lyrics that my teenage self had written. So Verses of Destiny also wins the prize for being the only vocal song on the album.
There are still original recordings of live versions of the song that exist on cassette tape, but of course, the album version was completely recreated from the ground up.
A couple items of note; this being a modern recording, in the sense that it’s not unusual these days for an artist to be completely self-contained, and cover all aspects of the production. This includes, composing, arranging, playing instruments, programming virtual instruments, singing, recording live parts, mixing everything and eventually mastering.
That said, I would like to thank my wife, Bonita, not only for the lovely background vocals on “Verses of Destiny”, but for all the encouragement and support, along with comments and direction that helped make this project what it is.
I also need to thank my talented guitarist friend, Edi Roque, who graciously volunteered to step in for me, when I was making a fool of myself trying to finger-pick a flamenco nylon guitar part on “Hold on Tight”. I guess you really can’t do everything yourself.