Now available on Bandcamp (and soon to be available on Amazon Music and Spotify!): GIRLZX3, THE collection of some of my most popular (and most representative) rock/jazz/R&B/pop instrumentals – as well as of some of my personal favorite, if perhaps lesser-known, tracks in these genres.
The title GIRLZX3 (pronounced as “girls, girls, girls”) reflects the sources of inspiration for most of the tracks on the album; i.e., various women who have come through my life in one way or another.
I spent about four months or so remixing/editing the tracks for this album, and I’m very pleased with the result. As mentioned previously, this album collects the most popular – and what I consider to be among the very best – of my popular music-style instrumental works. The earliest among these were “September,” and “Love So Sweet,” composed ca. September – October, 2019.
As is sometimes the case with much earlier recordings, the tracks not only needed to be remixed, they needed to be somewhat reconstructed. This was certainly the case with “Love So Sweet.” For instance, the editing file was missing the original acoustic piano part that I had recorded in 2019, so, in addition to remixing the track, I had to record a new piano part and overdub it onto the original recording.
More sophisticated mixing techniques resulted in more space in the mixes, so in some instances I was able to add new parts to the earlier recordings: a harp and some synthesizer flourishes in “Written in the Stars,” and sordino strings in “She’s Only a Friend,” among others.
Several of the tracks on this album were originally rather impressionistic and ethereal in character. For this remix, I prioritized the clarity of melody in each track. Nonetheless, the haunting, rather dream-like qualities of the original versions of tracks like “September” and “No One But You” are maintained – controlled, but maintained nonetheless.
For reasons musical, personal, and practical, this album will take the place of several of the earlier albums (e.g., Rock Music and Heartbreakers). All the things I intended to communicate in those earlier albums are here distilled, clarified, and perhaps even intensified.
The album is book-ended in a curious but intentional way. “September,” which closed the Rock Music album, is here the opening track, whereas “No One But You,” the opening track of Heartbreakers, here concludes the album. “September” is a musical reflection on a relationship at its end, whereas “No One But You” is a musical reflection on a relationship when it first began.
It goes without saying perhaps that time has, as it always does, provided some perspective on these pieces and their sources of inspiration. These are all tracks that look on the past (hence opening the album with “September,”), but the past that is musically encapsulated in these works is one that will always have a rather mythic quality – like an everlasting sunset (hence concluding the album with “No One But You”).
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Michael Calabris 
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