Thursday 7 May 2009

DEVACHAN (Peter Scion 1997)




After a few musical miscarriages, "Devachan" came to me as my firstborn album. As my debut, it will always have a special place in my heart. It also seems to me that this is the record of mine that people like the most.

I have to thank my dear friend Christer Bäckhage for setting this weird thing into motion. After hearing some of my earlier recordings, he suggested that I should go all the way and try to make something more psychedelic. That pulled the plug. Or rather, that broke the levee. As soon as I started recording, I couldn't tape enough songs. It took only a week to finish the entire album, but more songs were coming which eventually made up the two albums that followed it.

Whether "Devachan" is psychedelic or not is up to other people to decide, but it was definitely a trip into my own mind at the time. Listening to it is listening to someone slightly lost in and baffled by his own creativity, somewhere between a slightly uncomfortable past and an unknown future. And so "Devachan" is the perfect title for the album. The word is Sanskrit for the place where the soul dwells after death but before rebirth. That's where you found me as an artist in early 1997.

The name "Scion" came from a headline in a British music magazine (and not from the Ian Matthews song that some have believed). I liked the meaning of it although I was a bit uncomfortable with its sound to begin with. But the name stuck, and soon I was as much the Scion persona as I was the ordinary, everyday me. Actually, when I became Peter Scion I became more of my real self, because Peter Scion could say things I couldn't.

Before my friend Lars Holmquist founded the "kitchen table label" Domestica (simply because he thought the album was so good that he wanted it out in some way, even if he had to do it himself), I sent out a tape with a three track selection to various record labels in Europe. I got only one reply, a year or so later. I can't remember now who from, but he had suddenly found the tape behind a shelf, forgetting he had recieved it in the first place. Now he had listened to it, and was interested in releasing "Devachan" on his label. "Sure," I wrote to him. I never heard from him again.

MP3:
DOWNLOAD PART 1
DOWNLOAD PART 2


WAV:
DOWNLOAD

15 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for making your music available. I've enjoyed everything I've heard by you in the past and look forward to hearing a lot more here.

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  2. Thanks for the appreciation, Max! I hope you'll find something new that you'll like. It's all free, it's all yours! :-)

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  3. This has been one of my favorite albums in its area over the past few years along with sweet sorrow man, even though I just have the mp3s.
    Just showing some interest in a reprint or original copy or some relic that can held in a hand and sending you some appreciation and gratitude.

    If there is ever the toil and time for such a thing I'd be glad to support it:
    bag0fglue [at] gmail [dot] com

    Probably listened to either of these albums so many times that I can recall most of the lyrics and melodies off the top of my head (a form of listening that I usually refrain from doing) and passed the files on to many who had similar liking.
    Anyways its great to see the blog and find the albums and info in a home with a sort of congruency and not sort of scattered all about the net spliced in between this that and the other.

    Many thanks for hours and hours of listening.

    I'll probably be hanging around here quite a bit over the next several days catching up on all of the bits and pieces.

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  4. Húndún: Thanks so much for your touching words! What you say is the perfect example of what success is to me. Reading what you write makes it worth all my former efforts.

    For the time being, there are unfortunately no plans for a reissue, and to the best of my knowledge, all original copies are long gone. I've sometimes thought of reissuing the albums as "proper" albums, i.e. not just CD-R's, but not only does it take money, but time and effort. This blog is somehow the easy way out, making the music available in an easy-access, user friendly format.

    I also genuinely appreciate your efforts passing the music on to others. As you can see in the introduction post to this blog, I whole-heartedly support such efforts.

    I hope you'll find more music here to like, and once again thanks for your heart-warming appreciation!

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  5. Great to see all these albums become freely available...though I've been listening to you for some time. I've also began updated your RYM profile.

    rateyourmusic.com/artist/peter_scion

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  6. Thanks for all this great stuff, Peter, This is sho' nuff some good tunes, have you thought about featuring the track listings for each album? when i drop em' in itunes, some of the info dissappears,so i got a lot of "spar 1,2..etc" instead of the titles. I already deleted the unzipped files,so i cant look at those...oh well i hate to nitpick, and i'm not gonna complain about all this FREE stuff! Thanks Again!! YAR!!! YEEEEEAWWWW!!!!! TOTALLY RAD DUDE! YEAH BUDDY!!!! WHOO-HOO!! Peace out.....

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  7. Snargles, I wasn't aware that that happened. I thought of publishing the track lists on the blog too, but for various reasons I decided not to. I don't take it as nitpicking, because hearing people's opinion's on the blog is welcome. I'll give it a thought.

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  8. The first time I ve heard San Mikael (years ago) i was petrified and with a lot of great vibes in my body.
    But these vibes got multiplied after hearing your work that made my day, months and year!
    I have a private blog and I would like (with your permission) to add a link that re directs to your blog (in the sidebar)
    I took the liberty of posting your music with these exactly words:


    Peter Scion its a musician enterly dedicated to the folk-psych genre. Just like its mentor St Mikael (in the past, we posted some albums in the blog) plays all the instruments and vocals, with the particular that was published all his works in cd format and limited.
    Its been quite some time that these recordings arent available, only in his private blog where he posts the music at 320 and for free (lots of recordings)

    Particularly i think that his music its amazing, I even dare to put his music above St Mikaels, thou its not my duty to chose one or the other, just to recommend to the other users to download the cds, enjoy its universe and dropping some nice comments about it.


    Cheers

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  9. Meurglys, thanks so much! Given my deep appreciation for ST. Mikael, it's amazing to read your words. Of course you are free to add a link to my blog. Also, thanks for posting my music over at your place. That's exactly the way I want this to work; the music here is free to share elsewhere, and it's a wonderful token of your appreciation that you find it worthy of sharing.

    By the way, is your "meurglys" moniker a nod to Peter Hammill? If so, nice touch - Hammill is another true hero of mine.

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  10. Gorgeous.
    Voice, very personal style and music. When he sings with heart, flower and sentimietnos humming the songs for themselves.
    Wonderful start.
    Congratulations.
    Pimpon

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  11. Pimpon - many many thanks! I'm touched by the warmth of all these comments!

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  12. Many thanks for all your albums on this blogs, I'm really touched by your music, actually I don't listen anything else from a few days... and this album is my favourite so far...

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  13. I'm flattered, Lila! Thank you so much!

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  14. Peter, I came across your music by accident as I love psychedelic rock/ stoner/ space, ...

    I just love the psychedelic spirit of it, going back and forth in time, in a distorted reality as myself.

    Thanks for making your music availiable to everyone who enjoys it.

    Best of luck! Cheers from Portugal.

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