Hermitage

written and recorded in 1990

In terms of music, this tune has little to talk about. By the time I wrote, performed and recorded this instrumental tune, I have already got used to writing a tune with sophisticated chord progressions like this and it required me relatively little effort to work out a thing like this. It was also my musical homage to Super Session, an inspirational album by Al Kooper for my formative period as a musician, and its closing track Harvey’s Tune, written by Harvey Brooks. My intention was to write an instrumental tune suitable for exposing my guitar playing in the form of a four-piece-band and in that sense, I guess this recording went well, overall. In addition, in the original scheme at that time, this tune was supposed to be the closing track for a collection of my original recordings focused on exposing myself as a guitar player.

This tune was one of the earliest works I wrote and recorded in a  flat I newly rented at that time. It was the first occasion for me to live somewhere out of my parents’ place. All I wanted was a place where I can secure my privacy and now, over a couple of decades later, I have no hesitation in calling it a hermitage. In making this video, for enhancing the theme of the tune, I tried to display how my ideal hermitage would look like and how my ideal life in it would seem to be; humble way of living represented by the candles, reading and studying represented by the Bible and indulgence on music represented by the guitar.