After The Longest Dream (2014)

After The Longest Dream

After The Longest Dream, is an album that came as if by magic. Even though when I started playing years and years ago I worked in bands with singers, in time I fell in love with jazz and instrumental music, and forgot all about lyrics. In 2012, when I was going through some of my old music material, I came across one song, The Riddle, that I had composed in Barcelona back in 1998, and that, curiously enough, had lyrics.

That period in Barcelona was a very creative time for me, and along with The Riddle, I composed a string of songs that introduced some voice without lyrics, Enlightenment and Fading Forests among them. They were great songs but they had something missing. Listening to The Riddle again back in 2012, it dawned on me that what was missing was precisely the lyrics. The songs were like dresses without a body. They were telling a story that went beyond the melody. From that moment on, the lyrics started to flow and more songs came almost one after the other, and in about three or four months the first draft of the project was completed.

Since I am an awful singer I had the immense good fortune to meet Yesire. After a few jams I asked him if he would be interested in singing a few of my songs. He loved them and sang them all. Yeseire is a great singer; he has a style of his own and is a really cool upbeat guy to work with. This album owes him a great deal.

I was also fortunate to meet Mariano, a wonderful musician who specializes in composing for theater. He heard my mixes and suggested that he could improve them. The project also owes him a great deal.

This album talks insistently about some of the most important aspects of human life. It is poetic, because there is no direct way of saying these things. Great wise people have always used symbolic language to speak of these truths because all we can do is point in the right direction. No word is big enough.

The metaphors are ageless; life is but a dream, a mirror. Our own true nature is luminous, one and the same. The secret we search for lies within. Happiness will always remain elusive as long as we insist on searching for it outside of our selves. Everything shall pass, life and death are part of the same interconnected process. Open up, embrace reality. The meanness of pride. The importance of passing this knowledge to our children. And most importantly, at the core we always find love and hope, the true lifeboats to trail the waters of sorrow.

My hope is that you love this music and that it will help awaken you, come to the realization that the power of change, of dreaming a better dream lies within. That the difference between enlightenment and ignorance is smaller than you might think. We could make this a much better world in a minute, in an instant. We all crave the same love because we are expressions of the same love. As incomprehensible as it might seem within the confines of the saga of everyday life, all that is required for reality to shift is a change of perception. We don't need to find a practical solution to all world troubles, to injustice, war and pollution, to hunger and poverty, to illness, although we will eventually, inevitably, also achieve that. We live in a political and economic reality; there is no denying that. But true change flows from within. Let love flow, and paint the world behind the window of your eyes. Awakened hearts, rainbows of love become…

I have written these songs also to help myself. I am no wiser or more spiritual than you. No one is. Let's wake up together. Become warriors of stillness.

Songs

• • El Secreto - 4:19
• • Enlightenment - 5:22
• • Fading Forests - 6:27
• • Pathless Path - 5:12
• • Take Me Away - 6:53
• • The Riddle (Of Your Heart) - 6:40
• • Warriors Of Stillness - 5:22

Credits

• All songs composed, arranged and performed by ABE (Abelardo Oquendo Heraud).
• Vocals, backing vocals and backing vocal arrangements by Yesiere. Drums in tracks 1, 2 and 3, Torres.
• Mixed by Mariano Lozano.
• Mastered by Sage Audio in Nashville, TN. © BMI 2014.

This album is dedicated to all of you.