I Dream of 2019 - About the album

About the album

Q: Where can I buy the album?

You can download it now from the Apple iTunes store or from Amazon.com, or you can enjoy streaming it for free with a valid Spotify® subscription*.

I Dream of 2019 is also available on compact disc.

* Spotify® is only available to residents of Sweden, Spain, Norway, Finland, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Q: When did you start the album?

I wrote the theme in August 2009, and began fleshing it out into an album later that year.

Q: What is it about?

Imagine seeing yourself years down the line in a future in which everything you had ever tried to do and everything you had ever wanted had failed or left you. If you came to realise this as your only definitive future, could you justify coming back and living it out for real?

Q: What kind of sound is it?

Brooding, cinematic, detailed ambient-electronica. And it's mostly pretty chilled.

Thematics

The primitive 2019 sequence is the thematic two-chord sequence established in the title track:

3rd inv. I add9 IV 6

The emergence sequence is the more uplifting sequence introduced between the opening and middle section of the title track is:

I III m7 IV V
+ (VI IV V) on its first outing + (VI IV V IV V I) on its second outing

The dream sequence is the four-chord sequence following the middle section of the title track, and sounds a little bit like the 2019 sequence in reverse:

IV 6 I maj7 IV 6 VI m9

The developed version of the 2019 sequence is the awakening sequence established in City, Awakening:

3rd inv. I maj9 IV 6/9 Bb m7 IV 6/9 3rd inv. I maj9 IV 6/9 Bb m7 V 11

The metro sequence is a re-adaptation of a combination of the above:

I I sus4 I I sus4 3rd inv. I add9 IV 6/9 3rd inv. I add9 V 11

Music

1 · I Dream of 2019

I dream of a future. A future I don't want. But it stares me in the face: it is the only truly believable thing I know. And it is painful. So painful it almost feels as if it is real.

Main theme. 2019, Emergence 1, Dream and Emergence 2 sequences.

2 · City, Awakening

I still don't know if this is all a dream or if it has actually become reality. There is a dawn however, and there are people waking up to it. I can't tell if they've really awoken or whether they are imagining this hell the same way I am.

Awakening sequence. First instance of the siren motif.

3 · Metro (Part One)

I take the subway to the divide in search of the place in which she might still live: the only thing that could truly correct all of this.

2019 and Metro sequences.

4 · The Rich-Poor Divide

I cross over from my district into hers on foot, surveying the rubble and wondering what must have become of me to have ever let this happen.

One passage uses two iterations of Bb m7, IV 6/9 from the Awakening sequence.

5 · My Last Few Credits

I see ahead of me the enormous expanse I still need to cover just to get close. I attempt to withdraw my last few credits for a ride. But I have nothing left.

6 · The Man on the Monitor

Huge projections of the dictator's cruel eyes follow me everywhere I go. Soon enough, my whereabouts have been detected, and the dogs that serve him and his brutal regime begin to make chase.

Romanian minor scale, with a few three-semitone key changes (up the diminished minor chord intervals). Hints at the street theme, the following track's opening melody, in the middle section. One passage uses a modification of 2019 that follows as 3rd inv. I add9, IV 6, 3rd inv. I add9, I# sus2.

7 · Lungo la Via

After more running than I can stomach, I realise that I have finally reached her street. This is it.

Main embellishment of the as-yet unestablished street theme followed by a segue to a reinterpretation of 2019.

8 · Entrare in Appartamento

I enter the block of apartments.

Opens with a variation of the siren motif played on the theme instrument over 2019, followed by a segue to some original material.

9 · Tromba delle Scale

I climb the dank stairwell in search of her apartment.

Mostly the Emergence sequence sung by choirs, with an intertwined piano and synth melody reflecting the sequence's equivalent melody from the title song.

10 · Una Stanza Vuota

She is not in the apartment.

11 · Metro (Part Two)

I return to the train, crushed.

12 · To the Edge

Her district stands hundreds of metres in the air above the ocean tide. The streets almost appear to fall off the border. I walk towards them without stopping.

A slow, lingering rendition of the siren motif over the 2019 sequence.

13 · Enough

Both of us had known the other was alive, but this was never going to be enough. Everything I have ever dreamt of cannot be accomplished, not even in eight years.
2019 - the dream, the reality, whatever you are - should die with me.
I meditate at the edge, then jump to my demise.