Recording Update 2- The 36 Hour Day
Today, or maybe I should say “todays”, we have recorded guitar, bass, drums, and piano for Invisible Paradise, and I haven’t slept or gone outside yet. We are making good time and the album is already sounding amazing. The most rewarding part of all of this has been spending so much time with some of my closest friends, all of whom have been working hard to bring my compositions to life. Huge thanks to Vince Welch, Adam Brass, Josh Friedman, Jed Lingat, Tyler LeVander, Courtney Swain, and Chris Baum for giving so much to this record.
We are in the last 13 hours of studio time and we are hoping to finish violin, vocals, and guitar. I can’t wait to share this album with you. Wish us luck!
-Ben
Recording Update 1
Day one of the Invisible Paradise session was a success! We tracked basics for movements 3 and 6 and I did guitar overdubs for the rest of our next next album Freak Machine. 
Today our goal is to track basics for the rest of the movements, nail some piano overdubs, and do ALL OF THE GUITAR!! Good thing I have been practicing this music for over a year.
-Ben
Ben Levin Group returns to the studio
For the next 72 hours, we will be recording our next album Invisible Paradise and finishing some of the tracking for Freak Machine and Bent Knee’s first album. Invisible Paradise is my most classically influenced piece and it really stands out from everything else I’ve written. I am excited to start tracking! The recording schedule for the next three days at “The Record Company” in Boston will be really intense, check it out:
Ben Levin Interview from Lords of Metal Magazine
Here is a cool Ben Levin interview by Bart from Lords of Metal magazine:
Welcome and thanks for sending your record to us! Coming from the USA, have you ever been to Europe or are these your first steps in getting ready for a tour around here?
We haven’t made it out to Europe yet, but we certainly plan on getting a European tour going in the coming years. Right now we are just trying to get the word out to people.
Could you tell our readers some more about the genesis of the Ben Levin Group, and by extent also your own genealogy as a guitar player?
Since I was a kid I have always loved thinking up crazy stories. I tried making my own comic books, and really enjoyed movies and video games with great characters. Although I had been making weird noises on piano and saxophone for several years, it wasn’t until I started playing guitar at age fourteen that I reallized that music was the best way for me to tell stories. I became obsessed with guitar and wrote tons of music about all kinds of subjects. With a handheld four track recorder I wrote an album influenced by Jason Becker, Marty Friedman, and Steve Vai about Cain and Able from the old testament. I also wrote another guitar heavy album about a space ship that was supposed to save a portion of mankind before the sun exploded. I started bands and performed my music throughout high school, and when I started my first semester at Berklee College of Music, I formed Ben Levin Group. At first we played the music from our album ‘Departure’, which is a collection of short instrumental pieces each with their own mini story. However, after my first two years of school I got tired of writing that way and started composing long form forty minute sets at a time. These long pieces allowed me to better express myself and my stories because it is possible to develop musical themes over the course of an entire show rather than in a limited five minute window. So far I’ve written three of these forty minute epics which we perform at our shows now. ‘Pulse of a Nation’ is the first one I wrote, then there’s ‘Invisible Paradise’ and ‘Freak Machine’.
Now, to get done with the nasty question: I read your (interesting, by the way) report on auditioning for the Lady Gaga band. I couldn’t help but wonder what made you decide to do it. Was it the mere idea of touring the world? Or of getting your name known? Or do you also consider it to be good for you as an artist or guitarist? Feel free to elaborate on this question.
Music Worth Buying Reviews Pulse of a Nation
Check out this awesome video review of “Pulse of a Nation.” (They start talking about the album at 12:45)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lisxQbsAXJY
Recording/Graphic Novels
Hello! I just thought I’d give you an update about what has been going on in the BLG universe lately. Today Vince Welch, Courtney Swain, and I will be heading to a new studio in Quincy, MA to track some guitar, violin, and voice for the new Ben Levin Group and Bent Knee albums. We have been in the studio a lot lately because we are recording two new 40 minute epics “Invisible Paradise” and “Freak Machine” both of which have a lot of layers and orchestration. We won’t be releasing those for quite a while but in the mean time, Greg Bowen, the BLG album art guy is working on the “Pulse of a Nation” graphic novel.
I have been obsessed with comic books and drawing lately, and I am really excited to be able to translate the Pulse story into a graphic novel. I love Greg’s style and the finished product is going to be a beautiful piece of sequential visual art that will go really well with the music. You can see the introduction to the book on the website now. The second half of the graphic novel is going to be drastically different from the introduction but I don’t want to ruin the surprise!
Please leave a comment and let me know what you’ve been up to. Please feel free to share links to your own albums or art work in response to this post!
Indian Rhythmic Solfege
Indian Rhythmic Solfege is an incredible tool for mastering odd meters and complex rhythms.
Radiohead Chord Generator Lesson
Ben Levin writes about composing “Pulse of a Nation”
It was at my grandmother’s funeral that I became obsessed with endings. I loved my grandmother very much and even though it is a normal part of life to have grandparents pass away, that didn’t make it any easier for me. I was thinking a lot about how no matter how beautiful or terrible life can be, it will certainly end, and everyone will experience the end of their world at some point. I started imagining how people would act if they knew the exact date and moment that their life would end, which lead me to explore the idea of the whole world ending at once. I started writing “Pulse of a Nation” shortly after returning home from the funeral. I knew I wanted to write a whole 40 minute set of music at once as an experiment, but didn’t initially plan to write just one epic piece of music.
Producer Vince Welch writes about recording/mixing “Pulse of a Nation”
A little over thirteen months ago, I was fortunate enough to play with the Randy James Dio cover band at Ben Levin Group’s CD release show. That night Ben was releasing his first proper album, “Departure,” as well as premiering his 40-minute epic, “Pulse of a Nation.” I had been good friends with Ben for years, and I had always really enjoyed his music. Ben plays instrumental rock, and I always appreciated the fact that he largely stayed away from the mindless wanking that so often is the focus of the genre.
I was in a strange mood that night. The past couple of months had been pretty crappy, and the past couple of weeks had been even worse.