Brilliant Shower artwork by Shawn Atkins

RAW stands for Really Awesome Woman. And I gave this song as a gift to Justique... my really awesome girlfriend!

RAW by Nik Furious [ 11:52 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I'm a bit ashamed to say that I can't remember the holiday/occasion that was behind the gifting of this jam. Uhhh, maybe it was xmas? Or maybe a birthday? Or our anniversary? Damn, I just can't recall.

But I do remember the particulars of the recording because I composed, performed, and mixed this song at work (back when I had a day job, that is). In fact, The only thing I did at home was master this puppy.

I used to work for the marketing department of a Pittsburgh law firm. It was a good job, but it could get really dull. To the credit of my employers, they tried to keep me interested as best they could. So when they needed a jingle for a TV commercial, they asked if I'd like to take a crack at it.

I jumped at the opportunity to get paid to make music in my office. I brought in my drum machine, synthesizer, and guitar to record a few demos. And guess what? They hated my jingles!!!

INTERMISSION! RAW on SoundCloud:

I was bummed that it didn't work out. To pick my mood up, I spent my lunch break playing music. One thing led to another and before I knew it, I'd spent hours writing and performing nearly all of RAW! The song came together that easily.

I'd say that the entire performance -- largely improvised, because that's how I roll -- couldn't have taken more than two days. I mixed it in short order and I knew that I had a new Nik Furious album track on my hands!

The finished product reminded me of something Justique might like. She was already a big fan of Purple Suite and Speechless, my two longest songs. So I decided to make RAW -- my longest track to date -- a gift for her.

NEXT: A song so tricky that it had to be reborn before it could breathe.

Brilliant Shower artwork by Shawn Atkins

It was night. All of the lights were off, but it wasn't pitch black in my apartment. See, the Pittsburgh city sky never goes black -- it goes purple.

Purple Suite by Nik Furious [ 9:37 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I started laying down a beat on my Zoom MRT-3 drum machine. As the rhythm grew more complex, the lights on the drum machine formed a hypnotic pattern of flashing reds and blues.

Purple Suite began as that drum pattern. And later that night, I laid down a few synth tracks on top of the beat. But the different parts didn't gel.

I can't remember if it was hours, days, or weeks later... but eventually, I added the thick bass (playing it with a pick, which is something I rarely do). Once the bassline was in place, I improvised the synth on top. And it was complete.

Purple Suite on SoundCloud:

I've never been totally satisfied by Purple Suite. For years, I used a different mix of the song that featured a far quieter lead synth. When it came time to finish up all of the tracks for Brilliant Shower, I remastered this song and raised the solo.

While I'm unashamed to say that I enjoy listening to my own music, I don't always enjoy listening to Purple Suite. I like the drums and certain parts of the synth performance. But overall, it's not the type of song that I usually seek out.

Still, I'm proud of this track. I hope you enjoying listening to it more than I do!!!

NEXT: If you think Purple Suite is long, just wait until you hear the next song on Brilliant Shower.

One of my most popular products of the past few months is a bundle featuring Stick Cats #1-2 and a CD of the Stick Cats theme song.

Up until now, I've just tossed a few more random Nik Furious songs onto the CD, switching out tracks whenever I burned a new batch.

But those days are over! Now each Stick Cats bundle will come with an official homemade copy of The Nine Lives LP:

The tracklist for The Nine Lives LP is:

1. Stick Cats (vocal version)
2. Fresh Frunk
3. Remix the Phoenix
4. Purple Suite
5. Da Bounce
6. RAW
7. In Vert Head
8. Speechless
9. Stick Cats (instrumental)

In total, it's over 45 minutes of music ranging from funk to electronic to rock to experimental. Also, I submitted the CD's tracklist to the Gracenote database, which means your computer will recognize the track names when you play the album.

I'll have copies of it next weekend at the Buffalo Small Press Book Fair, and soon you'll be able to buy a physical copy of the disc from me over the internet.