New songs "Calling" and "Lapse of Grace" on My Music page, and new orchestrations in the VG-Music portfolio!

Hi. I am Brandon Strader, and I am a 20-year-old musician. I'm going to college with an Interactive Digital Media major. I've been working with Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, Flash, and Dreamweaver. This fall, I'll be working with advanced programming (PHP, MySQL) and digital animation (flash / action script). Even though I do work with a lot of technical computer-related business, I still consider myself a musician first and foremost.

I got the idea to start this acoustic solo project a very long time ago. I would always be working on one of my other musical projects (Rainwound, In Staid Grace, Rubicon, Subject to Thoughts, Blazar, Hellnaut, etc...) but would yearn for the chance to finally work on my own acoustic Christian project. I've gained a lot of experience from my other projects in both extreme metal and progressive rock, yet I am hoping to compose some music with this project that is just slightly more commercial, though still progressive.

I always have something to work on, yet I still haven't broken into the actual "business". I'm looking for good opportunities, and I work hard. My colleagues always compliment me on my ability to create material that is of a high quality in short periods of time, also known as my "prolific nature."

As for the acoustic project, my influences range from bands like Aeon Spoke, Dredg, Muse, and Porcupine Tree, to older bands like The Beatles.

Calling

I thought of this as an instrumental piece, but lyrics I had written before I even started the project fit this song.

Lapse of Grace

I wanted to write an original piano composition with vocals. This came out very dramatic with a cool lyrical story.

Wisdom of the Elders

I really like this song, as it became so much more powerful when it was completely done and listening to it than it seemed earlier.... It's a beautiful jam.

Frail

This is a remake of an earlier song, with improvement!

Do You Remember?

This is a song about being a good and charitable person. It's not always easy, but you feel good about it.

Swallowed by the Night

This song was recorded over May 22 - 23rd. Like always, it was a ton of fun to make. The lyrics are a bit longer for this one, but the emphasis on vocal layers is lower.

Full Orchestrations

The Kingdom - a theme meant for castles using mainly brass instruments
Slimy Sewer - meant for a sewer or cavernous area
Crystia - a triumphant title screen theme

Older Productions

Unraveling the Legend - an opening theme
The Merciless Warlord - a villainous requiem
Slumbering Serenity - very short sleep theme

 

You may not use this in a game project or stream the songs from my server.
If you are interested in my music and would like me to create original songs
for your project, please contact me.

Music herein written and performed by Brandon Strader
All rights reserved

A huge majority of these pictures were made for my digital images classes, so they're not nearly as serious as they should be... If you're looking for some serious work (CD covers, fliers, and more) then shoot me an e-mail!

Click on the thumbnails to view the images

I usually spend about one day creating a new website depending on the materials and resources I have to go with it. If I don't have the images or content, it can take much longer. Most of the below sites, however, were created in one day and then maintained afterwords with the addition of new content on a regular basis.

This is the Rainwound official band website. Everything on this site was created by me from the ground up: from the music, to the graphics, and beyond!

Click the image to visit the site.

I created the images for this website from one main piece by artist Chris Nuelle, who did the artwork for the second In Staid Grace CD, "Revelations". The rest is some creative use of layers and image mapping.

 

This is another website I created from the ground up. It also features my first music video ever on the 'Videos' page! I wanted a more simple, less graphic-based approach with this site.

 

Indeed, this is the site you're on now! It is still a fine work of mine that I completed in one day. I had never used hidden layers before to create a whole site, but I had heard about someone doing it during a class lecture and I had to give it a shot. Apart from that, I wanted extreme simplicity and ease of use.

Copyright 2008 Brandon Strader, all rights reserved

Contact me for information on my services!

Frail (Original Version)

This is the original version of the song Frail.. The new version will be released at a later date.

Wedding

I made this for my sister Amanda's wedding, and I am glad that she and her fiance enjoyed it!

Life

This song was recorded between May 19 - 20th. I had an older song that I pretty much scrapped, but the name is still good and useful. This became the title track!

In Your Eyes

This was the first song I made for the acoustic project. If memory serves me right, I believe it was made between the 17th and 18th of May, 2008.