New Bjorn Lynne CD: "Irish & Celtic Instrumentals"

Dear friends,

I'm very happy and excited to announce the release of my new CD, "Irish & Celtic Instrumentals", today. The CD features 12 tracks of Irish & Celtic tracks that I have arranged, produced and recorded with a little help from some musician friends.

The origins of this CD goes back to the late summer of 2007 when I was lucky enough to spend some quality time along the southern shores of Ireland, a truly beautiful and inspiring place. I came back to my home in Norway full of ideas and inspiration, and I set to work on producing this collection of traditional Irish/Celtic music, arranged produced in the way that I would want these tracks to sound like. :-)

It's not the first time I've used Irish & Celtic influences in my music of course. Many of my previous albums, such as "Witchwood", "Return to Witchwood", "Wolves of the Gods", and others all feature more or less obvious Celtic influences here and there. So for me it felt right to do a sort of "homeage" to some traditional Celtic / Irish music, recorded and produced with "The Bjørn Lynne sound".

When I started working on this project, I decided early on that there would be no shortcuts, no easy outs. No "half-arsed" solutions using a computer plug-in when I could be using the real live instrument etc. So as it ended up, this album is actually my most "acoustic" album ever. There isn't a single "electronic" sound on the entire CD which, I guess, is pretty weird since I started my carreer very much as what I would call an "electronic music composer".

I still very much love electronic music and I will definitely return once more to my electronic music heartland for my next album release. But I have to say, for this album, that it really did pay off to use all live instruments and leave all electronics out of this project. When the temptation was to just use a plug-in and get it done quickly and cheaply, I thought, no, not this time. No shortcuts! The real thing, or nothing. :-)

I don't mean to suggest that no computer was used for producing this album because, as always, I used Cakewalk SONAR Studio Edition v6 to produce this music and everything was recorded directly to hard disk in 24-bit 48-khz. I also used some samples, including "spoons", some drums, Irish Bodhran and electric piano. What I meant to say is that there are no real electronic sounds (synth sounds) used on this album.

Besides various acoustic type samples, I myself played guitars (acoustic & electric), piano (acoustic & electric), tambourine, shakers, djembe drums, and sang live various "vocal pads" (not sung words or lyrics, only "ahh" style vocal instrumentation). My friend Steinar Borvik played various flutes (Irish flute, penny whistle, tin whistle, orchestral flute, recorder), Nicolae Bogdan played live accordion and violin and Jeremy Sherman played dobro and slide guitar.


When it was time to put together the final CD master of this album, I got the idea to include -- as a bonus -- an "underscore version" of each track. An "underscore version" is simply a version where the main/lead instruments are removed, leaving only the background music. This can be an interesting thing to listen to in it's own right. Once you remove the main/lead instruments from a piece of music, you're left with a whole new perspective on the music -- in fact, a whole new "insight" into how it was all put together. So these bonus tracks were included especially for those of you who would like to hear these tracks "from another angle", and get a little glimpse of what goes on "under the lid" of each track. So, tracks 1-12 are the actual main tracks on the CD; whereas tracks 13-24 are all the same tracks again, without the lead instruments. This pressed the CD right up to the very technical limit of how much music you can put on a CD -- about 1 hour and 20 minutes.

CD track listing:

1. Lovely Leitrim
2. The Bonny Boy
3. Scarborough Fair
4. The Jolly Beggar
5. Danny Boy
6. The Rose of Tralee
7. Paddy's Green Shamrock Shore
8. Whiskey in the Jar
9. In Dublin's Fair City (aka Cockles and Mussels)
10. Amazing Grace
11. The Riddle Song
12. Greensleeves

13-24: All tracks again, underscore versions.

You can hear about the first 1 1/2 minutes of each track, on the official page for this CD: Irish & Celtic Instrumentals.

I truly hope many of you will enjoy this CD. You can buy the album now either as a physical CD from my own personal CD shop , or from CDBaby, or you can buy it as a download (320-kbps MP3 files, with high-res cover artwork files included for printing your own cover), from my own personal download-shop.

To encourage you to order this CD early, I will personally autograph - in Gold ink - all copies of this CD ordered from my own personal CD-shop, in the first two weeks of release (that means, within April 15, 2007).

The album will also soon be avaiable from iTunes, PayPlay.fm and many other music download shops. (Takes a few weeks to make it up on those sites).


One last note... the photos in the CD-cover are from my own trip to Ireland; although the actual photos were taken by my friend Kent Fonager -- he had a better camera than me. Kent is one of the guys whom I visited these places with.

Thanks for reading!

- Bjørn Lynne, March 31, 2008

Some rare and deleted items for sale

Some limited CD’s for sale:

There are some CD’s that are noted on my site as being “sold out” and have been so for ages. But after some serious tidying and some returns of unsold stock from some people who aren’t distributing my CD’s any more, I have the following for sale. These aren’t actually available to buy through my web shop, because I have such limited quantities of them. If you want to buy any of these, email me. First come, first served. These are all rare, limited products...

Amiga: Immortal 3 double-CD – I have two copies. Both are brand new, but one of them has had the plastic wrapping removed for scanning. Never played. Price: $20 each plus actual shipping cost.

Bjorn Lynne: Witchwood – These were completely sold out, but three copies were returned from Soundoo in Belgium when they closed down. So I have those three copies only. Price: $15 each plus actual shipping cost.

DesertPlanet: Asteroid Hopper (See http://www.lynnemusic.com/desertplanet-asteroid_hopper.html)
I have ONE copy. The cover/case is slightly damaged. Price $10 plus actual shipping cost.

CyberLogic 1, 2, and 3: See:

http://www.fusecon.com/products/scenecds/clogik1.shtml
http://www.discogs.com/release/15122
http://www.discogs.com/release/15123

These three are HIGHLY sought-after very limited edition rare items. I have ONE of each. They are used, but handled carefully and in great shape. Price: $15 each plus actual postage.

Opportunity Vol. 1: Various artists from the demo-scene (including myself). See: http://www.synsoniq.de/productdetails.php?pid=76&searchtext=opportunity
I have ONE copy, again, used but in very good condition. Price: $15 plus actual postage.

Bjorn Lynne & Seppo Hurme – Hobbits & Spaceships ORIGINAL PRESSING 1992:
The very first CD to come out of the demo-scene. 2000 copies were pressed. For years, I thought they were all gone, but lo and behold, I found TWO at the bottom of a box. They are brand new, never been played. These are quite rare, so: $30 each, plus actual postage.

Bjorn Lynne (as. Dr.Awesome): X2 – Original pressing 1996

Pretty much the same situation with these. They have been sold out for years, but I found TWO copies. They are brand new, never been played. $15 each, plus actual postage.

Divinorum: “Talisman” – limited Oriental release

In 1998 I got a deal with an Indian music company to release and distribute my CD “Talisman” (done under my electronica pseudonym ‘Divinorum’). These CD’s were ONLY sold in India and Malaysia, no other countries. I have FOUR copies, brand new, in plastic wrapping. These are very rare, so: $30 each, plus actual postage.

Jesper Kyd – Hitman 2 Soundtrack

I have ONE copy of this limited release. It’s brand new and still in it’s shrink-wrapping, but the jewel case is slightly busted in one corner. You can just replace the jewel case and it’s as new. This is pretty limited and much asked for, so: $30 plus actual shipping cost. I have only ONE.

Bjorn Lynne – The Void, original 1997 pressing

The original mastered pressing of this CD has been sold out for many years, although I have still been selling a “re-issue” with slightly different cover etc. and I’m still selling that re-issue. However, I have THREE copies of the original first pressing from 1997, released on the UK record label Cyclops. One is brand new and still in its plastic wrapping. The other two are used, but they are nicely kept and in good shape. Price: $15 each plus actual shipping cost.

Bjorn Lynne – Revive, original 2000 pressing

It’s pretty much the same situation with this. The original version of this CD has been sold out for many years, although I have still been selling a “re-issue” with slightly different cover etc. and I’m still selling that re-issue. However, I have TWO copies of the original first pressing from 2000, released on the UK record label Cyclops. They are opened, but they are nicely kept and in good shape. Price: $15 each plus actual shipping cost.

Bjorn Lynne – Accelerator

I don’t actually have any copies at all of this CD, but I would like to say that the LAST 10 COPIES of this are now for sale at CDbaby.com – on this page: http://cdbaby.com/cd/bjornlynne01 . When CDBaby have sold these last 10 copies, this disc will not be available any more, and will be a collectors item like the others, so... maybe it’s a good time to hurry up and get one. :-)

Well... I hope this little garage sale of rare treasures will be of interest to some of you. :-) Should you wish to buy any of these CD’s, please email me and I will put the CD’s aside for you.

Add me as a friend on Facebook and MySpace

If anybody reading this would like to add Bjorn Lynne to your friend on Facebook or MySpace, please follow these links:

Bjorn Lynne on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=503781394
Bjorn Lynne on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/bjornlynne

It may take some days before I respond to the friend request, but that's just because I don't have enough time to log in there every day. So don't take that personally. :-)

- Bjorn

A photo I took today from my balcony

I'm really not going to turn this into a "photo blog" (I promise!) but I took this photo today and I thought I'd post it here, just this once. I took the photo from the balcony on my house here in Stavern, looking out at the "Larvik Fjord" where, twice a day, the boat "Petter Wessel" comes in. This boat travels daily between Larvik, Norway and Hirtshals, Denmark. The sun is setting, giving the ship a red-ish ting, and the dramatic skies in the background work as a kind of nice frame. I hope you'll like this photo. :-)