Richard Wileman

Composer/Guitarist

Band Sightings

Available Recordings

Involvement with Spirits Burning

"Both Bridget and Don had become MySpace friends and Don got in touch inviting me to contribute to the project."

Recording For Earth Born

(Richard appears on Crafted From Wood, Child Growing and wrote the oboe music on Dancers At The End...)

"Don had three specific requests regarding instrumentation. He asked for bouzouki (more or less a long scale mandolin) for Crafted From Wood. I originally bought this instrument for the Karda Estra album Voivode Dracula as it was made in Romania and I have continued to use it on my recordings since then too. The guide track I received had percussion and vocals only and I found straightforward (mainly open string) motifs suited the feel of this tune.

Don then asked for classical guitar for Child Growing. I recorded two guitar tracks that included some harmonised arpeggio/chord work panned left and right.

For Dancers At The End Of... , Don asked for woodwind. As it happened, I was recording the oboe parts for the last Karda Estra album The Last Of The Libertine at the time with my oboist Caron Hansford, so we incorporated this into a session. I composed some lines that I felt complimented the feel of the saxophone lines that had already been recorded. The guide tune was only known as Dancers when I had it. It was interesting to see the full title as I have fond memories of Michael Moorcock's 'Dancers At The End Of Time' books from both when I was a teenager and when I re-read them a few years ago (I hardly ever read a book twice).

I thoroughly enjoyed contributing to this. I've only done one other collaboration 'via the internet' before and it makes a really refreshing change to my normal working methods. I sent the tracks to Don and he will obviously have edited them to fit his vision. I've no idea how the final tune will come out and what bits I contributed will be used, so I'm really interested in hearing the finished result."

Statement

 "Karda Estra is the studio project of composer Richard Wileman. The music generally tends to be instrumental (sometimes with additional wordless/choral vocal textures by Ileesha Bailey). Richard plays several instruments including guitars, bass, keys, percussion, bouzouki and rastrophone. The sound is heavily augmented by several regular orchestral musicians adding oboe, cor anglais, flute, violin, viola, cello, saxophones, trumpet etc.

CDs have included several concept albums like Eve released in 2001. Inspired by the short gothic novel The Future Eve, written in 1886 by Villiers de L'Isle Adam, it tells the story of the 'world-famed inventor and master electrician Professor X', who creates a 'perfect' mate for his disturbed friend Lord Ewald.

2003's Constellations took a tour of the stars and included a cover version of the Steve Hackett piece Twice Around The Sun. Voivode Dracula, released in 2004, painted portraits and scenes from the famous Bram Stoker novel. Other albums have included (amongst other things) soundtrack pieces and music inspired by Surrealist paintings. The most recent album The Last Of The Libertine was released in 2007."

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