I’ve been a little quiet the past few months but behind the scenes, I’ve been busy preparing for the release of a new collection of music with my band ‘bounce the ocean’.  My partner John and I recorded a ton of demos back in the 1990s in preparation for a second album that never came to be.  So the songs have been collecting dust hidden away in the digital vaults for over 30 years – unheard and unappreciated.   I’ve checked in on them from time to time always thinking we should find a way to make these songs available one day.  So, that day has finally come.  And it was an exciting process.  In fact, we used artificial intelligence that we’ve all heard so much about lately in order to ‘split’ the original demos.  In music speak it’s called ‘stemming’.  Essentially, using technology to separate each instrument/voice and giving it its own ‘track’.  Then transferring all the ‘new’ tracks to a digital audio workstation (in our case ProTools) so that then – (and this is the best part) – we were able to add fresh instrumentation, more harmony vocals, in some cases new lead vocals, real live drums, more guitars and keyboards, etc.   So from April to June, I spent a lot of time in my little studio on Jeju creating new harmonies, new keyboard parts and refreshing some of these no longer unappreciated songs.

The result is “unhidden gems” – an 11 song collection of refreshed materials and some late night acoustic mixes that John and I created during the recording of our original album – bounce the ocean.

Here’s one of those ‘unhidden’ songs:  “Show Me Your Love” that one music critic described as “a gorgeous track, shimmering with timeless, genuine power pop hooks and harmonies”.   And ExtraVaFrench Magazine writes:  “With Unhidden Gems , Hawk Björn and John Utter deliver a record that’s neither a compilation nor a simple nostalgic return. It’s a reconciliation with time, a demonstration that songs, when they’re carried by solid writing and timeless harmonies, don’t age: they wait, silently, for someone to come and wake them up. Bounce the Ocean may never have been a name shining in the firmament of pop legends, but this album proves that they possess that rare quality: writing songs that seem to have always existed, somewhere, in the collective memory.”