“Summer Melodies Vol.2” – featuring Seen and my song “Sunrise” is Out Now and available to stream and download on Spotify! Listen to our new song and the entire uplifting and progressive sounding album by following the link below:
-Mark
Hello, everyone!
It is my great honour to announce that my poetry has evolved and has taken a step into a completely different medium. By that I mean to say that one of my poems – a poem that I wrote almost 9 years ago, my poem “I’ve never seen a sunrise” – at least my recording of which, has been incorporated into, and will soon be released, as a song called “Sunrise”.
“Sunrise” – which has a trance/house/chill-out kind of vibe to it – was created by the amazing Seen who has expertly mixed my poetry and my voice, with his uplifting and energizing style of music, to create a wonderfully uplifting song that – in my humble opinion – sounds amazing!
Like I said, my original poem and my recording of it is now nearly 9 years old; however,“Sunrise” by Seen featuring Me, in my opinion, gives my poem another life and another medium by which it can be shared and enjoyed.
“Sunrise” by Seen Featuring Mark Hastings will be released on “Summer Melodies Vol.2” – a compilation album of 9 songs ranging from deep house to progressive house/trance styles of music – by Summer Melody Records on February 8th, on Beatport, Spotify, Tidal, Deezer, and on all other stores on February 22nd.
Here is a trailer highlighting some of the songs that will feature on “Summer Melodies Vol.2”, including a small sample of Seen and my song “Sunrise” at the 1:13 mark:
There will be a “Summer Melodies Vol.2” Album Release Party on Saturday, February 2nd, online @ https://plug.dj/trancehousechill – if you are interested in attending the album release.
And I would just like to say how honoured I am that Seen chose one of my poems to incorporate it into what I believe is a fantastic, amazing, and uplifting song that could be enjoyed by everybody – as I hope my poetry can always be enjoyed! 😊
-Mark
I feel so alive…
I am still riding high
upon a wave of sound,
energy, and light,
after watching, after listening,
to my favourite band, The 1975,
live for the first time…
the experience was amazing…
the show was mesmerizing…
the almost spiritual, simultaneous,
synchronous, visceral gift
of opening your heart, your mind,
your soul, your senses, your mouth,
taking in, letting out an incantation
of love in the form of music and song words
that you know is an unfiltered
communication of pure ecstasy –
and in my opinion there is no way
of replicating that feeling of connection,
that wave of emotions that you find yourself riding…
when we are in presence of similar souls to us,
when we hope and pray to be taken away on a journey
to another place, and we reach a state
of hypnotic and perfect bliss,
returning to the outside world,
walking through the darkness surrounded by stars,
into the cold air of the night,
is like waking up from a dream
that you find it hard to describe afterwards
because it was so enlivening…
coming down after flying so high is always hard…
getting up the next morning
after a transcendental experience
is like waking up with a hangover
after being intoxicated by a drug…
I have had moments of time in my life
that were so special to me that I will never
forget them until the day that I die:
meeting my one true love and asking her to marry me,
meeting my favourite author,
standing atop the Empire State Building
and taking in the extraordinary
360-degree view of New York City,
getting my first book of poetry published,
and so many more –
and now I can add my time listening
to The 1975 live and in concert to that list,
because just like when I try and recapture
the sensations of doing all of the amazing things
that I will always remember doing,
when I close my mind eyes I still feel like
I am when and where I once was:
one moment in my lovers arms
sitting on that wooden porch in Georgia
that I still remember so well,
and the next bathed in the light
and the sounds being witnessed and reciprocated by
my favourite band, The 1975, on a cold January night.
The more that someone allows
the spirit of something to capture them,
the more that they embody
the properties of that spirit…
the more that someone becomes engulfed
in the wave of energy and emotion
that rises at a particular time of the year,
the more that they want to share
the joy that they feel with whomever they are with…
the more that someone succumbs to traditions
that mean something profound to them,
the more that they want to repeat
those same rituals time and time again…
the more that someone thinks about
how someone or something makes them feel,
the more that they do not ever
want to be away from the object of their affections –
and even the thought of being far away
can be enough to bring them to tears…
the more that someone strives to reach
a state of complete and utter happiness,
the more that someone will discover more
about what keeps their heart beating
and the thought of who and what
they love the most ticking…
the more that someone does something,
the more that someone can become addicted
to the way that special something
never stops making them feel –
sometimes something can fill a person
with such a glow that their heart and soul
can be seen shining like the tail of a firefly…
there are so many things that instantly
overcome me and make me forget
the last thing that I said:
inspiration, sunshine, music,
the beautiful face of my fiancé,
the knowledge of something new –
however, there is only one thing
that immediately gives me a rush of blood,
at the speed of light, that goes straight to my head,
and that thing is the feeling of love.
I grew up in the 1980s…
I grew up in the decade when
the world was blessed with the best
and with the most memorable days of their lives…
when I think of the 1980s and the time of my childhood,
I look back with awe and with a nostalgic longing
to return to those days –
even if only for a short time…
I can still remember living, breathing, growing,
and enjoying every one of the gifts of humanity
that were ever-present and essential…
I, like many, still vividly remember what I saw,
what I heard, and what I felt when I was a child –
what I was fortunate to have seen, heard, and felt
for the first time, at the moment that
their star of influence began to rise
and instantly started to impact
and change the world forevermore…
television, movies, music, games, books –
the characters, the vehicles, the fashions,
the songs and the soundtracks
that continue to stand the test of time –
that to this day are still re-watched,
replayed, rediscovered, and renewed
for a brand new generation…
to me, there is nothing like nostalgia…
to me, there is nothing like revisting
the precious memories of your youth…
there is something about certain times
in our collective history that resonates
with some people on an emotional
and on an almost cellular level…
there is something special about remembering
the things we used to watch,
the things we used to listen to,
and in the ways that we used to enjoy them…
there is something wonderful, heart-racing,
exhilarating, and magical about using
our imagination as a vehicle to go back in time,
like the Delorean time-machine
from the Back to the Future movies,
and in a small way reliving decades-old memories –
and even though I am now in my thirties
and my childhood now feels like a life-time ago,
I still love thinking back, I still loving watching back,
and I still love using the songs that I remember from my youth
to take me back and give me a rush of euphoric recollection,
like the feeling of returning home:
the same overwhelming sense of belonging and joy
that I ways feel when I think back to the 1980s.
The sun does not make a sound to our ears –
and yet it has a voice and a song
that it sings every second on the same frequency
that it has been broadcasting and generating
for 4.6 billion years…
the Earth beneath our feet is constantly spinning
and in a perpetual state of motion –
and though when we are standing still
we believe Earth to be stationary
it is in fact traveling through space
at 67,000 miles per hour…
the heart in our chest
beats inaudibly even to ourselves –
and it is only when we use our sense of touch
in conjunction with our inner perception
of the rhythmic beauty of our life-sustaining
organ and instrument that we can understand
how precious our heart-beats are
and how important they are in realizing
how delicate, fragile, and fleeting life is
and why there are no gifts as amazing
as that of being loved and alive…
the sounds that we hear are echoes,
vibrations, and interactions,
between many individual sources all playing at-once –
even those things that orbit in the vacuum of space
do not do so silently, however as when we want
to hear those things that are so powerful
and mean so much to all of us
sometimes we have to use our senses in the right way
in order to fully hear the voices
and the sounds of the silent light.
Music is in all of our blood…
Sometimes our blood runs fast
and sometimes our blood runs slow…
Music can sometimes be misunderstood…
What we listen to, where, when, and how
always informs and influences our thoughts
and our emotions, sometimes more than we know…
A piece of music can create a mood…
A song can be a powerful artistic muse…
A particular instrument has a distinctive magic…
A synonymous voice can bring about
a wave of peace to a world of panic…
All music is a part of the collective human soul…
Not all styles of music appeal to every human heart,
but everybody has experienced moments in their life
when music has spoken to them like nothing else before…
Music can be a cure…
Music can teach a two left-footed person how to dance…
Music can transform someone beyond the limits of words…
Music will never die,
and one of the most rambunctious accents of music
undeniably has to be the swing, the vibe,
the energy, and the favourite music
of cafes and bars from L.A. to New Orleans: Jazz.
