A new review for I Swear By All The Flowers” is in the latest Steam Punk Magazine:

The simplest way to sell you on this CD is to tell you that it was created entirely of antique sources, sampling music boxes, and wax cylinders to great effect. The entire album is restrained, soft, and pretty. As atmosphere, it’s nearly perfect.

That said, there is not so much that is intensely beautiful about the album, nothing to really draw you in, nothing that will haunt you hours later (with the possible exception of “sunrise”, the final track, performed on a lovely out-of-tune piano). But while this is to say that the work is not a masterpiece, it is certainly well executed and well worth multiple listens.

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Evening of Light posted a new review of “Edison’s Frankenstein”:

Frankenstein, made in 1910 by Edison studios, is one of the oldest horror movies, though not one of the better known ones. According to this feature, all but one of the film’s copies were lost, and it resurfaced as late as the 1970s. Silent movies are usually supplied with a score from some stock music archive, but Daniel Tuttle, the man behind Life Toward Twilight, apparently wasn’t content with the versions of this film’s score that were out there. So, he set to composing his own. The project took some years too attain final form, but in 2008, the release was there, combining the original film with new score, and including a CD with more extended versions of the soundtrack compositions.

As can be expected, the approach is from the direction of dark ambient and industrial electronics, not a bad choice, even for a movie from a different period. The soundtrack combines simple piano melodies, synthesizer waves, drones and some quite heavy noises and percussive sounds here and there. The combination of film and score works very well, in particular in the part in the first half of the movie where Frankenstein conducts his experiment. The impressive stop-motion animation of the monster’s alchemical birth in the cauldron is accompanied by intense industrial ambient, both elements enhancing each other and forming the highlight of this release. After this climax, the pace of the movie slacks a bit, depicting the haunting of Frankenstein’s bridal night and the subsquent ‘dissolution’ of the monster in a less impressive way than the parts that came before.

All the same, this short film is a pleasure to watch, especially for historic reasons. In addition, the soundtrack adds a lot to the movie’s atmosphere, not in the least because the alternative (stock piano music) could be considered particularly gruesome (cf. [YouTube]). If you’re interested in old (horror) movies and post-industrial music, Edison’s Frankenstein is excellent value for money. And if you’re not convinced, and want to try before you buy, the soundtrack can be downloaded for free from the artist’s webpage.

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At Bottle Imp Productions, there is a sale on “We Waited For A Subtle Dawn“, which you can buy in high quality MP3 format for $2.50. This will only be valid for a week or so.

A review of the album from Grave Concerns E-zine:

“Much of the material on this album was originally recorded two years ago, but Life Toward Twilight composer Daniel Tuttle has re-released it with additional material after a long hiatus, during which he cared for his fiancée, who was dying of cancer. Given the circumstances behind this release, it’s immediately striking how unsentimental even the new material is. Rather than focusing on emotional reactions, Tuttle’s work seems to be a meditation on mortality itself, replete with clashing cymbals, martial drumbeats, and orchestral strings that call to mind the Darwinian hymns of Boyd Rice and Albin Julius. Though there are quieter moments, like the operatic vocal interludes of “Eclipse II” or the lovely nocturnal soundscape of “‘Time,’ She Says,” these softer elements are ultimately overwhelmed by the clashing steel and industrial clatter of “This Peculiar Phenomenon,” the thunderous timpani of “Might And Wrath,” and the and the dark bombast of “‘Time,’ She Points Again.” Even “Nightmares Away From The Moon,” which begins so subtly with distant conversations and eerie, languid pianos, eventually builds into a cacophonous crescendo, this time conjuring a grim Oriental exoticism with wailing Tibetan horns. Perhaps the future will see Tuttle exploring grief and melancholy, but the militaristic ambiance of this release seems starkly unforgiving of such sentiments.”

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Mick Mercer posted a review of “Edison’s Frankenstein”.

“A cute idea this, where music has been added as a modern score to the original film of Frankenstein, just as Jackson Del Ray did with Nosferatu. (It’s anyone’s guess who will get to The Hunchback Of Notre Dame first.) We’ll get to the film shortly, because that’s the dvd, but the CD has twelve tracks which are out of sequence, presumably for a reason.

‘Discovered The Mystery Of Life’ is weighty string-torn ambient, stormy and bundling dramatically across initially mellow intentions. ‘The Evil In Frankenstein’s Mind Creates A Monster’ shuffles about, a lumbering cacophony of slow moving sound. Both ‘Appalled At The Sight Of His Creation’ with its plain and simple agitation and the equally brief ‘The Return Home’, a gentle introspective stroll, are instruments only, then we’re back to more shuffling soundscape with ‘The Monster Sees Himself’, not that we hang about as almost at once the groaning piano of ‘Bridal Night’ moves into a clumping rhythmic dementia.

‘Overcame By Love And Disappears’ heaves out the downcast cello and some supportive keys, before ‘Attack’ shows it’s almost got the length to start working as an ill-tempered but effective rhythmic piece which stands alone, because most of these are too short. ‘The Monster’ is thumpety noise again, before the milder ‘The Mirror’ breaks midway to imply tearful pain. ‘Leaving For College’ is all whispery with train sounds, glowing in a ghostly fashion, and ‘Edison’s Frankenstein’ is sensible and moody strings and keys again with a few noises off, like dragging sacks of strangely heavy leaves, into heavier morose rumbling then takes you through it all.” (Read More)

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Last Thursday was the DAMNED show in Detroit at the Tangent Gallery. I provided ambient, background music for the event, which lasted seven hours. I played a few new Life Toward Twilight tracks along with a ton of other appropriate material. It was more of a DJ set than a live mix, but it was a lot of fun.

Thanks to those of you who said “hi”, and hopefully those of you that took the free samplers enjoyed the material.

This weekend I also started putting together some new material. I am working on a few different concepts that hopefully will manifest into some new, solid Life Toward Twilight material. It feels like a lot of time has passed since I have composed anything genuinely new and fresh.

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