fabula nova ~ beginning of a new story
Thank you so much if you decided to check out fabula nova’s debut single, Légendes (feat. AKA)! This song in particular has been over a year in development, mainly because it was originally supposed to be a track for KodamaSounds’ compilation album, ECLECTIC RESONANCE Legendaria, but due to scheduling concerns with the performers, we kept pushing it back until we opted instead to release it as a single sometime later.
For an official introduction, fabula nova is a folk-fantasy band that initially started as an off-shoot of a band I lead from my time at Berklee, where I arranged and performed acoustic/folk versions of my favourite video game music. To continue with this, I had sought out an outlet to compose, write, and produce songs inspired by my favourite folk/fusion bands and RPG soundtracks, such as Yasunori Mitsuda’s Millennial Fair, Mirai Kodai Orchestra, and of course, canoue. The name “fabula nova”, is a not-so-subtle reference to the final fantasy 13 trilogy, subtitled “Fabula Nova Crystallis”, as I adore those games with all of my heart. The name was around from back when I was still primarily planning on doing VGM covers, but I stuck to it even after transitioning into a proper original music venture.
Fun fact, I was supposed to have officially debuted the project with a concert at Berklee, slated for the 20th of February (the event page is even still up!) However, various life circumstances prevented me from performing at the date and I had to leave the country in early February due to visa concerns, essentially shelving the project until further notice.
Now, a quick introduction of the line-up for the band, all of whom are dear friends of mine who graciously lent their talents to my silly little troupe.
carol gao is our pianist, and she’s genuinely one of the most skilled and proficient musicians I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. We’ve been close friends since our time at Berklee together, where we both majored in the same program, and I could not think of a musician whose artistic sensibilities line up with mine more than her.
Anna Iris Hill is our violinist, and also a close friend of mine from Berklee. Not only is she an incredible violinist, but she’s also an exceptionally skilled and proficient composer and music producer, working under the pseudonym v1ris. It’s always a pleasure to work with her, and I’m so honoured to have her playing with us.
June Redmer is our bassist, but also a crazy multi-instrumentalist (I can count on one hand the number of instruments she doesn’t play). I had the pleasure of getting to know her during my time at Berklee, where we played on a lot of the same bands and hung out in the same VGM-adjacent circles.
Daryl Barnes offered to do double duty on both acoustic guitar AND greek bouzouki, and I’m so excited to be able to work with her! We met as fellow composers in the online vtuber sphere, and she’s genuinely one of the most incredible musicians working right now. Her original music is also spectacular, you should check them out!
Last, but definitely not least, Clara Maddux joins us on drums! She’s an incredible musician, songwriter, and the other half of the band peak divide, who together form the music team behind D-CELL GAMES’ upcoming masterpiece, UNBEATABLE! I was so excited when she took my offer to play as part of this band, and as a drummer myself, I knew she was perfectly capable of delivering on my ideas for these songs.
I also want to take a moment to give a very special thanks to Vega Lyrical, who is an exceptionally talented lyricist, who wrote all of the lyrics for Légendes in her native french. I only gave her a very basic narrative arc to work with, but she went above and beyond in delivering such a beautiful story for this song. Of course, AKA also deserves so much love for her exceptional vocal performance; I’ve always wanted to work with her on a project and I could not be happier with the result. I also want to give thanks to Robin from KodamaSounds for helping organize the project and offering me the opportunity to release with them. It took us a while, but we finally put it out!
Now, what does the future look like for fabula nova? I hope to release more music independently with the group, and also to hopefully get ourselves involved with more projects and compilations that fit with our theme, and make songs with all sorts of featured vocalists in all sorts of languages–our first release being in French wasn’t a fluke! As someone who has lived all over the world and developed a huge love and respect for different cultures, I’d like to be able to explore a lot of it through the music of this group, and form connections with all sorts of musicians.
Thank you all again, sincerely, for tuning in to our first release, and I hope you will continue supporting us in our future projects!