Soul Path: Voice of the Universe

Singer/Songwriter/Musicians

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Location: Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, United Kingdom

We are Mike and Steve and together we form 'Soul Path'. We have only been working together since early 2006 but already we have written the underscoring for 3 DVDs and a seperate CD all of which are being distributed through Reality entertainment in the US We write all kinds of music, but Soul Path's style has been compared to a cross between Clannad, Jethro Tull and Enya with attitude

Thursday, October 05, 2006

The Journey III:Soul Path and Philip Gardiner


The missing something was about to make it's presence known and create Soul Path the phenomenon and it didn't take long thanks to a wayward internet host!
We had created our first and called it Soul Path and spent the weekend at a local holistic fayre promoting it. In the meantime I had updated the website and added details and samples of the new CD as well as emailing a few folks to tell them about it.
Monday Morning and everyone was very excited because we had sold half a dozen CDs over the weekend and we had decided to go into town to a couple of local shops and see if we could get them to stock a copy or two of the CD.
In the mean time I had gone on to the internet to see how much interest the site had developed only to find an inbox full of emails (ok, several emails) telling me the site wasn't working. I contacted my host, who always take a minimum of several hours to respond and in the meantime I sent emails to everyone apologising for the downage and including a 40 second sample of one of the songs, Amrun Kalima.
What followed next was one of those sequences of events you hear about in urban-internet legends and it only took a few minutes. I got an immediate response back from a friend who was organising a conference in Stoke on Trent. She loved the music and wondered if we could play at the conference and had passed it onto the guy who was running it. Whilst I was contemplating who this we was that might be booked to play for a national conference featuring many distinguished authors and broadcasters I received an email from this guy saying he was in awe of our music and would we be able to write music to accompany his DVDs. Whilst thinking about that development another email arrived. It turned out that his DVDs were being distributed by one of the largest record labels on the planet, namely Reality Entertainment and that not only did they love the music but they wanted to distribute it alongside the DVDs as a separate CD in its own right.
By this time I had got a phone call saying that a shop or two in town may be interested in stocking our CDs. I don't think it sunk in for at least a day or three that we had got world distribution and Mike was still buzzing when I spoke to him later that day because he had sold another CD to a friend!
The conference was of course the Forbidden Knowledge Conference organised by world renowned author Philip Gardiner. He has given us permission to quote what he had to say at the time about us;

Within minutes of listening to their music I had come up with the term "voice of the universe" and ever since then I have been constantly in awe of the beautiful, sensual, provocative and diverse music that these three people draw from the depths of the soul. Steve feels the music in a way I can only say classical composers have. Julie sings with an angelic and adaptable voice that puts all others to shame and Mike Stone writes lyrics that Sassoon himself would cry over. Together they are a unique band that far surpasses the majority of the mindless popularized rubbish that we are constantly bombarded with. In short, all too often this band is too good for a world divided. I wholeheartedly back these guys and in fact one of the largest record labels on the planet were themselves so impressed that they have been signed for not only several album deals, but to also write and perform the music for my own DVD's. If you ever wondered just what the voice of the universe sounded like, then listen to Soul Path.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

The Journey II: Our first cd together



Mike and I had already been asked to work on some underscoring for a Granada TV series, Lost Treasures and we were requested to create music in the style of Clannad. This resulted in about half a dozen pices of between 2 to 4 minutes long. In the meantime a friend suggested I put a CD together of some of my music but there was something that was missing in the clannad style music - vocals!
Many years before I had played with a folk band called Greensward and one of the songs we wrote for them was Kingstone. This told the story of The Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire and I decided to compile a whole cd based on the story. The magic of this was that I had a recording of Caroline Walton singing the title track, albeit a very bad recording on tape which needed sampling into the computer, lots of tidying up and removal of hiss and tape stretch and isolating the vocals. After a lot of work I had used the pieces composed for Lost Treasures together with samples of Caroline's vocals and created the album All The Kings Men
Whilst promoting and selling the CDs we continued to work on some more clannad inspired music. I am a trained musical therapist as well as a chios and reiki master and thought that at the same time we could focus on a CD for healing, relaxation and empowerment. It was half way through this process that we met a new singer and asked her to put a few oohs on one of the tracks. As Mike said at the time, she put more emotion into a single aah than most singers put into a whole ballad. WE WERE HOOKED and little did we know that we had found that missing something.
With but a couple of weeks to go before the event at which we hoped to launch our new CD we managed to get as much of her onto as many of the tracks as possible.
We included a fair amount of aahs on two tracks Niamh and Diancecht which we had already written for Lost Treasures as well as Cyhiraeth and The Breath, which we had written for an opening guided meditation and combined with Celtic Myst which we had written for Warner Brothers many years before.
At the time some friends of ours were getting handfasted and had asked us to write them some music for the ceremony so we created the piece Attunement in the style of Enigma with hints of Mike Oldfield. On top of that Mike wrote two new songs in Elvish. Amrun Kalina meaning Morning Light and Oma Tel'corm meaning Voice of the Heart. We decided on Elvish so that the words and vocals wouldn't get in the way of the narration it was designed to underscore. This was our first album together and after much deliberation we decided to call it Soul Path

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

The Journey I: How we met


Mike Stone and Steve Mitchell met at Keele University in the early 1980's and they soon discovered a mutual interest in music making and writing with local bands. Steve and Mike already had graded examinations under their belts in their respective instruments so with a degree in music they started to attract attention further afield with Mike's flowing lyrics augmenting Steve's very individual music.
Steve's musical direction of the European premier of Annie Warbucks led him into contact with Warner Chappels and in 1997 Steve and Mike formed Buzz'n'Bee Music to promote their composition. Writing in styles as diverse as folk, reggae, blues and traditional jazz they have been commissioned to compose for everything from Australian children's TV to a title track for a Warner Brothers film.
More recently they were asked to write music to underscore a Granada TV series in the style of Clannad. Steve and Mike had already been prompted to compile a C.D. of their music and were working on a second one for empowerment and meditation when a new vocalist arrived on the scene to record the vocal tracks. There was an instant spark between everyone and something magical was happening. They found a common interest in yoga, magic, alternative therapy and the esoteric which instantly transformed the music they were writing. The new album was tentatively named Soul Path and the group were asked to perform at Philip Gardiner's Forbidden Knowledge Conference UK ....

Monday, October 02, 2006

Welcome


Hi and welcome to everyone visiting Soul Path: Voice of the Universe
Here we will share information about Soul Path, whats happening with us and where and what we are doing. You can also share information about you and ask about us .. I guess thats what a blog is for ; )
Anyway, All the Brightest Best
Steve and Mike