Birth of A Star: The Story of Otis the Space Cat
The second act of the Rock Opera, David Art Flood and The Incredible Underwater Orchestra. The book, an Inter-Galactic and multi-dimensional sci-fi, rock and roll saga set in the not too distant future. In Birth of A Star, the author chronicles his experience traveling 700 years into the future to a remote space station in close proximity to the planet Saturn known as Space Station 69. There, with his soul mate Myrtle, and astral travel companion Captain Davey Bones, he meets an AI/physiologically enhanced cat who walks like a humanoid and speaks english with a delightful British accent.
Inception: The Story behind the song, and the story behind the story
After completing the story for the first act of David Art Flood, and the Incredible Underwater Orchestra Flood had been diligently, composing the pieces that would complete the first act. A long planned that the second act would take place in the future where the Character of myself as my soul could explore outer space and the endless possibilities and story arcs that could unfold. But David didn’t have a starting point.
Then one night in his home studio, in an effort to create a lush ambient track that people could be transported by, the music of Birth of A Star unfolded. There were mistakes in the first pass, but that didn’t matter. Flood went to bed knowing heI had created something really special and as sleep came slowly, a story began to unfold about a Space Cat, named Otis.
The next morning when he went down to listen to what he had composed the night before, he was gobsmacked. With a couple of quick edits, The song was reduced from 9 minutes to 7, and the flubs were auto-fixed using Logic Pro X’s midi transposing feature. He listened again, this time adding more texture, then the sound effects were added using Logic’s own built in Alchemy synth.
The Cinematic Soundtrack has a Story to read while you listen!
A steady thumping drum pattern was honed from Reasons auto beat generation randomizer player combined with a drum set sample selected from Reasons Korg drum machine —added texture, and helped propel the song forward. The lush ambient pads and triumphant horns pulse with the beat and illusively fade from forground to background, louder and softer creating dynamics, space, a sense of texture only for the thumping to disappear as the song seemingly devolves into a vast expanse. Then as then in the closing sequence the drums come back in again in a final climactic conclusion fading out to silence at precisely 7 minutes and 14 seconds.
“As I listened I imagined watching the birth of a star, I thought to myself what a drippy name for a song. A subtle double entendre Otis’s story while alluding to the release date of Birth of A Star globally October 27th, 2022 my upcoming 57th birthday. Similar to the the first act which was conceived out of a necessity to develop a back-story for the the band name David Flood and The Incredible Underwater Orchestra.
I knew I wanted this music in the second act of David Art Flood and the Incredible Underwater Orchestra. But it’s not the type of composition I was hearing vocals over…but perhaps dialogue…like a movie. It certainly was like a movie in my mind as the story of Otis the Space Cat unfolded. Within a week or two, the story was complete and I had solid abridged work for act 2! I knew I had something really special, and after sharing the music and story in might tight inner circle, I decided to release the stories second act first as an accompanying work to the music as a combined experience. You can read act one, then act 2 and enjoy it as equally as reading the second act first, then diving deep into the first acts story. Logically, as this storyline is dripping with multi-dimensional, intergalactic astral time travel experiences. So no harm no foul…think of it like reading Lord of the Rings before Hobbit.
It’s meant to be a fun story that interweaves both my real life experiences, with a subtle underlying element of self manifesting desired outcomes. In this case, if I tell you the story, it’s self actualization and becomes reality. Like in the movie Field of Dreams, if you build it, they will come.”
You can now read the story and be an early fan of this fantastical illumination of sight, smell and sound.