1. Earth: Archetype Featuring Josh Trujillo on percussion: giving this song a renewed vitality. Archetype is about a symbolic and timeless journey across land, mountains and woods. This was originally written by me on Summer Solstice of 2016. 2023 NMMA Finalist in the World Music Category.

2. Earth: Saunterers - Saunterers came to me in a dream, I improvised upon it with Elizabeth Garland, and then reimagined it. John Muir inspired the name with this, quote: “these mountains are our holy land and people ought to saunter through them reverently, not hike through them”. A la sainte terre: to the Holy Land.

3. Air: Transfiguration - This piece is the most abstract, atmospheric, electroacoustic on this album. The underlying loop lasts 1/2 a minute. This song portrays an expanding struggle that is transformed, and everything becomes lighter and more alluring. 2023 NMMA Finalist in the Ambient Category and a 2023 ISC Semi-Finalist in the Instrumental Category.

4. Air: Bee Meditation - During the lockdown, I was sometimes spending 40 hours a week partaking in Macrophotography. Many of my photos portray bees, especially native bees. I grew up loving the honeybees my grandpa cared for. These small creatures are miraculous, and we depend on them. My ode to bees!

5. Fire: Hjärta - “Heart (Swedish), my family from Sweden were visiting in NY and taught me how to say “heart” in Swedish. It is a song of passion and turmoil, which can be attributed to the struggles we have due to our heart’s entanglements. This includes love for nature, and struggles in our environment, especially the devastating wildfires and drought in New Mexico.

6. Fire: Requiem - Requiem was performed as you hear it… Once. Straight through. Raw. I recorded it on my iPhone, hours after learning that my godson had tragically died. This also symbolizes the collective loss and grief we feel, and especially for those who have lost someone they love ... 

7. Water: Nature Meditation - I spend as much time as possible in the infinite source of healing: outdoors. In this way, I appreciate, meditate, heal, and cultivate a sense of wonder and joy in the miraculous world in which we live. Through Nature and creativity we will heal, care for ourselves, and nurture our world.

8. Water: Out at Sea - Thank you to Lance Bigley, the audio engineer: originally recording and mastering, at Moonlight Recording Studio in 2019. I grew up sailing on Lake Ontario, and this song portrays a journey on the sea, a storm, and a musical rainbow at the end. I dedicated this song to my dad in 2018, and he crossed over to the other shore in 2022. 2020 NMMA Winner in the Ambient Contemporary Instrumental Category. 2021 ISC Semi-Finalist in the Instrumental Category. 

 

By Keely Mackey aka Celloquacious 2022

 

AWARDS: Three of the songs on this album have a total of five awards. Keely Mackey won the 2020 New Mexico Music Award, in the Ambient Instrumental Category, and was a Semi-Finalist in the 2021 and 2023 International Songwriting Competition in the Instrumental Category, for her songs, “Out at Sea” and "Transfiguration", respectively. Keely was a double finalist for the 2023 New Mexico Music Awards: Archetype in the World Music category, and Transfiguration in the Ambient/New Age category. 

 

Note: All of these songs were recorded with live looping on Keely’s cello, processed through a Boss ME 70. She creates live layers as she plays, and it is recorded as such. None of the songs were recorded with separate layers and mixed.

 

Thanks to Travis Hill, at Infaze Mastering, for his skills and care in being the audio engineer: recording, editing and mastering all of the aforementioned songs on my album, into the late hours of Zen.

 

Photo credit to Keith Langerman for the in-sync album portrait photography. 

 

Thanks to Jorgie Winsberg, President of DeSoto Productions, for manifesting this album in physical form.

 

Keely Mackey took the rose macro photos on the interior of the album.

 

©2022 All rights reserved. All songs on this album were composed by Keely Mackey and performed on live looping cello by Keely Mackey. Josh Trujillo is featured playing percussion on Archetype.