Albums by Robert Svilpa

Releases Mid 2025

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

This is a project that has spanned 6+ years from initiation to final completion. A collection of songs reflective of a set of dreams, spanning soothing through intense and frightening. Just like dreams provide the conscious mind a way to process and assimilate experiences, these songs provide a way for me and ostensibly the listener to process things. Events like the BLM protests and the shocking things that provoked them…

are covered in “8:46” with my great friends Durga McBroom on lead and harmony vocals, and Jerry Marotta on drums and percussion. Details for the track list are below – tracks will be added when the production is completed.

Production stalled due to fatal hard drive issues with the studio workstation. We’re in the process of retrieving the original contributions from my collaborators, and also attempting to fix the hard drive to retrieve the master project files. Costs are prohibitive and budgets tight, but committed to retrieving the project ASAP.

credits

Robert Svilpa – guitars, keyboards, bass guitars, drums and percussion, lead and harmony vocals

Durga McBroom – lead & harmony vocals on “8:46”
Marc Miller – fret and fretless bass guitars, Chapman Stick, Mellotron, Taurus bass pedals, drums and percussion on “In memory of…”
Andy Edwards – drums and percussion on “Pareidolia” & “Level 3”
John Jowitt – bass guitars
Jimmy Keegan – drums and percussion on “Colossus” & “Abaddon”
Brian Timpe – bass guitar on “Colossus”
Sean Fairchild – 6 string bass guitar on “Abaddon”
Robert Schindler – electric piano, synthesizer on “8:46”

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Released Digitally January 6, 2022 – CD Release March 2022 on MRR

Foucault’s Pendulum

‘The Foucault pendulum or Foucault’s pendulum is a device named after French physicist Léon Foucault, conceived as an experiment to demonstrate the Earth’s rotation. The pendulum was introduced in 1851 and was the first experiment to give simple, direct evidence of the Earth’s rotation.”

The music was originally spawned in 1993, when I was writing music for both commercial and personal use – I had invested in and built my first PC with a very high end MIDI/E-Mu sound card and my trusty Roland JX-8P keyboard, a Zoom guitar processor and with my trusty Svilpacaster I was playing college pubs and beach resort bars to support myself while going back to school. The piece that is the seed for Foucault’s Pendulum was a 5 minute instrumental that I played in between songs by Stone Temple Pilots and Alice In Chains for the college crowd.

The piece itself was pretty complex with a lot of dynamics, layered pieces and syncopation – it sounded and was perceived to be really odd meter but the syncopation and what could be considered compound meter phrases formed a 4/4 common time base meter, so therefore it was a really fascinating piece of music for me personally that had a lot of potential for expansion.

2019 was the opportune time to do this effort.
Originally part of a much larger project – To Sleep, Perchance to Dream – that project eventually stretched out to more than 120 minutes of music. Thematically, all of the material on the large project shared certain musical themes and motifs but as a listener experience the feedback I got was it was way too long. That very thing was what motivated me to put Foucault’s Pendulum into its own project – not only so that the intent as a piece of music rotating on it’s axis to return to the beginning would be a lot more notable to the listener, but I also had all of the music recorded and contributions from my guest musicians included and mixed, so there was no point in holding onto it any longer.

As in the preface to this, the composition takes the original piece of music that starts and ends with the same stark aggressive guitar riff, and it gets filled out with variations on themes and motifs in between the start and finish. The variations cover different styles, sometimes going into an entirely different genre but just like the ball on the chain and frictionless pivot, it oscillates back and forth across a wide gap while turning with the rotation of the earth. As we reach the end of the piece, we get the pieces fitting back together and ending on the guitar riff.

The coda (PostScript/Denouement) introduces a new set of themes and styles – hinting at what could be coming in future projects.

Foucault’s Pendulum Suite

1. Foucault’s Pendulum (1st movement) (8:19)
2. Foucault’s Pendulum (2nd movement) (7:44)
3. Foucault’s Pendulum (3rd movement) (11:11)
4. Foucault’s Pendulum (4th movement) (8:02)
5. Foucault’s Pendulum (5th movement) (5:33)
6. PostScript – Denouement (7:44)

Running Time: 48:33

credits

Robert Svilpa – all guitars & keyboards, hand percussion

Tracks 1 and 5 – Drums: Todd Sucherman, Bass/Stick/Double Bass: Marc Miller
Tracks 2, 4 and 6 – Drums: Andy Edwards, Bass: John Jowitt
Track 3: Drums: Igor Willcox, Bass: Chris Cullman

Engineering credits:
All tracks recorded and engineered at home in Covid 19 isolation.

Produced, mixed and mastered by Robert Svilpa
Copyright ©2021 Robert Svilpa / Hyperboreal Music LLC, all right reserved worldwide
Any reproduction of this material is prohibited unless expressly granted by Robert Svilpa / Hyperboreal Music LLC

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Released August 17, 2020

Between The Lines

This is a start to finish CD/EP – one constant track of material that is actually 9 songs mixed and mastered end to end as a single piece of music.

This constitutes some of the best moments written and recorded between 1994 and 2016 – the Summer Jam 1992 and instrumental that was recorded in 1994 with early MIDI equipment and rudimentary guitar gear in an 8 track studio;

htfk which was written in 1995 with this version having been recorded in 2010 in my home in a very cramped office; Pentelho Vermelho demo take and mix from 2004 with the very primitive Piano VST starting the piece; Phasors on Stun recorded back in 2008 which was a cover of the FM tune of the same name; and four songs from the album “a fine line between…” – the first four songs that were completed as Nick D’Virgilio got his drum tracks done far more quickly than anyone else.

credits

Robert Svilpa – guitars, basses, keyboards, programmed drums

with:
Paul Harrington – keyboards
Nick D’Virgilio – drums

All songs written by Robert Svilpa, except Phasors on Stun (Hawkins/Nash the Slash)

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Released July 17, 2016 – new fully redone version coming in 2025/26

The Sound of Thoughts

A fully re-imagined (re-done, remixed, remastered) album originally released in 2005 – the original release much improved with new vocals, new instrumental performances, and entirely re-recorded songs replacing the original versions.

All songs written by Robert Svilpa, except where noted above.

Engineered, mixed and mastered by Robert Svilpa

credits

Robert Svilpa – vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, keyboards, bass guitar
Brian Timpe – bass guitar
Heinz Schuller – drums

with guests:
Oliver Wakeman – grand piano on track 3 “Pentelho Vermelho”
Eric Meisels – lead guitar on track 1 “Heartbeat Failing”, track 8 “Peace, My Brother”
Mark Tomko – Chapman Stick on track 7 “This Mortal Coil”

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Released July 10, 2016

Tributes 1

Here’s the next release from us here – shakin’ and groovin’ some classic tribute songs for your entertainment. Take the song below and add the following tracks – it should be a pretty darn good set of music if I do say so myself (and I do).

– Eleanor Rigby (Lennon, McCartney)
– Cinnamon Girl (Neil Young)
– Aqualung (Jethro Tull)
– Fooling Yourself (Styx)
– Xanadu (Rush)
– The Halcyon Days (The Tea Party)
– Ramble On (Led Zeppelin)
– Killer Queen (Queen)
– Behind Blue Eyes (The Who)
– Badge (Cream)
– Fortress Around Your Heart (Sting)
– Watcher of the Skies (Genesis)
– Phasors on Stun (FM)

These are tribute versions of the songs above – as in we the band are playing these and there is some reinterpretation happening. All the original writers are credited in the actual song list, and they are also getting their share of the purchase price of the song and album.

credits

Guitars, bass guitar, keyboards, vocals – Robert Svilpa
keyboards – Paul Harrington
bass guitars – Brian Timpe, Robert Svilpa
drums – John Hernandez
drum programming – Robert Svilpa

engineering – Robert Svilpa, Jay Coover
mixing engineer, producer – Robert Svilpa

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Released January 23, 2016

a fine line between…

Progressive rock album with some neo-prog songs. Documenting a day in the life of a self-medicating self-destructive manic depressive man.

Artwork is courtesy the great artist Ed Unitsky
www.edunitsky-store.com

credits

released January 23, 2016

Robert Svilpa – guitars, vocals, keyboards
Paul Harrington – keyboards, pianos
Mark Parris – bass guitar

with special guests:
Nick D’Virgilio – drums
Zsolt Galantai – drums
Andy Edwards – drums
Alan Morse – lead guitar on Mesmerize
Rachael Beaver – lead female vocal on “Temple of Lost Souls”

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