Tonight I'm uploading the final track of my 2011 EP Everything Is A Dracula and this one has been largely the most enduring song for me from this EP and still has a presence in my live sets, although in much more of a dance friendly way.
Prison Of Ambition started off as a simple loop found on a Future Music sample CD mangled till the point where it was un recognizable. Like a lot of my music from this time period, I tend to let the bass and the strings hold the track together while the percussion kind of goes insane. The strings however are what really made this track special for me creating this uplifting vibe that made it my go to for my last track in my live sets.
The name of the song stems from a conversation with a friend (that friend also allowed me to use his art as the cover for this release) about my favorite Pat Benatar video for Love Is A Battlefield. Basically, in the video Pat Benatar runs away to start a new life in LA, but immediately finds employment in what is heavily eluded to be a strip club. Over thinking this video, it became this theory that incredibly ambitious people move to these major cities with stars in their eyes and find themselves trapped there by their own dreams. Thus, the term Prison Of Ambition was born and I still find myself using it to describe people clinging onto places that are bad for them because the promise of their dreams is still so strong.
Bonus! I also did a live version of this song for a studio session at a friends studio a number of years ago. Enjoy this live version of this song as well. This was recorded at a very different time in my life with mostly a software based live setup, but I'm still happy with how it turned out.
► Listen on DSound
► Listen from source (IPFS)