Further Information

Hi!

I’m Simon Vestarr and I’ve been writing and performing music since the age of fifteen. I’ve been a part of various musical projects throughout the years but haven’t been very proactive about getting my own music released until quite recently. My influences vary greatly — from Buckley’s Grace to Santana’s Caravanserai; from Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions to Opeth’s Damnation, etc. — and like my heroes I always try to put a lot of heart into my songs and arrangements.

Fever Dream is a collection of songs performed mostly with acoustic instruments. The unplugged guitars and djembe comprise the core of the album’s sound and mesh naturally with its introspective lyrical themes. The ambiance is that of a campfire jam in southern California in the early 70’s and the words explore the mystical pull of religion and romance through fragmented poetic visions.

The song here below sparked the idea for making a proper studio album. I felt it deserved the shine of a high quality mix and some strings. I hope you will agree.

Musical bio

My first album was released in collaboration with my friend Edgar in 2009 on CD and the now defunct gogoyoko.com. It was called Sleepy King Winter and we named our duo Simon & Clover. The title-track was a laid back tune celebrating the first appearance of snow while the final song was a dark love song of sorts.

My second album was released in 2011 on bandcamp.com under the name Simon Hialta. I named it Rainbowlands after one of the songs where I enlisted my brother Jóel for some rhytmic assistance.

My third album came out on Spotify, Google Play and other streaming sites in 2017. To emphasize that it was, like its two predecessors, an album of demos (albeit a charming one) recorded with rather primitive technology, I gave it the title Songs from a Dusty Spare-Room. It was mastered by my brother Daníel, who also put together a music video for the songs Tell You True and Wreath.

The production value of Songs from a Dusty Spare-Room was an improvement from Sleepy King Winter and Rainbowlands and the songwriting was (though I do say so myself) quite strong, but I decided that the next time around I would go to an actual recording studio with a professional producer so that I could finally give my songs the shine that they deserved. This I had already done with some of my heavier stuff, such as the single Runaway Sisterwife (2015) and the EP Sic Semper Tyrannis, which my rock trio Kingkiller put out in 2017. It was time to get my friend and bandmate Ási Jó to help me make an honest to gods ready-for-primetime album.