Windows To Eternity

A group born of musical inspiration in the year 2004, “Windows To Eternity” is the culminating effort of driving factor, composer, and as of this writing almost unknown guitar virtuoso Kelly James McKee:

"...for the virtuoso rock guitar lovers out there...a great amount of technique on display, from alternate-picked runs and smooth legato phrases to feel-infused melodic control..." - Andre Avanessian

Built-in to the group's heritage is a continuation of great musical influences from a point forever in the past blended into a musical language constructed in the present for a set of modern instruments to play – the ‘rock band’. These musical influences are held as timeless and forever, and represent the deeper study of music as opposed to music constructed out of the mundane.  In modern times, since the late 1960’s, this mantle has served as the basis for heavy metal music explorations by its leading contributors. The timelessness of the music’s attributes is as solid as if written into marble: “The arts of flute and lyre playing and other such arts make use of melody and rhythm” –Aristotle.

Even during times of the greatest height of monarchic dynasties; even in the Court at Versailles under King Louis XIV of France, times when manners were strict but morals were unfortunately loose; musicians plied the trade and often furthered the cause of music...  The music of Windows To Eternity via the worldwide web, and increasingly through live performance, carries the tradition forward with its increasing range of unexpected song entering the fray and at times resisting the direction, of today’s media hype and imagery.

Founding member Kelly McKee was born in the outlying middle-class suburbs of Chicago during August of 1968, a year of social discontent, upheaval, and riots. But, overall he was raised in a good home of racial heritage -influenced adolescence.  However, even circumstances like these can produce many conflicts among the youth and Kelly would learn how to be fighting tough while growing up.  Musical learning and appreciation were also emphasized by Kelly’s father as well as extended family in Wisconsin, and he would spend time absorbing classical music theory by listening with a bust of Ludwig van Beethoven perched atop Bozak speakers, thus growing an interest in musical composing.

Much later part of Kelly’s family would end up moving far out west to Reno, Nevada to live near the Sierra Nevada Mountains. At around age 19 he began picking up guitar, playing at night in a glass-enclosed auto service station where he worked, and where a fellow co-worker was a first guitar teacher. This experience had built upon earlier music lessons on recorder, piano, and violin. From there, self-teaching took over as he found the ultimate musical instrument for self-expression, and mastery soon started to develop thereafter. Musical inspiration was found in the great scenic mountains all around.

After working in myriad labor jobs, including one in manufacturing in which he would come out covered in black soot at the end of swing shift, Kelly would return to college in 1995. Rather than letting music blend over into his college studies, he began majoring in math and science and would eventually earn an Engineering Physics diploma. He specialized in optical engineering, fulfilling a lifelong quest. After that, he was recruited to work in the defense industry in the area of high-energy lasers development. All-in-all, he would accumulate fifteen years engineering experience and remains interested in the field today.

But musical inspiration remained constant throughout those years of efforts. In fact, the compositions "I'll Never Be Your Automaton" and "Statue Courtyard", in the form of basic guitar recordings and essays about the music, were turned in for creative final writing credit in a history course, to pass!

One thing that demarcates Kelly and shows through in his songwriting centers around observation of his own cultural times. According to Kelly: "Rather than being divorced from the past, my generation didn't like being force-fed culture.." His music also displays good comprehension of the history of peoples from across the earth, and quite expertly has made use of culture -based tonality in composition.

This is the case in the acoustic 'Centurion's Outpost', in which tonality matches an ancient Roman setting. This was accomplished through derivation of a new guitar open tuning, E-Ab-Db-G-Bb-D, that either was unknown before or more likely was extremely rarely ever used in guitar history; and required invention of new chord patterns in order to transpose progressions in the theoretical score to fit the neck of the instrument.

Then there's 'Statue Courtyard', in which there are Prokofiev -influenced dissonance scenes artfully constructed to give a foreground-background sound between two guitars, for great depth and realism. The complexity of the recording is successful in representing a system in overthrow, almost in a film noir stylistic form.

Stressed throughout is real instrument recorded in real time, with apparently much less dependency placed upon sequenced and sampled instruments. Although it is an emerging world unto itself, the work shows artificial instrument can never fully replace the immediacy, detailed sound, or self-disciplined impact of real instrument mastery and tone.

Album one You're Lost has surpassed nearly all other entries in rock/metal music in poignancy and growing relevancy, with parallel themes and subjects that underlie the political science topics of the times.

Looking ahead to 2025 and beyond; the music of Windows To Eternity will now have the support of fully developed and completed studio environs. Says Kelly: "They are being used to conclude Album No. 2: Dark Day Of The Arena in high fashion, and make the way for embarking on new musical journeys with great variety in recorded stereoscopic tone, never available before". Stay tuned--

Vive le Musique !


Copyright August 2024, KM Productions.

Into The Night; a song that references the eternal struggle between Good and Evil within religion, and that asks the question “How can we hold on to our morals in these new times?”.

Turn Of The Century

Tiger Tiger was added to the song list, and all three songs were improved in bit rate for better sound quality. Tiger Tiger was one of my most unorthodox pieces to date. It also, I have hope, helps to raise awareness of imperilled species..