"Star" is a dedication to a small puppy dog from a friend of mine who was part of a litter of eight. "Star" was smaller than the rest and unfortunately didn't survive. Any unfulfilled live is hard to accept as is any premature loss of live.

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"Star" is also a piece of music to commemorate the uncountable number of animals lost in the bush fires in Australia.

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The piece originally started as an idea for a ballad and was intended for vocals. As it was a while ago I did a real "proggy" piece (Epic was the last one) I decided to give myself a prog challenge: except in the first part no further parts could repeat it self so the whole piece became like a journey. Then my friend lost the puppy while trying to save her and I thought it to be appropriate to dedicate this piece to little puppy "Star" and in general to the suffering and fight for survival of animals. 

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The whole piece takes nine minutes and takes the listener through various moods and scenes. The overall mood and tone is quite dark and dissonant at times. I used all three guitars in order to include very different sounds. As dedicated Long Tall J fans know I like to fuse styles and you will find a small part in "Star" that might remind you of the sound of King Crimson while some other parts in the first episode breathe the atmosphere of some of the solo work of Steve Hackett. 

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The phone episode at the very end shows the "helplessness" when animals are overpowered by events like the bush fires in Australia. It also shows how helpless and upset we can feel when caring deeply for an animal and unfortunately losing the fight to save it.

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The whole project took a lot of time to make. Some guitars were doubled or tripled and there is one guitar melody that I expanded to five tracks in order to get the really spacious sound that I was looking for.