Playlist

Recorded

August 5, 2017
Gambler's Dream - Hociel Thomas [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Hociel Thomas

The measured trill that opens this slows, as though feeling the resistance of muscle and tendon. A truly amazing pronunciation of "Ruin", with a complex diphthong and an extra R sound, almost like "rühren".

All The Things You Are - Hampton Hawes [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

A tip of the hat to Art "now-which-song-was-I-playing-anyway" Tatum. Probably up there on Cecil Taylor's playlist as well.

Brown Eyed Handsome Man - Chuck Berry [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

Just how many complete short stories can be told in 2 minutes 30, with no hurry?

Visage - Luciano Berio

The body's struggle to speak, tell, mean, sing. After each "parole" a variety of laughter, separating lexicon from unconscious response. Classic analog synth sounds bring warm feelings to my heart.



Obviously 5 Believers - Bob Dylan [from Blonde on Blonde]

This is what I wrote in my journal though I'm not sure now what I meant: "deflection use is reflection use :: a trick, but he writes so well as a voice."

Seamus - Pink Floyd [from Meddle]

Impeccably recorded swamp blues with full on virtuoso hound solo. Riffing on The Beatles' Hey Bulldog perhaps.

Heartless - Heart [from Greatest Hits]

These folks like analog synth as much as Berio did. Ann's voice powers up in unexpected corners of her range.

Manhasset - University of Washington Contemporary Group Improvisation Ensemble

Recorded live at Brechemin Hall, University of Washington, School of Music, as part of Neal's recital on May 22, 1981. As I was listening our smoke alarm went off (something baking) as an outside surprise that worked well inside what we were doing.

August 8, 2017
Guess I'm Falling In Love - The Velvet Underground [from Another View]

Yet another stranded instrumental track.

Banned Rehearsal 250 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [March 1991]

Picks up in mid-scribble. Overdriven jingle bells. Tape, and it was tape then, is an object upon which to inscribe sounds, getting as many on there as possible, outcome as a music not so important as chucking it all in there so that any moment might flame. Waddayaknow! Bob Priest, on the radio, gets into Banned Rehearsal history. We do not hold the niceties of sound engineering in regard at all.

Sonic Brilliance 17 -Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Holden K, Neal Kosály-Meyer, Kia M [June 1996]

In which it is demonstrated once again that the ability to speak can become an attractive nuisance.

August 10, 2017
Banned Rehearsal 612 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Isabel K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 2001]

I was working on a piece that, by this time, was known as "Work Architecture Unity And The",

hoping that it would be a thing that the banned could play as an ensemble. This was a go at one version of it in which I had stipulated categories of sounds to be piled on top of the scraps I had composed for solo piano. At the time I ended up being frustrated that the sense of spacious time I had envisioned as the distinguishing feature seemed to be unreachable as a group project. Looking back on it now, I probably should have let the collaboration run its course and see what happened. Each scrap/soundglob, though misbalanced, was quite nice.

Birthday - The Shackles [from The Funhouse Comp Thing]

Mildly amusing in a sophomoric way.

The Memory of All That - Benjamin Boretz - Karen Eisenbrey, voice; Keith Eisenbrey, piano

Early in 2011 Ben emailed this score to us - a memorial to Milton Babbitt based on Donne's "Death Be Not Proud" - hoping that we could quickly manage a recording for a symposium he was attending in February. I'm usually up early so I woke Karen with the news that Ben had sent us a song that would ruin our marriage. It didn't, though it was a struggle for both of us to learn it so quickly. We ended up recording it one page at a time, stitching it together later. The balance is horrible (I only had one good mic), I couldn't get the quick bits quiet enough, and the vocal part is at the absolute bottom of Karen's range, but the recording still gets much right on - notably the fraught struggle to leap half-steps in the first few pages. Never did such narrow intervals seem so impossible a venture, like passage to the moon, irreversible.

If I'd Been Born In Another Place - Denise Glover [from Pathways]

A loving toast to how it turned out, with string band balanced to perfection.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

August 7, 2017
Gradus 317 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

A path not taken: Retro-Gradus (start with all the notes.)