June 25, 2017
Banned Rehearsal 611 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Isabel K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [July 2001]
Even as it has been recently, my 1981 synclavier piece Aku, then, was upfront in my thinking-about. Here it is again: playing in the background, an articulate teapot whistle, sizzling along with an occasional recorded pronouncement [from my 2001 text piece Confessions of a Polyphonist]. But again, all in the background. Presence and balance. Balancing presence to those present. Bells pick up pitch material or project their pitches into the prerecorded space || of course it's all prerecorded now || teapots and kazoos comment: a group composition discussing the brought in sound on its own terms, double sudden amp feedback.
A Choice of Weapons - The Sermon [from The Funhouse Comp Thing]
Action movie scene: the guy off the street hero being introduced to the weapons cabinet. This is that music, and it's not just the title.
Banned Rehearsal 784 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Isabel K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 2011]
Tinclatsky puppet theater music. Don't know where that word came from, but I wrote it in my journal
June 27, 2017
Suspended - Denise Glover [from Pathways]
The rhythmic sense plays with the difference between mass and weight. The mass is clearly present, everything is affected by it. It wheels in Kubrik-ian grandeur, there is simply no earth to which it is bound.
Die Kunst der Fuge Contrapunctus XI - J. S. Bach - Lionel Rogg
Forward at all moments. Forward within all moments. Dogged. Imperative. The cathedral organ just eats this music up, or is it the other way around?
Quartet in G Major opus 76 #1 Hob. III:75 - Haydn
Nothing is hidden, it is all made plain. Life is rich! Enjoy!
Don't Forget To Mess Around - Louis Armstrong [from Hot Fives & Sevens]
Packed in a poke.
Murmur like bees beneath singing low murmuring hymns, burners lit.
I'll Be Rested (When The Roll Is Called) - Roosevelt Graves and Brother [from Goodbye Babylon]
Just two voices I think, but each so distinctly rich with formants they frequently confound numbering. A shaker. A guitar.
Thermodynamics - Howard McGhee [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
Fleet and light, pedal to the metal just to the moment before entropy might kick in.
Criss-Cross - Thelonius Monk [from Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz]
Ah. Room to breathe! A little english with the hips, airborne.
I Didn't Know What Time It Was - Peggy Lee [from Black Coffee]
The very model of a through-composed performance. She picks you up at the start and plops you down at the end. You have been taken for a ride and never knew it 'til you woke in the ditch.
Running Scared - Roy Orbison [collected from Dave Marsh's Heart of Rock & Soul]
Probably should have studied more how Peggy did it before he tried that trick. He's got a certain amount of power and range, but finesse? Whazzat?
Just Like A Woman - Bob Dylan [from Blonde on Blonde]
Is it just me or does he spend an awful lot of time telling you who you are? Turn the mirror around Bob.
Winterwood - Don McLean [from American Pie]
A pretty voice, but it gets old fast.
Fame - David Bowie [from Changes One]
A cage of rhythm locked down tight, dried vine vocals entwining.
Shine On You Crazy Diamond / Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd [from a collection of great dance songs]
Utterly without hurry :: an aspect of PF that continues to endear.
June 28, 2017
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| Thanks to Steve Kennedy for the images |
Yowl and hiss. Subtle flange (equipment issue) like wind several walls away. Consistently not leisurely. Busy, but unhurried, intent, methodical, keeping at it, focused. Happy to be a fly on the wall even these 30+ years later.
My Home - Infamous Menagerie
Sample hyper-slowed, joined occasionally by drumming. On some edge between a what-happens-if-we-play-along-with-that and a truly weird-ass instrumental you hear the next morning and wonder what you were thinking. My people!
Banned Rehearsal 423 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Holden K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 1996]
Recalibrations and re-collaborations, divergent but mutually visible threads. Wonderful as a struggle, but still a bit of a struggle.
June 29, 2017
Barbara H (cover of Fountains of Wayne song) - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Isabel K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [July 2001]
Put a push-pin here, partway between drop of a hat covers of Wild Thing to full on full on Your Mother Should Know rock and roll.
Two-Part Invention - Gavin Borchert - Keith Eisenbrey
Gavin's piano music somehow seems conscious of itself, or perhaps its voices are conscious both of each other and of their own processes. Old-soul music.
The Way West - Brian Cobb [from Campfire Songs]
. . . is to regiment forward, to prolong the day ever so incrementally. Sun Chaser.
This Little Light of Mine (Autoheterophony) - Keith Eisenbrey
What is the question to ask of this? What itch does it scratch? Cram the familiar together, wad it up tight, press it hard. Hope to find some aspect of it that is elicited only so. In a sense it's like Lucier's I am sitting in a room, except that the room in this case is a space composed of my music ear and the recording device.
In Session at the Tintinabulary
June 26, 2018
Gradus 314 - Neal Kosály-Meyer
I got to thinking about perfect pitch (I don't have it). Even here where the pitches are few (just four pitch-classes to choose from, named up front) I have to calculate what any particular instance is from the nearby intervals. I can't imagine what it might be like to know a pitch by a name directly, instantly (and I allow how I might be (probably am) completely misunderstanding what having it is like). Plus side: I can hear pitches just fine, but I hear them without name, without category, can divvy them up however ad lib.
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