Now Music in New Albion: October 2022

Saturday, October 29, 2022

Playlist

Preface

"Sol thro' white curtains shot a tim'rous ray,
And oped those eyes that must eclipse the day:
Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake,
And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake:"

Alexander Pope - "The Rape of the Lock"

Texts

Recorded

October 23, 2022

Banned Telepath 89 Dungeness - Jennifer Chung [July 2, 2022]

a bell in the wind

Pakington's Pownde, Fvb 178 - Anonymous - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

it can seem to be
a firmly circumscribed universe
of narrow bounds
but
if you know your way around
and are willing to reduce yourself
to the size
of a mere human
it is vast

Sonata in F minor, Kk. 204 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

playful variations
in the intervals of imitation

Wild Man Blues - Louis Armstrong's Hot Seven [from Hot Fives and Sevens]

extends into times
that have an oblique relation
to the prior
established
tempo
but
that couldn't exist
without it
it
is their obliqueness
or obliquity
that makes them
oblique

Trav'lin' All Alone - Billie Holiday [from Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia]

she composes her performance
knowing exactly
what she is saying
and how to stretch time
to give the sense of it
an extra dollop of attitude

Out of Nowhere - Charlie Parker [from The Complete Savoy and Dial Master Takes]

as many notes as are played
it always remains true
to an exquisitely
slow
steadiness

October 24, 2022

Deception - Miles Davis [from The Birth of the Cool]

we are shown around
and introduced to the team
by trumpet

the trombone
is the only actual solo type solo
and brief

Darn That Dream - Bill Evans, Jim Hall [from Undercurrent]

melody comes
with a body position
within the harmony
which
enables recognizability
and establishes
a moment of reference
to make
a dance
around

Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar) - The Doors [from The Doors]

a drinking song
clearly
the Young Fresh Fellows
had heard this
dark comic number
to lighten the clubmosphere
but
goes all Weimar decadent

Down On Me - Big Brother and the Holding Company [from Janis Joplin In Concert]

blues
as a tense negotiation
between voice and guitar
cage match

Sirius (End) - Karlheinz Stockhausen - Karlheinz Stockhausen, Markus Stockhausen, Annette Merriweather, Suzanne Stephens, Boris Carmeli

noodling is noodling
even if there may be a system
behind it

in Kontakte
the transformations of sounds
are composed
while we listen
here
if they existed
they were composed with
as a way of dispensing with them
the transformational system
is not the image
of what we hear
but
has been discarded
in favor of stand-ins
bare assertions
of meaning
don't confer meaning
cardboard cutouts
representing
cardboard cutouts
what is low
about a low voice
if they're from outer space
why do they have our mythology?

Delirious - Prince [from 1999]

some portions of the vocal
are a single track
many are not
it begs analysis
as to how
the variations of vocal projection
map
onto the verbal text's
rhetorical trajectory

October 25, 2022

Banned Telepath 12 San Diego - Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [June 24, 1987]

Anna sings chapter one
Neal yawns and putters and tones
a dog barks in the distance

the mics are in separate rooms
reticence extreme

Neal is toning a tone
Anna talks about singing
a bird twirps

Neal strives to pass
a primitive tone
a place to start
a stance
upon which to build
one can find said ground
and build
or
one can find a likely spot
and start digging
the difference
is not trivial to discern
a matter of faith
that
the musically lame sessions
are
nevertheless
worthwhile
as activities
even if
not reflected upon

part of our collective experience
as a band
in the condition of our 1980s
transcoastal and transcontinental dispersion
simply to keep going
is important to our history
part of our personal mythology

we reproduce what we hear
or have heard

separating each of us
into our individual space
eliminates the possibility
that those reproductions might interact
and influence each other

but one must have a place to stand
Neal's talking about critters
starts to rhyme things in his head
critters critters all around
take us down into the town
cricket chirps off
at the end of things
then drives away
a glass of water
is poured
and out

With Every Wish - Bruce Springsteen [from Human Touch]

a personal legend
is always a lesson

there comes a curse

an unusual orchestration
for Bruce
far more geared to focus
on the sense and sensibilities
of the tale he's telling

Saturday, October 22, 2022

Playlist

Preface

"Aeneas drank in this reminder of his savage
grief. Ablaze with rage, awful in anger, he cried,
'Should I let you slip away, wearing what you
tore from one I loved? Pallas sacrifices
you, Pallas punishes your profane blood' - and,
seething, planted his sword in that hostile heart.
Turnus' knees buckled with chill. His soul fled
with a groan of protest to the shades below."

Vergil - "The Aeneid" (translated by Shadi Bartsch)

Texts

Live

October 20, 2022

Tom Swafford and Friends

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Tom Swafford, Vanessa Skantze, Greg Campbell, Jim Knodle, Jesse Canterbury, Eveline Müller

Tom:
dig in it
soar o'er
twirly song
scratch hatch

Tom and Vanessa:
in the dark
make still sound
delicate balance
movement terrible
to move
face and hands
convulse
invulse
revulse
holy horrible
whirling omnivulsion
somehow
joy release

Tom, Greg, Jim, Jesse, and Eveline:
lights wander on
around the neighborhood
mutual incitement
ritual reticence
which lights where
from nowhere
what happens
a wind is coming
poppy doing
pip pop
space finds these
in corners of conceptions
room to breathe
ad hoc
underground channels
party in the back

A most excellent evening of astonishing sound and dance

Recorded

October 16, 2022

New World Symphony, Largo (excerpt) - Antonín Dvořák [from 100 Greatest Classics]

aspects of the opening
map on to the opening
of Also Sprach Zarathustra
crescendo to sunburst
this recording fades out
before the middle section

Skew - Elliott Sharp - The New York Composer's Orchestra [from First Program in Standard Time]

factory floor
machinery working
in good order
if all the sounds
should happen
to ever
exactly
coincide
the whole contraption
would shatter

now we're in the quieter-sounds lab
developing new ways to fuzz us up

Interlude: Full / What About - Janet Jackson [from The Velvet Rope]

left right play
conversation
from zero-sum sides

Banned Rehearsal 639 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith ‪Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [July 5, 2002]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 639 020705

the trick is this
each composes
(in so-called real time)
their part
so that
it transforms the compositions of the others
intertransmingling formations
Zarathustra reduced
to a slow cymbal ssshinggg
tops out at mezzo piano
again with the ssshinggg thing
anybody can step everybody
into the next room
with them
which
is no motion
and now
for the next motion
which is no motion
at all
as it turns out
but
with a new drum
and another new drum
in for the cornet
tambourine should kick some life into this outfit
but we drift off slowly
to the rattle
of an african rattle
we've moved on
back soon

||
bakake
a convention within the patterning of letters
to mark the pronunciation of the syllable

||
at what juncture
did we slip into snoreland

October 17, 2022

Trying to Reach You - The Hope [from In The Deep]

the melody's rhetoric
echoes
the rhetoric of the stanzas
several lines
of an identical figure
set
several lines
of statements of activity
followed by
a question
on a new figure
chorus hook announces the stated intent

I Don't Know (Take 1 Raw) - You Mother Should Know [August 20, 2012]

piano and voice
pile on the rhymes
and just-too-long lines
less of a paste-on accent
than in many of these

Flower - ZongYun We - Loadbang [from Quiver]

verbal
but not linguistic
what
of what we say
that isn't words
and that
other instruments can often imitate effectively
verbal gestures
figural gestures
simple to grasp immediately
a feint?

Banned Rehearsal 1053 - Jennifer Chung, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [June 20, 2022]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1053 220618 - 20

not just
to allow
ambient sound
to be music
but
to transform it
requires
that our contributions
be permeable
to like transformation

environmental intimacy

some aspects of an environment's sound
are imprinted upon it
without that agent's listening
to it
air traffic
highway traffic

some aspects
are from within the listening to it
bird song
our efforts

some aspects
are features
that undergird the whole
wind
running water
or rain

we seek the middle ground

some aspects
are architectural
the shape of the ground
and of the billows of air masses

how these affect
the ambience
more globally

Miserara a3 (clarifica me pater) - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

implied times
transform each the others times
into a web of transformed implications of times
as JS Bach often does
with keys
among contrapuntal voices

Sonata in E minor, Kk. 203 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

a profusion of articulation points
at further distances than we contemplated
and of diverse species
a regular economy of articulation points

Willie the Weeper - Louis Armstrong's Hot Seven [from Hot Fives & Sevens]

introductory measures
to announce the time to dance
check tuning and tempo
and general agreement
did they record this all on a single microphone?
wow!

Getting Some Fun Out of Life - Billie Holiday [from Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia]

rhyme play lightens the pretense
but also opens up pattern possibilities
that can be composed with
outside of lexical comprehension

My Old Flame - Charlie Parker [from The Complete Savoy and Dial Master Takes]

the intro is a separate music here
as well
though
a bit more extensive
then sax solo
then trumpet solo
toward the end of which
the sax joins quietly
from underneath
and it ends
because things do

Goodnight My Someone - Meredith Wilson [from The Music Man: Original Cast Recording]

a chaste waltz
the dance of romance

Falling In love Again - The Beatles [from First Live Recordings, Volume 2]

and here we are with another chaste waltz were it not for the guitar flat-footing a ponderous and prickly swing

Love O' Love - Nina Simone [from Silk & Soul]

this intro
on piano
has episodes
and the voice joins seamlessly
coming back to it
on piano
clearly
not just an introduction
but a world of potentialities
barely harnessed
by the imperative
to sing the song

The Supermen - David Bowie [from The Man Who Sold The World]

Hollywood-derived "primitive music"
underlying a political speech parody
at least
on one level
within a Tommy-esque
quasi dramatization

Sirius (continued) - Karlheinz Stockhausen - Karlheinz Stockhausen, Markus Stockhausen, Annette Merriweather,Suzanne Stephens, Boris Carmeli

all of these sounds
have collected
at the bottom of the beaker
they all talk over each other
fingers in ears
they all stop
and a wind blows
but they don't stay quiet for long
it is not true
that this is the same throughout
it does have events
but
there are long stretches
of what seem to be a perfunctory filling in
of given time spans
what it is
counts less
than the time it takes
and the inventory of sounds
that are stagnant within it
enduring the reading of an occult treatise
impervious to inquiry
becomes the inverse
of the sum of its parts

O Superman - Laurie Anderson [from Big Science]

I guess it's theme night
I'm trying to understand
what it is about this
I find so distasteful
certainly
its coolersmarterironicer-than-thou insufferabless
is a big part of it
I'm up to the minute
and you never will be
the patina of profundity
on a flat surface
overlying nothing at all

October 18, 2022

Kosály-Meyer 5 - Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [June 15, 1987]

one morning in San Diego
we hear birds in the distance
some traffic
and other occasional sounds
such as
folks shifting in their chairs
some small matters
but mostly birds
peaceful
domestic
then the phone rings
good morning nobody

On A Slow Boat to China - Morgana King [from This Is Always]

out on the briny
with a moon bright and shiny
(Frank Loesser)

the lyrics can't draw attention
to anything like profundity
likewise
with the music
nothing can distract
from the need for them
to fit together
in a seamless synthesis
or to blow up such a synthesis
as a song might be

Explosion! (Japanese) - Shonen Knife [from Brand New Knife]

eschewing cleverness
in favor of
color-block clarity
in patterns
of phrase endings

Tibetan Swing - Bright Sheng - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Scwharz

study in Stravinskyan (Rite of Spring) rhythms
blocks of repeating
in calculated lengths
cinematic local color
more adventurous musically
than any Hollywood composer could afford to be
but
in essence
quite familial to that perspective
I think the word swing
in this context
is ill-advised
misleading

Sputnik Love 04 Mixdown 01 Pine Forest - Keith Eisenbrey [February 20, 2007]

Keith Eisenbrey · Sputnik Love 04 Mixdown01 pine forest 070220

Pine Forest
refers to an acoustic mirror
in the audio software I underuse
but enjoy playing around in
essentially
it filters the signal
through a reverberation profile
derived from a sample
made in a particular location
(here: a pine forest)
I am the beetles
munching away unseen

External Rhyme - Triptet [from Figure in the Carpet]

laser drilling in
down the past streets' layers
metamorphed folds
pressure hardened
best wear eye protection
get lost in there
lose your lase
and you're toast

Banned Rehearsal 934 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 8, 2017]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 934 170508

a certain amount of applied pressure
is applied
certain enough
to keep it awake

if progress
is a euphemism
for
the sequential mis-understanding
of one's predecessors
then
return to ancient wisdom
is a fool's errand
as
success would only mean
the arrival
at another's misunderstandings

it may be nearly asleep now
so lighten up its journey
so as
not to abrade
over the rough stretch
Anchorage enters
as a sudden dream breeze
down in the undergrowth
and at creekbed
in the slime
we have wandered
into the space of rooms
and distant rooms
do not resist ones own transformation
within the greater music box
we keep the lesser
as a mascot

Hölluþula - Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir, Halla Lovísa Loftsdóttir [from Strengur]

shivering concentration
enclosed in cold
a surface that extends downward
inside

October 19, 2022

Miserera a4, Fvb 177 - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

first phrase
a multidimensional lattice
that starts in its middle
having no other surface
besides its cadence
which
only anchors it
in place
within any
continuation

Riverboat Shuffle - Hoagy Carmichael, Bix Beiderbecke, Bill Rank, Don Murray, Frankie Trumbauer, Ernest 'Red' Ingle, Itzy Riskin, Eddie Lang, Chaunsey Morehouse [from Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz]

solos pop out of Laugh-in windows
directed by the high-hat laugh punctuator

Wild and Reckless Hobo - Bill Baker and Bob Miller's Hinky Dinkers [from Evans 78s]

song
as popular journalism
voices of American types
lightly drawn
caricatures
lots of old freight train whistle in this one

I Thought About You - Nellie Lutcher [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

on a train
in a lane
when I pulled down the shade
looked out the crack
down the track
sharp accents on piano
comfort class style
minus a smile
a series of clever rhymes
within a conceit
matches the homogeneous flow
of chords in their changes

You're Just In Love - Sarah Vaughan, Billie Eckstein [from the Irving Berlin Song Book]

quodlibet duet
demonstrates
that the chorus and verse
are the same size
with different tones
matching
line for line
and rhyme for rhyme

China Gates - Sun Ra [from The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra]

we were obsessed with China
still are
then
it was the exotic past of it
and the opium dens
of pre-revolution
a place of mystery
and sensualism
all is to be exploited
as blatantly
as caricature will allow

Chain of Fools - Aretha Franklin [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

complaint blues
with chorus
structured like a sermon
pitched to a crowd

October 20, 2022

You've Got A Friend - Michael Jackson [from Got To Be There]

yet another redo
of Hey Jude
and Bridge Over Troubled Water
the string part
sounds like it was written by a keyboard player
doesn't rely on anything native to violins
beyond the timbre
all the imperfections of individuality
buffed out

This Town - The Rumour [from Max]

what a band sounds like
if
all intensities
are turned down to three

Cryin' But My Tears Are Far Away - The Knitters [from Poor Little Critter On The Road]

another trope
I look happy
but I'm blue
outing one's own ironic stance
toward one's self
as seen

Piano Concerto #1, First Movement, Excerpt - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky [from 100 Greatest Classics]

tune bird is born
how glorious
although I must admit
I heard a wicked performance of one of these
ages ago
with SSO
and Cherkassky
playing like a thug

Saint Behind The Glass - Los Lobos [from Kiko]

a lullaby to oneself

Lamb of God - Keith Eisenbrey - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle, November 6, 2004]

an early
mod 17
17-tone
piece
no fancy row form play
just treating the row as a melody
to explore the lopsided pitch space
that mod-17 creates

thinly recorded
but Karen sang it well

Up The River - Rachel Harrington [from The Bootlegger's Daughter]

porch sitting tempo
tale of a gone wrong soul
a grating dissonance
lovingly emphasized

I Don't Know (Take 2 Raw) - Your Mother Should Know [August 2, 2012]

with a start-over and another
I think this was recorded on the Chickering
rather than on the Kingsbury

Song 2 - Sarah Pasillas [recorded live at The Victory Lounge, Seattle, April 27, 2017]

a she-minstrel in the wild
protected from the dangerous grounds
by a guitar
and a voice
and open vulnerability

Postscripts

Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery

some listening journal doodles from 1990

Saturday, October 15, 2022

Playlist

Preface

"If any dispassionate spectator could have beheld the countenance of the illustrious man, whose name forms the leading feature of the title of this work, during the latter part of this conversation, he would have been almost induced to wonder that the indignant fire which flashed from his eyes did not melt the glasses of his spectacles - so majestic was his wrath. His nostrils dilated, and his fists clenched involuntarily, as he heard himself addressed by the villain. But he restrained himself again - he did not pulverise him.

'Here,' continued the hardened traitor, tossing the licence at Mr. Pickwick's feet; 'get the name altered - take home the lady - do for Tuppy.'

Mr. Pickwick was a philosopher, but philosophers are only men in armour, after all. The shaft had reached him, penetrated through his philosophical harness to his very heart. In the frenzy of his rage, he hurled the inkstand madly forward, and followed it up himself. But Mr. Jingle had disappeared, and he found himself caught in the arms of Sam.

'Hallo,' said that eccentric functionary, 'furniter's cheap where you come from sir. Self-acting ink, that 'ere; it's wrote your mark upon the wall, old gen'lm'n. Hold still sir; wot's the use o' runnin' arter a man as has made his lucky, and got to t' other end of the Borough by this time.'"

Charles Dickens - "The Posthumous Papers of The Pickwick Club"

Texts

Recorded

October 9, 2022

Assembly Rechoired 30 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey

Keith Eisenbrey · Assembly Rechoired 30 870613

a rodeo's sounds
from the stands

I stood up
as it had
actually
been my first rodeo

the rodeo royalty tour
they have all the credits at the beginning of the show

we get a drill team performance
as narrated
one imagines that the fun of the activity of engaging in a drill team
on horses
if I heard correctly
is the community and the corporate discipline
a bit like choir
it sounds like the sound-track
for the drill team
consists of antebellum sentimental songs
Look Away Dixie Land for instance

now some bareback riding
they're supposed to stay on for eight seconds
a horse named Shadow Caster
sounds like an electric guitar

cross and tie any three feet
fresh dogies
calf roping
then barrel racing

bulldogged a calf

Adagio for Strings - Samuel Barber - English String Orchestra, William Boughton [from Music for a Quiet Evening]

an appropriate mood
for the body corporate
to contemplate
the enormity of the horror
we have wrought
so that
we can be confident
we have thought
the proper thoughts
and felt
the proper feels
under the properly cordoned-off circumstances
under the properly polite auspices

I'm Afraid of Americans - David Bowie [from Earthling]

music and lyrics each cling to a narrow ledge

Waitin' On A Sunny Day - Bruce Springsteen [from The Rising]

a modulation in this music
comes across
more like
a new
wholesale
chord-change-chord-area
exactly like the other
but goosed
to articulate different stanzas of the lyrics

October 10, 2022

Sputnik Love 04 Mixdown 01 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 20, 2007]

shuffled access memory texture
continuous shuffling of sounds
from a limited set of source signals the
more varied the original source(s)
the more identifiable sounds there are
within the texture
and the further out one need be listening
to experience it
as a single texture

Pretty Hurts - Beyoncé [from Beyoncé]

so much production
it obscures the merits
of any one through-performance
that might be or have been
a part of this
the performance we hear
is manufactured of parts
exploited from a set of performances
de-personalized

Banned Telepath 51 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosály-Meyer

this may have been Excelsior's debut
the toy accordion is a bit of a windbag
wheezing a harmony into the room
Excelsior is more subtle

the mice gnaw in the corners
we deflate
and open up the sound

quiet doings
drifting toward a sleeping state

Improbable Ensemble 1 - Sascia Pellegrini [from 4 Improbable Ensembles]

has a texture
see above
but also
an image of various intentions
that cooperate fitfully
taking advantage of distracting pokes
to press and prod

what is this music's attitude toward me?
not indifference
inquisitive
testing
examining
from a combination of positions
and with
various combinations of instruments

October 12, 2022

Pavana and Galliarda, Fvb 175 - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

to make the whole beautiful
each individual must be made alike as beautiful
grace is a balance of graces

Sonata in B-flat Major, Kk. 202 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

clever delights beguile
and lead astray
and we thought we knew her ways so well
but now we have become inextricable

Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb - Da Costa Woltz's Southern Broadcasters [from Goodbye Babylon]

no effort spared
to make anything as spare and raw
as a clear statement
supported
and set off
by a constant background
in a differently detailed texture
of background

plain speaking

Who Wants Love? - Billie Holiday [from Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia]

draws the line of melody to the end
from the start
without misstep

tag ending
name of song

Scrapple from Apple - Charlie Parker [from The Complete Savoy and Dial Master Takes]

scribbles of firm intent
and direction
and flow
knows where it's headed
you don't

You Win Again (fast version) - Jerry Lee Lewis [from Rare and Rockin']

sings it lightly
as to projected sincerity
believe him
young woman
at your peril

Be-Bop-A-Lula - The Beatles [from First Live Recordings Volume 1]

keep it reckless
Liverpudlians imitating rock-a-billians
in Berlin

I Stand Rejected - Bob Brady [a Rescued Record]

making a living
in a narrow range of falsetto

My My She Cries - Carole King [from Rhymes & Reasons]

the engineer keeps making the piano move away
or toward us
its sound is thin and brittle
a shame really
as some care was taken in the song-writing

Favorite Jazz Artists - Conlon Nancarrow, Charles Amirkhanian [from Conlon Nancarrow Speaks with Charles Amirkhanian]

Father Heinz (?), Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith

Ballad of a Thin Man - Bob Dylan [from Before The Flood]

preacher man
right in your face
finger pointed
at your chest
pushing for a fight

In Session at the Tintinabulary

October 10, 2022

Banned Rehearsal 1061 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Marta K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1061 221010

Karen, Aaron, and I masked up and braved our first session together in the studio since the start of the Pandemic. Neal, Anna, and Marta called from Outpost Howth.

Postscripts

Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery

some listening journal doodles from 1990

Saturday, October 8, 2022

Playlist

Preface

"In the Borough especially, there still remain some half dozen old inns, which have preserved their external features unchanged, and which have escaped alike the rage for public improvement, and the encroachments of private speculation. Great, rambling, queer, old places they are, with galleries, and passages, and stair-cases, wide enough, and antiquated enough, to furnish materials for a hundred ghost stories, supposing we should ever be reduced to the lamentable necessity of inventing any, and that the world should exist long enough to exhaust the innumerable veracious legends connected with old London Bridge, and its adjacent neighbourhood on the Surrey side."

Charles Dickens - "The Posthumous Papers of The Pickwick Club"

Texts

Streaming

October 2, 2022

Early Music Seattle - Seattle Baroque Orchestra - Silenced Voices

Alexander Weimann, Tekla Cunningham, Katy Ambrose, Burke Anderson, Christine Wilkinson Beckman, Matthew Hudgens, Courtney Kuroda, Todd Larsen, Anna Okada, Kristin Olson, Elisabeth Reed, Lindsey Strand-Polyak

Sinfonia in C-major - Marianne Anna Katharina von Martinez

Sonata in G-major, op. 2/1 - Cecilia Maria Barthélemon

Overture to ‘Trionfo della Fedeltà - Maria Antonia Walpurgis

Grande Fantasia with 6 Variations, op. 10 - Amélie-Julie Candeille

Concerto for violin in A-major, op. 3/3 - Maddalena Laura Sirmen

This was a wonderfully played concert of excellent music by late 18th and early 19th Century composers who were each and all new to me. I really want to get a good look inside Herr Wiemann's fortepiano to see how the damper mechanism works.

Recorded

October 2, 2022

Pavana and Galliarda, Fvb 170 and 171 - Thomas Morley - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

that compound meter rhythm
of dotted half, quarter, half
not only consists of three distinctly lengthy durations
but also
has embedded within it the seed of a slower simple meter in two

Sonata in G Major, Kk. 201 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

the same music but now from the far side
then pulled tighter
wind it up and it dances busily

John Brown's Dream - DaCosta Woltz [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

square dance calling to banjo and fiddle
game master pre-D&D

Without Your Love (take 1) - Billie Holiday [from Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia]

a lyrical clause that can be placed in new setting
among new words that act upon it
and placements within the chordal structure
and rhyme patterns
in that sense
a cyclic chord change such as jazz constructs verses of
is really just part of the rhyme scheme and operates thusly

Klacto-veeseeds-tene - Charlie Parker [from The Complete Savoy and Dial Master Takes]

which works pretty well as an expounding of how this music functions the way it does
it is a music of chord rhymes
and chords being chords and not words in a human language
a composer can be quite clever with them

More Than You Know - Blossom Dearie [from Blossom Dearie]

and which procedure can include quite sophisticated melodic glosses
in profusion of polyphony
just piano, electric guitar, bass, and drums on this one
a chord in this music is a sound with many faces

Paulsby - Stevie Wonder [from The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie]

like as if for a hot scene
of dance clubs
and doing shots

Getting Better - The Beatles [from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band]

the backing vocals provide ironic commentary
tells the truth over the Eastern sounding instrumental
then proceeds as before
with magical mantra thinking

October 3, 2022

Memory of a Free Festival - David Bowie [from Space Oddity]

as annoying as the announcement at the opening is to me
its ostentatiously modest pretension
somehow deflates what would otherwise be the hyperidealistic imagery that follows
could be an interesting foil to Don McLean's American Pie
I end up enjoying this song quite a lot in spite of myself

By This River - Brian Eno [from Before and After Science]

in cadential tonality
Fuxian voice leading is essential
to hold the balance of vertical and horizontal pitch sets in conversation
this music operates differently
in that
the sense of verticality
is independent of the horizontal
more or less automatically
almost categorically

Hong Kong - Screamin' Jay Hawkins [from Frenzy]

generously
just working with the sounds he heard
but uncomfortably
racist in the way that any caricature of ethnicity is

The Swan of Tuonela - Jean Sibelius [from 100 Greatest Classics]

is that the conductor moaning along
ick ick ick
settle down we'll be in this mood for a while

The Big Muddy - Bruce Springsteen [from Lucky Town]

working class rocker desperately seeking a rootsier roots
at least he doesn't try to goose it into an arena anthem
he just sings it straight within the static sound
lets the song be the song

Interlude: On Line / Empty - Janet Jackson [from The Velvet Rope]

for radio play
the various interludes and songs are separate tracks
in 70s prog
they would not be
but they seem to function much the same way
or
they are properly a part of a different origin story
coming from the dance hall DJs scene

Gradus 19 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [June 25, 2002]

duration
from within the endurance of it
is the time perceived as having elapsed
since a moment that occurred
from outside the endurance of it
it is the memory of having endured a span of time
terminated at some other moment
outside of that endurance
any moment can host many durations
while enduring
we can follow the sound
as it engenders a room in the room

Insomnia Can Kill You - Peter Fedofsky [from The City of Good Neighbors]

an internal dialog couched as advice to a self

Side by Side - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at The Comet Tavern, Seattle, July 29, 2012]

there is something perverse to me
in trying to say something in such a manner
that it can't be grasped
from within the social milieu
into which it is voiced

Song 2 - Strange Like Us [recorded live at the Sunset Tavern, Seattle, April 18, 2017]

a song about sexual harassment
per what they announced
but the presentation
as energetic as it is
loses any sense of being about anything
other than being a particular sort of energetic
it is probably easier to understand on a studio recording
but surely
punk of all things
is a live music genre first

Banned Telepath 88 Union Bay - Jennifer Chung [June 18, 2022]

birds up close
and motors down far
some passersby
proximities of sounds
a jet's sound twists as it passes through the masses of air to earth
a runnerby hoofing by
a talkerby talking by
a flicker hammers short periods of pounds

The Queens Alman, Fvb 172 - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

notes packed more wallop back then
or were allowed to
in intimate conversation

Mama You Don't Know How Long - Long Cleve Reed and the Downhome Boys [from Allen Lowe's Really the Blues]

play it boys while I sing it
the accompaniment shifts with the telling
reverts to a default vamp when the vocal breathes
comes back out into its own while the vocal sings

When They Ring the Golden Bells - Arthur Cornwall [from Evans 78s]

sacred drinking songs for weepy drunks

And That's for Sure - Allen Eager [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

hot cool

Tadd's Delight (alternate take) - Miles Davis [from 'Round About Midnight]

the accentuation of the syncopation instructs a meter upon the meter

Rough Lover - Aretha Franklin [from The Electrifying Aretha Franklin]

another version of Julie Brown's I Like 'Em Big and Stupid

Prelude in F Major - Lockrem Johnson - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded September 30, 2022]

that'll work

October 4, 2022

We're All Water - John Lennon and Yoko Ono [from Some Time In New York City]

hippie profundity
a pronouncement over a beat
an excuse to shred
since there's really nothing left to do but spew

I Fought The Law - The Clash [from The Clash]

the old song with the volume turned up
doesn't otherwise transform the song into a new experience
if anything it loses sharpness

Life - Flipper [from Generic]

bass line on the open strings
loose on the bridge
80s profundity is an ironic critique of hippie profundity

Assembly Rechoired 29 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [June 11, 1987]

Keith Eisenbrey · Assembly Rechoired 29 870611

this may have been the Bickleton trip wherein we retrieved Karen's drumset
there we were
and there it most certainly is
as well as some little plucker
either Marilyn's mini-guitar
or a ukulele
it seems to have more oomph than a uke
nope
it's a violin
we must have brought it along
unless I'm completely bonkers
and we were back in Seattle by then
but
we would have been in Bickleton for the picnic
which would be near Flag Day
which all fits together

improv tip:
it's OK to dink around on something until it becomes a sound
getting it right away is not required

Karen has moved to guitar for a moment
we explore the quiet sounds

another:
even when you've found a good one
its OK to try something else
exploration trumps performance

I have moved to the drums
and Karen remains on guitar
an acoustic
and that organ they had is activated
that confirms the location as Bickleton
after we get the ballgame out of our systems we disintegrate

Criminals - T. Bone Burnett [from The Criminal Under My Own Hat]

interesting
he assumes they're all men
he's preachy
but he should at least be inclusive
the problem with didactic lyrics
is that they are so often just poorly written and clumsy
he's no Charles Wesley that's for certain

One Week - Shonen Knife [from Brand New Knife]

an extreme Western
this is much better writing
and a much stronger song than some of their others
saying
oneweekoneweekoneweekoneweekoneweekoneweek
over and over
until it becomes quacking

The President Is Not to Blame - The Humidiflyers [from The Humidiflyers Fall 2002]

a mood moment

Sputnik Love 04 Mixdown 01 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 20, 2007]

a lively texture of bloops beeps and scratches
a synoptic analysis of the original sample
synaudic?

Lend Me An Ear - O-Face [from Shrug Life]

another McAbee cousin of mine was in this band
second cousin once removed
that is
one set of my great grandparents
was the same
as one set of his great-great-grandparents
{it occurs to me that my kids and I would also fit this definition
so:
but sharing no other more direct familial relationship
per stirpes}

Banned Telepath 55 Anchorage - Aaron Keyt [May 8, 2017]

a wind roaring that's it then
Aaron almost says something

Blue Cloud - Doug Haire [from Western Stoner]

winch hoisting something
or a chain hoist winching something
three minutes dense with sound

October 5, 2022

A Medley, Fvb 173 - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

the opening chord is repeated twice within the first moments
each iteration indexing a new rhythmic/metrical fulcrum

Woke Up With The Blues In My Fingers - Lonnie Johnson [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

and so they play the blues
both parts
they may have the blues in them
but they play pretty sweet

While We Dance Til Dawn - Joe Green's Vibraphone Dance Orchestra [from Evans 78s]

from that sentimental americana that persisted through to Lawrence Welk and company
entertainment for sensitive tummies

Laura - Sidney Bechet [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

crooning for all he's worth
quite the strident vibrato
it would be interesting to sample that
and overlay it
with a sample of Bonnie Guitar's country alto vibrato
now for the dance
and we'll finish up on an operatic high

Funny (But I Still I Love You) - Ray Charles [from Ray Charles]

the guitar player comments from within the keyboard figures
like an eloquent elbow

Gospel Plow - Bob Dylan [from Bob Dylan]

trying out all the musics he had heard
he seems more interested
I think
in the ways of doing songs
than in what those songs might be within their native milieus

Sweet Maria - The Billy Vaughn Singers [a Rescued Record]