Now Music in New Albion: 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

more like this one Bruce

Law - David Bowie [from Earthling]

dystopian dance
if the music
within the industry of music
has become
what one had had a hand in creating
can one
reflect
critically
upon it
from
within it

a repeated slogan
tends to detach
from its lexical content

Track 3 - The Humidiflyers [from Late Fall 2002 Unfinished Sketches]

this just in
across the radio
nothin' changing
but the year

I was in my 40s
when I heard these guys
now they're all
easily
as old as I was then

Nocturnes or Discourses (Yamaha) - Keith Eisenbrey [February 22, 2007]

Keith Eisenbrey · Nocturnes or Discourses Yamaha

Nocturnes or Discourses
was an older (1993) project
by the time I made this recording

based on the idea that
a score is a stimulus
I surmised that
any stimulus to creative activity
could be a score
if
any stimulus
could be
then
what about
some particular stretch
of nothing
so
I recorded a span of nothing
and improvised to the playback
as though
it were an audio score
I then
played back that improvisation
as the score
to the next span
and continued thus
until I had about 45 minutes of sound
I then
layered each score
upon its interpretation
for the final piece
a bit like a loop
but several minutes long
and not in a continuous process

in 2007
I was preparing to swap my Yamaha
for a Chickering
so I redid the process
at home
as a way of documenting
its sound
and
what it had taught me

the first version had been recorded late at night
at Brechemin Auditorium
with the technical help
of the recording engineer Tom Stiles

when the Chickering arrived
I made a version on that
and then combined the two
just because
why not

in the original version
I ended up with
a recording of just what I was playing
at one time
and
then
the overdub
at the nine-minute canon
as it were
so
two approximately 45 minute recordings

I don't recall exactly
but this go at it
I made a 20 plus minute recording
then the overdub
and tacked the latter on
at the end of the former
for a 46 minute recording
at least
I think that's what I'm hearing
memory fails

Abducted - Swingset Showdown [from Short Bus Ruckus]

the drummer in this band
worked as a clerk
in our late
and much lamented
neighborhood video store
they
the band under consideration
specialized in comic novelty songs
of a distinctly sophomoric slant

October 26, 2022

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

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 934 170508

comfortable
with the pitches in play
as one might be occupied
in one's own skin
self-observing
undisturbed
the parts of our collective mind
enclosed
a visitation from far-off winds
a bell rings
for the change of times
slow subsidence into sleep

Prelude - Tom Varner [from Sound Vespers]

the tiny is near
the large far

October 27, 2022

The Irish Dumpe, Fvb 179 - Anonymous - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitwilliam Virginal Book]

I gather
a dumpe
was a lament of sorts
as
I suppose
a blues might be
in early 20th Century American vernacular music

Chicago Breakdown - Louis Armstrong's Hot Seven [from Hot Fives and Sevens]

a question arises then
if a dumpe
is a type of lament
what sort of thing
might a breakdown be
a type of a dance perhaps
or a framework
for spinning a music together
such as
a rondo might be
or both
or something else
quick solos
over sparsely orchestrated rhythms
culminating
in a big tutti group hug
a concerto
all mere surmise

Will Rogers - Your Friend, My Friend - Ken Card [from Evans 78s]

a rural hero
enabled by
then
nascent media
radio
movies
syndication

the best friend that man ever had
?

Quejas De Bandoneon- Astor Piazzolla [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

the image of sophistication
smoothly quick transitions
forget the past
be
toward where
we are being pulled

I Get The Blues When It Rains - Judy Garland [from Alone]

Judy's Dumpe

Some Other Time - Stevie Wonder [from The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie]

how to sing straight
without words

the mix is harsh
and biting
an early 60s thing?

Tea For Two - Thelonious Monk [from Standards]

it comes apart
as it's played
pieces of it
drift to the floor
wander into the past
the scene fades

Ship In The Sky - Cisco Houston [from The Greatest Songs of Woody Guthrie]

daddy daddy daddy

Anarchy In The U.K. - Sex Pistols [from Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols]

we once had a cat
whose name was Anarchy
I note
they keep their chords in order pretty well

October 28, 2022

Blue Spark - X [from Under The Big Black Sun]

character study
?
by joining with music
words can lose
or have diminished
our need for them
to make
what sense
they might be required to have
in speech