Playlist

Tonight!

 

Recorded

 

April 6, 2014

They Should Have Known - Sgt. Major [from The Funhouse Comp Thing]

Lessons From The Ancestors - Steve Peters

 

A study in the modalities of human vocalization, paned by bells. The whole is gorgeously rendered, but the successive joints (if successive is exactly the right word here) between bell segment and MOHV segment, and from MOHV segment to bell segment, are exquisitely timed and tuned, each flip a revelation in both directions.

 

Mohrentanz - Tielman Susato - David Di Fiore

 

In listening to older music I am often struck by how differently the balance of focus among beat, meter, and phrase is handled from composer to composer, and from century to century. Here they come out almost equal to my ear, with phrase perhaps slyly holding a finger on the scale.

 

Quai fora, donna - Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

 

The textural shifts are as alarming as the harmonic.

 

Konzert in F BWV 1046 - J.S. Bach - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan

 

Bob van Asperen

April 7, 2014

Sonata in C minor Wq. 48 #4 - C.P.E. Bach - Bob van Asperen

 

A hall of parenthetical mirrors, the infra-movement variety of affect looks forward to the Mahlerian world-symphonies.

 

April 8, 2014

Quartet in E-flat Op. 1. #2 - Haydn - Tatrai Quartet

 

This lives in its hinges.

 

Symphony in B-flat K74g - Mozart - Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood

 

But this lives in how firmly it anchors the sense of scale-degree inside the particulars of its melodies.

 

Sonata in G op. 49 #2 - Beethoven - Arthur Schnabel

Symphony in B-flat D.485 - Schubert - Vienna Philharmonic, Karl Münchinger

 

And this, though the finale is phoned in, lives in the highly charged color of its modulatory sequences.

 

In Session at the Tintinabulary

 

easily the best guitar case of the bunch

April 6, 2014

Franciscan 140406 - Keith Eisenbrey

 

 On my mom's 1960's nylon-string guitar (freshly restrung).

 

April 7, 2014

Banned Rehearsal 856 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

 

 

 

 

Upcoming

 

May 2, 2014

Seattle Composers Salon

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle 8pm

 

I will be performing selections from my work in progress Etudes d'execution imminente.

 

June 27, 2014 - 8 PM

Banned Rehearsal Celebrates 30 Years of Noise

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

 

 

 

Playlist

Coming Soon

 

Live

 

April 4, 2014

Music Night Out At Nova

Nova High School, Seattle

 

India Glover

Over There

Bret Mulholland

Rockin' Recorders

Amelia Miller

Aslin Clagg

Street Logic

Your Mother Should Know

DJ Ol' Youngin

Irene Bowen

Role:one

Tellez the Formula

The Neerdowells

Benjamin Verdoes

Sick Of It

 

A talent show in a school cafeteria, but blessed with a pretty good sound system and (miracle of miracles) a singularly attentive and  non-talkative audience. The offerings consisted of a mix of he and she minstrels, several hip-hop and rock and roll acts, and a recorder trio. Student, parents, and teachers all participated, with quality varying from not bad at all to quite fine.

 

Recorded

 

March 30, 2014

Tear the Roof Off The Sucker (Give Up The Funk) - Parliament [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

 

Each recorded part is discrete and untouched by the others. This allows maximum resolution but at the expense of serendipitous mashing of timbre, that little extra that being in the room with others can add. In what is a commendably communal arrangement style, this loss is particularly unfortunate.

 

The Garden of Earthly Delights - Stan Brakhage

 

A short film, less than a minute and a half long - each frame an individually assembled collage of plant parts - leaves erupting into flight.

 

Three Sudden Songs - Neal Kosály-Meyer

 

Song reduced back to the size of an unmediated human person.

 

Lazy - Moe Tucker, Daniel Hutchens, Victor DeLorenzo

The Sentient Insect Variations - Harmonia Forest At Dawn - Pete Comley

 

An oppressive dampness hangs within the fat synth sound. Not a narrative or a lyric reverie or a clockwork, more like a collage of geographies.

 

April 1, 2014

Thrasher's Corner  - Fidelity Grange

 

The structure of verse chorus bridge et cetera is a grid. Harmonic rhythm is a grid. Meter (as understood with the feet) is a grid. String band arrangement is a grid. String necks are grids. Plucking hands are grids. Each grid crosses the other grids, independently, in grids, resulting in a fine-mesh wire-frame fleshed out by resonance. 

 

In Session at the Tintinabulary

 

March 30, 2014

Coronet 140330

Coronet 140330 A - Keith Eisenbrey

 

Several years ago Steve Kennedy loaned me one of his lesser-quality bass-guitars. Soon afterwards, in a feat of clumsiness, I broke the face plate. At some point Neal took it to one of his guitar tech buddies who replaced the face plate with part of an old phonograph record from the Coronet label. I have no idea what actual brand the bass is, so it will be the Coronet. These two improvisations are the same session, but the 'A' version has a quick delay on it.

 

March 31, 2014

Gradus 242 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

 

An E poked into the wide empty world. Diminuendo to below the threshold of thought.

 

Upcoming

 

June 27, 2014 - 8 PM

Banned Rehearsal Celebrates 30 Years of Noise

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Playlist

Live

September 14, 2013
Siri Bardarson & Steve Trembley
Ott & Murphy's Cabaret Stage, Langley

By way of full disclosure, Siri is a cousin of mine. We share great-grandparents on our respective mother's sides. Karen and I were on Whidbey to visit my folks and took the opportunity to catch Siri and Steve's act at a cozy winery in Langley.

Technically I suppose they are a cover band that throws some original material in occasionally. But they are up to more than simply playing familiar songs, from The 59th Street Bridge Song to Summertime and back again by way of Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles, and more than simply performing them quite ably (though they certainly do). Using the familiar as a springboard they are working out the sound of an oddly nice instrumental duo: amplified cello and electric guitar - four low strings tuned in fifths, and six treble strings tuned (mostly) in fourths. The mix of open sonorities was quite fine, their colors allowing ample aural space for rhythms to slip across the horizontal, delightfully askew but always clear. Their balance was impeccable, and what lovely guitars Steve has!

Recorded

September 18, 2013
This Bus Won't Stop For Me - Aaron Keyt
Clara With the Feet of Snow - Aaron Keyt

Using whatever happened to be on the radio or TV as an accompaniment, Aaron knocks two sudden songs out of the park. This Bus Won't Stop For Me gets picked up in later sessions by Neal, who gives it a more aggressive feel than Aaron's original insinuance, which gains a particular discord with the British laugh-track comedy in the background. Clara With the Feet of Snow is simply lovely, and probably impossible to duplicate. The backing was some late-night smooth jazz station. That sax player never had it so good.

Road - Keith Eisenbrey

This was the last of my solo sudden songs. I was exploring the possibilities of clear metrical feel within an expansively flexible beat. It features what is probably the most psychedelic of my lyrics.

Banned Rehearsal 50 - Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Meyer, August 1985

I don't remember exactly how we were arranging the electronics, but we had turned the next room into some sort of reverb chamber. It hovers just underneath feedback most of the time.

September 19, 2013
A Cat's Life (recording of April 16, 2013) - Keith Eisenbrey

I finished this 'little opera for solo piano' in 1990, thinking that surely some better pianist than I would see how much fun it is and go out to make it and them famous. It's been 23 years and no takers so far. The score is available on my website here. It's worth a look just for Karen's illuminations. I've always felt it is just a bit over my pianistic abilities, but learning it and re-learning it has pushed me to get better. This is the edited version of a long recording session made during my vacation last April.

I was interested in the mechanics of how music can be made to tell a particular story, but I could not imagine enduring the hassle of realizing a full operatic production with stage and singers. My solution was to include within a solo score all the trappings of Wagnerian narrative, and make the story explicit by means of a narrator - somewhat like Peter and the Wolf, or Oedipus Rex. It has been performed in that version twice, and now that I have learned it again I hope to find a suitable narrator and do it again very soon.

In Session at the Tintinabulary
September 16, 2013
Banned Rehearsal 844 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Meyer

September 17, 2013
Scrap Film 1 - Keith Eisenbrey

September 18, 2013
Scrap Film 2 - Keith Eisenbrey

Two Audiofilms made for use at Steve Scribner's upcoming concert.