Playlist

Recorded

January 14, 2017
I Fought The Law - Bobby Fuller Four [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

Nice triplets in there. I love the dipthong on "law", curling back on itself as though hitting resistance. Almost appropriate: Karen and I recently watched "I Was a Fugitive from a Chain Gang", which has some truly amazing sound events in it, as well as a fascinating view of the connection between the penal system and slavery.

Samuel Barber

Prayers of Kierkegaard - Samuel Barber - Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Schenck

The solid tonal sensibility loses grip in places, it works to break free, struggling slowly, manages to unsettle the more settled.

John, I'm Only Dancing - David Bowie [from Changes One]

Technically perfect song-writing. The voice pushes at the instrumentals, as though it were trapped in their cage.

You Better You Bet - The Who [from Face Dances]

Postural pullback, only to return to full frontal, hiding the low point of tenderness from prying eyes. Or letting it hang.

Violin Concerto - Henri Lazarof - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz, Yukiko Kamei

Icy spreads its arms and twists 

acrobatique 

aerialesque 

orchestral circus stage 

big top fire breathing peril 

here come the clowns sardonic 

self regarding self 

chatty nervous

Janaury 16, 2017
Adagio (3rd Movement from 11th Symphony) - David Diamond - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz

Triumphal weariness, as settling to the ocean floor's deepest trench, through its subtle gradations of dark.

Good Things - Sleater-Kinney [from Call The Doctor]

Held close, stiffly still, simmering under pressure.

Work Architecture Unity And The ("17 Crags" 010511) - Keith Eisenbrey - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Anna K, Isabel K, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Second go at it. A sense of enforced singularity of event, severing any particular participant's interest or curiosity. Salutary to the extent we find a way to do what we always do but spread over thinner space. Or: an exercise in leaving space so that we can't always fall into the always-going-on-ness, leaving space for sharper corners?

Judith Shatin

Homemade Music - Judith Shatin [from Open Space 21]

Intervals Between Events: A Study.
Intersections of sets of distances between events as motivic cells. Clearly, so as to index the sets.

The Dancer - Patrick Marland [from Hendrix Uncovered]

Easily lovely. the bass is subtly amped, close the fingerboard.

January 17, 2017
Finnegans Wake Chapter 1.3 - Steve Gregoropoulos [from Waywords and Meansigns]

Spoken with attitude. 'scuse, with AttiTude. The music allowed to attempt to overpower, the vocal imitating the lingo of partisan journalism. Drunken sbrawling squalities. Text just one ring of a circus co-occupied by dueling Captain Beefheart Impersonators, infiltrated by multiple iterations of the Chaotic Noise Marching Corps. Babble of neverending political speech. Each music change: to enter a new room.

January 19, 2017
Die Kunst der Fuge Contrapunctus V - J. S. Bach - Lionel Rogg

How they do crowd upon each other! At the end (and this is frequent in these fugues) there is the sense of "OK, now we're ready to really dive in, now that the preliminaries are over."

Alla Polacca in C Major Wq. 116/4 - C.P.E. Bach - Miklos Spanyi

The purpose of ornamentation is to skew counting, to turn tables on the concept of number. These little pieces are about meter in a way that little else is again until Chopin's Mazurkas.

Symphony in E-flat Major (#76) - Haydn - Hanover Band, Roy Goodman

It is not simply that he moves in the unexpected way (surprise!) but that he gauges each unexpectedness so carefully, veering just so far along the circle of fifths, just so much further at the structural hingepoints: Where we have gotten to determines the depth and yaw of the veer. The slow movement has a focus that allows a huge dynamic range (a model for Schubert's late sonatas?) Then an extra fancy last movement.

Ave Verum Corpus - Mozart - University Temple Chancel Choir, Keith Eisenbrey, director, Howard Wolvington, organ

Last Fall our choir director, Chris Vincent, was in Italy and kindly allowed me to take the choir for a few weeks. He even let me conduct this justly famed anthem from late in Mozart's short life, for which I remain ever so thankful. What a pleasure! Listening one becomes so rapt that it is not until it winds down into the cadential trill that one realizes what a ride one has been on. A bit like life that way.

Sonata in A-flat Major Op. 110 - Beethoven - Rudolf Serkin

An earnest attempt to clearly play what is clearly there. He makes some interesting connections among the tempi in the fugal bits.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

January 16, 2017
Banned Rehearsal 927 170116 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Aaron is back from the far north for a few weeks. Hurrah!

Playlist

Recorded

March 24, 2015
Have You Seen Her - The Chi-Lites [collected from Dave Marsh's Heart of Rock and Soul]

During the talky bit at the beginning the backup choir sloshes around the room. Once it gets going the texture is intricate, baroque.

Raw Power - The Stooges [from Metallic 'KO]

Whatever it was that Iggy was getting out of it, the tribe gets a vicarious thrill like that of watching someone standing on the back of a stampeding bull.

Yvonne, Neal, and Karen - several years ago

Never Been In Love - The (Pre) PKs

Late on the night before Karen left Bickleton for college, when she should have been packing, she recorded this song with her brother Neal and sister Yvonne - a lineup that would only later be called "The PKs" (Preacher's Kids). Double tracking was done on the cheap: instrumentals recorded first then played back into the room (on cruddy equipment) while they sang. On a whim Neal suddenly played one chorus on electric organ, causing a certain amount of dumbstruck sisterly horror. Neal and I had only gotten acquainted that Spring (but were already engaged in the improvisation sessions that became the seeds of Banned Rehearsal), and Karen and I weren't introduced for another year or so - just before I left for Bard - a whole other story.

Stick Around - Julian Lennon [from The Secret Value of Daydreaming]

Perfectly danceable in a bland sort of way. The very essence of overblown polish.

Gerhard Samuel

Concerto for Cello #2 - Henri Lazarof - Philharmonia Orchestra of Cincinnati, Gerhard Samuel, Jeffrey Solow

The orchestra wafts from the solo, and the solo resides within its own incense. Post-Debussian atmospheres coming apart at all possible seams.

On a personal note, Gerhard Samuel lived his last years in Seattle, a valued and beloved part of our new music community. He is missed.



Funeral Music - FoMoFlo [from Amy Denio's Tuto Benne]

Starts slow, ends party. Like New Orleans translated, else-tongued.

March 26, 2015
Banned Rehearsal 597 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer - January 2001

Banned Rehearsal - ca 2001

From the get-go a distinguishing feature of Banned Rehearsal has been that all noisemakers in the room (or out of it) are fair game at any time and for any player. Not to say that we don't on occasion play one instrument for most or all of a session, but it isn't normative. After all these years it is often difficult to remember who made which sounds. It can get puzzling when there are more obvious sound trajectories than there were people in the room, and especially so when it seems clear that an identifiable person is clearly responsible for several noises arising from what must have been opposite ends of the studio. This session is particularly fine, with not a slack moment anywhere.

Sno-King Kung Fu - Head [from The Funhouse Comp Thing]

A brag.

Now All Set - Laura Karpman [from Milton Babbitt, a Composers' Memorial]

Damn but this is fun! Witty in the highest sense, completely un-full-of-itself. A joy of a romp. More like this, please!

In Session at the Tintinabulary

March 22, 2015
Zuckermann 150322
Zuckermann 150322 folded
Zuckermann 150322 folded rubbed  - Keith Eisenbrey

I finished this cycle of solo improvisations early in the morning so that traffic noise wouldn't overwhelm the clavichord. "Folded" means I cut the sound file in half and dubbed the halves together. "Rubbed" means I subjected it to some serious digital manipulation.

Folded Rubbed 150322 - Keith Eisenbrey

As the folded and rubbed versions of my solo improvisations have been collecting I wondered what it would sound like to run them together. That would have made a longer session than I cared for so I interleaved them into this 26 and a half minute file. Spacy stuff!

Duet 150322 - Keith Eisenbrey

New project - improvised duets by dubbing. First up: ocean drum and electric bass.

March 23, 2015
Gradus 262 150323 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

From out of the solution of impulsed sounds a distinct set of pitches precipitates. Two musics at once, intimately related but operating on separate planes.