Playlist

Preface

"Society for the Confusion of Useless Knowledge.
[...]
It is intended by the Company to supply the present enormous mental appetite of the public with a full feed of science and literature in a series of sixpenny bits, or bites. To prevent the appetite from become cloyed by too continuous a fare of any one kind, the bits will be so intermingled and diversified as to keep the biters always expecting and never satisfied. Thus, the biography of Bacon will be relieved by a bit of the history of Greece; a bit of Astronomy, by a bit of Brewing; a bit of Roman History, by a bit of Algebra; a bit of Chemistry, by a bit of Commerce; a bit of Physiology, bit I., will be probably followed by a Treatise on Probability, from the study of which the reader may, if he please, try to find out when he is likely to see Vegetable Physiology, bit II. The whole will thus form, in the mind of the student, a most desirable complication of the Novum Organon, Athens, Malting and Mash-tubs, the Cæsars, Logarithms, Oxygen, Tariffs, Telescopes, the Arian controversy, the Building of St. Paul's, Cellular Tissues, and Reversionary Interests."
from The Comic Almanac, 1st Series 1835-1843

Texts

Recorded

Walla Walla Point Park, Wenatchee, WA

August 8, 2026

Piano Sonata in E-flat Major - John Field - Benjamin Frith

1
this music has heard Mozart and Clementi
almost over-galant
nigh to shy
a sheltered life not devoid of feeling
a well tended garden 

2
children
skipping games
most pleasant frolic

Album d'un voyageur, S. 156/R. 8, Book I, "Impressions et Poesies": VI. Psaume (de l'eglise a Geneve) - Franz Liszt - Ashley Wass

an honest chorale
opens to the skies
bathes the land
lifts into heaven

Gesänge der Frühe, Op. 144 - Robert Schumann - Peter Frankl

1
lovely voicing in the chorale 

2
the thread
is truly caught in this tangle 

3
ferocious tempo yikes!
whew! 

4
stiff headwind 

5
domestic peace

6 Romances sans paroles, Op. 76: III. Idylle - Cecile Chaminade - Mark Viner

characteristic humorisms

Norwegian Peasant Dances, Op. 72: No. 4, Halling from the Gnome's Hill - Edvard Grieg - Håkon Austbø

effective dance music
must be about the noise it's making
its tool
for controlling
the rate of motion on the floor
but also
the sad rooms in the back

Of Thee I Sing (Incomplete) - Sarah Vaughan [from Sarah Vaughan Sings George Gershwin]

the microphones had become
{in the 1950s}
remarkably good at capturing
every nuance
of a voice
and singers took advantage

Walla Walla Point Park, Wenatchee, WA

August 9, 2026

Birthday - The Beatles [from The Beatles (White Album)]

dance track with codetta
for the DJ's signal to move on

West of the Fields - REM [from Murmur]

deliberately loading the words
at the front half
of the chord block spans

Papa Doesn't Love His Children Anymore - U-Men

riff built on a kickback echo
features a metrical modulation

part of the compositional image
is the protracted repetitions
that don't obviously count in twos and fours and eights
as to iteration count 

torn page ending gambit

Wenn Ich in deine Augen seh - King's Singers [from Chanson d'amour]

a choral arrangement of the Schumann Lied
the dialog between voice and piano
becoming one between groupings of voices

The River - Goodness [from Goodness 1995-1998]

acoustic opening
hearkens back to pre-industrializations 

amplification signals modernity

Easy Ride - Madonna [from American Life]

bathed in unguently voluptuous string wash 

the ambitus of her tessitura
is comfortable for me
at her octave 

composed dance production ending:
a repeating stanza
finish back in unguence

Paper Gangsta - Lady Gaga [from The Fame]

amplified piano 
more percussive
its attack envelope within human psychoacoustics
is much sharper 

loud attack sounds
get louder than sustained sounds do
under the same gain 

the best way to play it
is to bang it
anything more subtle will be lost

August Phonography and Microtonal Piano 8 - S. Eric Scribner [from Odds and Ends]

{see doodle}

August 10, 2026

Duet - Tom Swafford [from Violin Improvisations]

enacted within the fingers' placements
and the bow's impersonations of both duet parts

Threading The Channel - Steve Layton & Sound-In [from The Many Voices In Our Heads]

maker
collector
distributor
of sounds
made
a curatory art

I Got Plenty O' Nothin' - Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong [from Porgy and Bess]

razzle dazzle from heaven

With You - Rusty Dedrick Orchestra [from Irving Berlin All By Myself: Notable Compositions 1926-1933]

such a sweet talker

Pink Cadillac - Bruce Springsteen [from Tracks]

an elaborate euphemism
goes around at least one too many times

Mudride (Demo) - Mudhoney [from Superfuzz Bigmuff]

giant robots of distorted guitar
electrorockemsockem

Molly On The Shore - Percy Grainger - Itzhak Perlman [from The Art of Itzhak Perlman]

the particulars of a local dance type
dressed up in its festival garb

Queen of All the Tarts (Ouverture) - David Bowie [from Reality]

a bit of meter play sneaks in

Diva - Beyoncé [from I Am...Sasha Fierce]

power politics for dancing to

Happiness - Chastity Belt [from No Regerts]

sagging heavily over the lines

I'll Keep On Trying - Brenda Ray [from Original Songs/50s Music]

determination
a hymn of its time

Bad Life - Bad Hug (w/ Bree O'C) [from Dirt Cult Records: You Don't Have to Be Cool]

taking stock

Walla Walla Point Park, Wenatchee, WA

August 11, 2026

You're Gonna Hear From Me - Bill Evans [from Some Other Time / The Lost Session from the Black Forest]

shape of song audible
within its sheer flowing garment

Carolina Shout - The Canadian Brass [from More Greatest Hits]

an arrangement
depicting an arrangement
removed from its original demotic urgencies

Lady Be Good [from New Orleans Traditional Jazz Legends 3]

music as an audible costume
to seem authentic

The Hands of Time - Glenn Tate [from Days of Wine and Roses]

music for an aging clientele

This Is What It's Like - The True Bugs [from 25 Songs]

notes to self
a journal song

Black Magic II - Antique Scream [from Two Bad Dudes]

ad copy

Circles - Christina Aguilera [from Lotus]

kiss off
with production value

Diabelli Recomposed (continued) - various [streamed May 11, 2023]

43
poking around in Schoenberg's junk drawer 

44
as a moody naiad 

45
whack-a-mole 

46
tipsy we stagger
lamppost to postbox 

44
(pause for preparations)
we see what's left of it
lying around in the innards

Walla Walla Point Park, Wenatchee, WA

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea - Thelonious Monk [from The Complete Columbia Studio Solo Recordings]

we are taught the tune
from more angles
than we had thought it had

One Minute of Silence - Soundgarden [from Ultramega OK]

white noise
with some studio clatter (distant)
and occasional electronic popping

Myung O. Hahn - Korea [from The World Sings Goodnight]

sung into institutional empty space

Claude et Eric - Frieze of Life [from Nuclear Frog Pond]

rough road
but the moon buggy bounces on big tires
the path smooths out some
picking up speed

Emjayernai-Tom - Sacajewea Elementary Students [from Digital Dreams]

music doesn't care what shape it is

Track 8 - Peterman [recorded live at Victory Lounge, Seattle, July 6, 2013]

dive-bar music
as vent for pressure release

Must Be Nice - Choke The Pope [from Who Cares]

frustration spewing

Lullaby - Megan Ihnen [from Sleep Songs - Wordless Lullabies from The Sleepless, volume 2]

a machine is switched on
and continues
is shut off
and back on
its sound is examined
in the light of select sung pitches
linguidental fricatives (voiced) 

a right sharp little piece
that keeps its focus stalwartly

96 Tears (Unreleased Version) - ? and The Mysterians [from The Best of ? and The Mysterians]

zero sum love game

Don't Believe The Hype - Public Enemy [collected from Neal Kosály-Meyer's Bo and the Beat]

its rep is its matter
rep is the matter

Animal - Pearl Jam [from Rearviewmirror]

size and power
music as mech suit

Life's on the Line - 50 Cent [from Get Rich or Die Tryin']

antagonistic posture

Zim - B'Shnorkestra [from Go To Orange]

some musics
are concerned with their own goingness
as music
sometimes
in the context of
or in consideration of
a population of musics
in the same way
that some persons
are concerned with their own goingness
as a person
in the context of
or in consideration of
a population of persons

Baby Born In a Stall [from Unmarked Christmas Album]

some music is smarmy
but this has it beat

Walla Walla Point Park, Wenatchee, WA

August 12, 2026

Respect Yourself - Mack Rice [from Written in Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos]

listening to another culture's music
can be a way to explore those other cultures
and to better understand cultural interactions in general

Maria Walks Amid the Thorn - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon - December 1968

listening to a music
from one's own past
(such as this)
can be a self-exploration

Rebonds B - Iannis Xenakis - Rob McEwan

a study in articulated steady states
listening to a discovered culture
ostensibly international
but only within a thinly distributed population

Whose Lion Is This? - Participants [from Jack Straw Cultural Center, Blind Youth Audio Project 2003]

a radio drama about a lion surgeon
doing brain surgery
predictable results

Telling Some Lies - Spinning Whips [from Sentimental Groover]

building a stanza from tempo up
demonstrating regions of other tempos
in relation to the root

San Francisco - Whitney Ballen [from You're A Shooting Star, I'm a Sinking Ship]

epistle poem

In His Own Voice - Milton Babbitt - Nina Berman, Steve Beck

after the manner of a cultural critique

Cello Set 2 - Brad Hawkins, Jesse Canterbury [from Brad Hawkins, Jesse Canterbury]

a poem in the shape of a squeaky hinge

Younger Then - Star Anna [from Go To Hell]

epistle to a parental unit

Overdrive - Red Ribbon [from Dark Party]

draping poemlines across a regular rhythm
rhymes where it needs to

Walla Walla Point Park, Wenatchee, WA

Grand Duo for Violin and Piano - Lou Harrison - Romuald Tecco, Dennis Russell Davies

1
announcement
make yourself comfortable
this spreads itself vastly
follows every ripple to the shore 

2
lectures in dance
minutiae
furious scribbling of notes 

3
an ancient evening peace fills our hearts 

4
long yearnings
haunt these halls
insatiate
weary 

5
macabre skipping games

War Failure Deluxe - Doug Haire [from The Crawford Opera]

heavy machines on the move
with siren windup

Little Ghost - Cumulus [from I Never Meant It To Be Like This]

message to an inner experience

Questions for the Angels - Paul Simon [from In The Blue Light]

neighborhoods of grooves passed through

Enchanted Prelude - Elliott Carter - Da Capo Chamber Players

followed closely
it leads
to where
we
hadn't thought
we
had got

The Night I Met Maria C_____ - Chris DeLaurenti

we'll take a walk with Chris
as folks talk with Chris
looking for a party somewhere
with a marching band
takes a leak and a level
scenes from an event
or series of same

Together - Bass Violin [from Bass Violin]

loosely looped pizzicato
and ground

Fever Doggs - Slothrust [from The Pact]

scenes from an unsatisfactory life together

Walla Walla Point Park, Wenatchee, WA

August 13, 2026

'Zoon - Bruce Huber

Bruce was a fellow student at Bard
when I was there 

he sent me a tape
with some synth pieces on it
in 1988
including this one 

I'm not sure what he was using
but it might be early digital
or some sort of analog device

Loretta's Flowers - Swearin' [from Surfin' Strange]

a musical unit
(among other things)
is a token of personal and cultural exchange 

for my purposes
in this regard
it is its personal voice
that takes precedence
that is
how it is
between its maker and me
is primary
to how it is
between its culture and mine
and certainly
between its culture
and any more general culture

Giving Me Life (feat. Slick Rick) - Mariah Carey [from Caution]

which may explain
my general problem
with the broad cultural aim
of industrially produced music
which leans into its generic signifiers
in order to confuse the fewest audients

Poem for Sixtext - Benjamin Boretz - Benjamin Boretz [from Open Space 56]

when the token of exchange
is one made
by one personally known to me
and
when the totality of generic signifiers* in play
can be dismissed on a few fingers
the status of that token's broader cultural value
diminishes to vanishing
not that such a value might not exist
but
that it is radically irrelevant
to my experience of it 

*that it is a piano being played
in the usual way
for instance
is superseded
by the fact
that I've played that piano myself
in the usual way 

the image of the person
to whom this music is addressed
is singular
for me
it is clearly addressed
to me
(of course
it need not be true
that such was the intent
of the one making it
exactly)

this music is not outfitted with modernist gadgetry
or even supposedly de rigueur musical piece-forming rhetoric

Walla Walla Point Park, Wenatchee, WA

Ray of Sunshine - Smokestack and the Foothill Fury [from Lone Buffalo]

a music such as this
is comfortable in its clothes
and what they signify
it wears them matter of factly
and adroitly

Metaphor or a Mishap - Canals of Venice [from Fall On November]

some musics
for their realization
rely
on a collaboration of cooperating agents

a common set of musical assumptions
is a social lubricant
easing such collaboration 

this is not a problem necessarily
if
as in this music
those assumptions
are generous enough
to allow a specific music to emerge

Sentimental Journey/The Way We Were - West & Wheeler

a coworker of mine in the 80s
gave me this tape
made by her and a high school friend of hers
who had been known to sing duets together
back in the day 

so
they got back together
for an anniversary
and reprised their gig
singing along
to a music-minus-one-type orchestral accompaniment 

for what it is
it is creditable
they have pleasant singing voices that blend well

Is This All There Is - Swingset Showdown [from Cymbal of Appreciation]

what more was expected
left unspoken

Wild Mountain Thyme - SeaStar [from Sinners and Angels]

porch singalong native

In Session at The Tintinabulary

August 9, 2026

Lockport and Coda - Keith Eisenbrey

Keith Eisenbrey · 162 Lockport and Coda 260809 [260809]

August 10, 2026

Banned Rehearsal 1157 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1157 260810

Postscript

Drops

Keith Eisenbrey 34: 2024-2026 Arrangements of Shape Note Tunes (Part 2: Common Meter)

Hymnals find me. For decades I had been wondering how I might make use of all those notes. In July of 2023 I decided that each Sunday morning I would make short piano arrangements of each tune in the oldest hymnal on my shelf, The Christian Minstrel, from 1846, which arranges them metrically. Since mid-2024 I have been working through the "Common Meter" (86.86) tunes, and am happy to share them with you now. Part of my discipline is to spend no more than an hour or two on each one, from first transcription of the tune to finished recording. When I got to the 100th tune in the book I amused myself by writing its arrangement with exactly 100 notes.

recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream.

Playlist

Preface

Up-hill and Down-dale - George Cruikshank, from The Comic Almanack, 1st Series 1835-1843

Texts

Live

August 7, 2026

trio ABK - Amy Denio, Bonnie Whiting, Keith Eisenbrey
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

it was warm in the Chapel but we had a fabulous time getting to know each other through improvisation

first set

Keith Eisenbrey · trio ABK 260807 A

second set

Keith Eisenbrey · trio ABK 260807 B

Recorded

trio ABK in action

August 3, 2026

Nocturne in B-flat Major (#5) - John Field - Benjamin Frith

we are within the melody
or we are cadencing to regroup

Album d'un voyageur, S. 156/R. 8, Book I, "Impressions et Poesies": V. La Chapelle de Guillaume Tell - Franz Liszt, Ashley Wass

images take time to experience
developing as they unfold themselves
they are never wholly all at once
grandeur is a process

Sonata in F minor, Op. 14 - Robert Schumann - Peter Frankl

1
surging passion
tender regards
playful this
dramatic that
the affects flow impatiently through its spirit
this music can't hold still

2
vigorous ride
a pleasant glade
impatient with endings of phrases

3
a solemn copse
in some seasons
elsewise
in other
in the manner of variations

4
time for lickety splittings
and drifting along
and plunging down

6 Romances sans paroles, Op. 76: II. Elévation - Cecile Chaminade - Mark Viner

firmly rooted

Norwegian Peasant Dances, Op. 72: No. 3, Wedding March from Telemark - Edvard Grieg - Håkon Austbø

from back
when peasant
was more openly used 

this music depicts the whole wedding
march included
as well as celebrants officiants and witnesses

Echo, Op. 89 - Mel Bonis - Veerle Peeters

this music
is the fluidity of a dancer's arms

2 Poèmes, Op. 71: II. En Rêvant, Avec Une Grande Douceur - Alexander Scriabin - Dmitri Alexeev

a syntax of ordered sonorities floats by

Of Thee I Sing (Incomplete) - Sarah Vaughan [from Sarah Vaughan Sings George Gershwin]

tempo is calibrated
from a Western late 19th century  rubato flexibility
rather than
to any kind of demotic 

oops she said a bad word there

Boys, What I Was Thinking - The Beatles [from The Beatles Anthology]

the talking bit
short fat hairy legs

Marie/Coquette - Rusty Dedrick Orchestra [from Irving Berlin All By Myself: Notable Compositions 1926-1933]

the particulars of the roomsound segregation
on display
counts
for hi fidelity

I Confess - The English Beat [from Nancy's Mix]

pop's nod
to fusion
to MTV aesthetics
producer composed

Pay The Bubba - U-Men

playing in an empty room
shredding collectively

Phyllis Is My Only Joy - King's Singers [from Chansons d'amour]

arranged politely as needlepoint

Disco 77 - Goodness [from Goodness 1995-1998]

which was the new and hip
for those of my peers
who hip were 

the song itself
is more like a warning

Die Another Day - Madonna [from American Life]

the sounds are not only segregated from each other
they are segregated from the song being made
you'll know it's actually over when it fades

A Short Piece for Piano X2 - S. Eric Scribner [from Soundforms/Multiples]

easy passage by concordance of sonority

Bad Kids - Lady Gaga [from Born This Way]

aestheticizing a lifestyle
ready to wear

Perpetual Motion 2 - Tom Swafford [from Violin Improvisations]

once it gets its steam up
there is no end to the down of his downhill
but
we can stop keeping up at any point
and step off

Once Upon a Time - Steve Layton [from Bedtime Stories]

oddly haunted
to sleep
a vision
hush of night
thunder of dread
rain of drear
ushered out through the furnace room
electrocop sirens arrive
with drum agents
the scene has been scrubbed clear
and raw
rain will heal

My Man's Gone Now - Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong [from Porgy and Bess]

opening her chest voice

Lover Man (Oh Where Can You Be) - Bill Evans [from Some Other Time / The Lost Session from the Black Forest]

independence of times in syncopation
a slow steadiness grounds it

We Walk - REM [from Murmur]

the soundtrack of a generation
is a dreamlike substance

Held Up Without a Gun - Bruce Springsteen [from Neal Kosály-Meyer's A Springsteen Miscellany]

for banging heads to bob to

August 4, 2026

Hungarian Dance #9 - Johannes Brahms - Itzhak Perlman [from The Art of Itzhak Perlman]

workmanship typical of its era
school of Mendelssohn and Schumann

You Are My Joy (Reprise) - Aretha Franklin [from So Damn Happy]

show finale
bring in the choir and the sparkly garments

The Good Old Days - The True Bugs [from 25 Songs]

let's have a beach fire song
cuts off rudely
just as everybody would join with voices raised
such a pity

Tangled Envisioning - Waxahatchee [from Cerulean Salt]

let's write in my diary
as though to a companion 

blue lined notebook paper strumming

Third Floor Blues - Brenda Ray [from Original Songs/1950s Music]

a living situation
troubles of the environment

Side Two Intro - unattributed [from Dirt Cult Records: You Don't Have To Be Cool]

an articulation of purpose and place

'Round Midnight - Thelonious Monk [from The Complete Columbia Studio Solo Recordings]

we are along for the ride

Cynthia - Bruce Springsteen [from Tracks]

dedicated to the muse
phoned in accompaniment

Incessant Mace - Soundgarden [from Ultramega OK]

thick heavy oozing

Basin Street Blues [from New Orleans Traditional Jazz Legends 3]

in sepia and tintypes
captions in English and Creole

In The Wee Small Hours of The Morning - Glenn Tate [from Days of Wine and Roses]

does any other time of day
have its own wee smalls
or are they only in the morning? 

do we flip
at twelve fifty nine
from the huge large hours of one
to the wee smalls of the next?

Hunger (End) - Tom Baker - Maria Mannisto, Jesse Canterbury, Greg Campbell, Brian Cobb, Tom Baker

in extremis and beyond
story told in music like diary entries
a radio opera
fantasy of dying

I Wish You'd Haunt Me - Red Ribbon [recorded live at the Comet Tavern, Seattle, March 5, 2013]

rage and grief contend

Around The World - Christina Aguilera [from Lotus]

globefucking in the ultrafast crowd
an advertisement for
the world
in which pop music
is presented
as seeing itself

Diabelli Recomposed (continued) - Various [streamed May 11, 2023]

39
as a lullaby
or a fond goodnight kiss
{a musical comedy made entirely of Diabelli variations} 

40
grumpy
and grumpy about it too

41
heckled from under the lid
with old fruits and raspberries 

42
caught up in its own comfort 

43
with limbs tied at the ankles

Midnight Hour (unreleased) - ? and The Mysterians [from The Best of ? and The Mysterians]

in stereo no less
he says so 

the real benefit of stereo
isn't the placement of sound
it's the roundness of it
not direction but expanse

Alligator Crawl - Canadian Brass [from More Greatest Hits]

imitative dance
from story enactment
to all the rage
a mask and motions

Rolland Fischer - U.S.A. Western [from The World Sings Goodnight]

singing cowboy movie star song
singing the chattel to sleep

Joy To The World - Whitney Houston [from One Wish: The Holiday Album]

Handel was probably not unaccustomed
to singers taking liberties
of a kind
but probably not these kinds
and even Handel didn't uptranspose so bodily

Crazy Good Burger Man - Sacajawea Elementary Students [from Digital Dreams]

driving notes in circles

I'm Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places - Dead Bars [recorded live at The Comet Tavern, Seattle, March 5, 2013]

the bewailed life moment

Life's Amazing - Choke The Pope [from Who Cares]

report from the front lines of ironic disdain

Hanging - Megan Ihnen [from Sleep Songs - Wordless Lullabies from The Sleepless, volume 2]

the drama of drawing breath to sing
the moment
between
fully drawn

Nomos gamma - Iannis Xenakis - Hague Radio Orchestra, Arturo Tamayo]

music is a substance
a material
and its art
is in material manipulation
using all the latest thought 

its status
of latest and greatest
is in the emphatics
of its eschewal
of tradition
vehemently new
harshly new
music
as manifesto

Planina, Stara Planina - Bulgarian State Radio & TV Female Vocal Choir [from Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares 2]

a stanza takes effort to push through
or to drag along

Dissident - Pearl Jam [from Rearviewmirror]

this music is mid struggle

...other serious issues... - Frieze of Life [from Nuclear Frog Pond]

in an ensemble
of strongly differentiated instrument sounds
it is more difficult
for pitch-material
to migrate from one voice into another
and avoid hierarchic thinking

4Real - Mariah Carey [from E=MC2]

selling a persona
with help from a quick tongued mouth

Cats Across The Way - Canals of Venice [recorded live at The Comet Tavern, Seattle, March 5, 2013]

followed by general chatter

August 5, 2026

Track 9 [from Unlabeled Christmas Album]

vaguely Celticky
but sans grime or blood or words

Third Child - Bettye Crutcher [from Written in Their Soul: The Stax Songwriters Demos]

personal history
as a minor curse

Flights of Fantasy - The Ventures [from Walk Don't Run]

snarly guitar and hand drums

Party For Your Right to Fight - Public Enemy [from It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back]

language rhythm
pushed across the tops of the music beat rhythm

U Not Like Me - 50 Cent [from Get Rich or Die Tryin']

tough guy boast the
sound has the beat part
the talk part
and the colorist part
mandolin if I mistake not

If You Can See Me - David Bowie [from The Next Day]

the song is found in scattered rooms
in which we find ourselves transmitted
immediately

Moon - Whitney Ballen [from You're a Shooting Star, I'm a Sinking Ship]

question
within a body of popular American music
do songs of personal devotion
to an other
appear more frequently
in albums produced
by female presenting artists?

Kurzwellen - Karlheinz Stockhausen

in this version
there is some vinyl noise that accreted
barnacles on its hull 

the specificness
of the ritual
offends reproduction 

what is strange now
is that this stuff
that was the happening stuff
at the time
should be so distant from me now
like the shoes I once wore
the formerly familiar 

pretty terrific Stockhausen of its time 

a music
of the interception of broadcast transmission
worldvoice communication
for those able to afford it
and the spies and hobbyists
listening in at home 

this has improvisational vibes
does rehearsal time show? 

is it
as much about
the sense
of the work
of rehearsal time
required
to get this
exactly
so
and
the insanity
of wanting
to notate it 

guessing it is a score
to be realized as a collaboration
in which one thread
has a name attached 

identity of the named role
confers no special status
to the individual
possessed
of said name-attached role
or
a specious synecdoche 

these sounds are made at each other
snarl to snarl

we find ourselves
in a dim
and nitre-coated foundation chamber
castle crawl space 

we meet our new neighbors
learn of their toils and grumps 

this one
is mimicking
one of Stravinsky's galumphing puppets

and the short waves come along
to take us to a new station
we modulate
we twirl the dials dreamily
to:
when will we way back today Mr. Peabody?
today
we will twirl to it all
sez Mr. Joyce

when it was familiar
I studied for clues
now that it is formerly so
I can listen without reference to its importance 

as a longtime collaborator
and listener to 45 minute sessions
that aren't this
this one seems lengthy
I wonder if it is because
the events in it
are so localized temporally
that is
there are many
exactly different sounds
in quickish sequence
but now it is done

Need (Demo) - Mudhoney [from Superfuzz Bigmuff]

the great thing about a good demo
is that there is no more to the production
than absolutely necessary to the music involved
if it needs more
why bother with it?

Sarabande (multitrack) - Keith Eisenbrey - Jim Knodle, Keith Eisenbrey [from Jack Straw Cultural Center Blind Youth Audio Project 2003]

same performance as the "stereo" version {I think} 

this one sounds like two folks in a room
doing this music 

one of the projects' youth participants
while we were in the booth putting this together
sang my crazy 17-tone tone row
back at me pitch perfect
I was stunned 

nice piece past me!

Sheryl's Bane - Mikey & Matty [from Harbor Island]

is porch music
a different genre
than Alki beach fire music 

nice job backup singers!
I hear you backing it up back there!

Some Folks' Lives Roll Easy - Paul Simon [from In The Blue Light]

an intimate arrangement
for an intimate venue

Chelsea Morning - Fairport Convention [from Meet On The Ledge]

one of my high school friends
was a huge Sandy Denny/Fairport Convention fan 

at this distance
this sounds like a strangely psychedelic-adjacent world
what's with the motorcar sounds?

H'un (Lacerations): In Memoriam 1966-1976 - Bright Sheng - New York Chamber Symphony, Gerard Schwarz]

a pitched drama
a strong sense of how its pitches move against each other
crowded shoulder to shoulder 

weakens here
as it gets dramatic
resorting to dramatic texture
not dramatic doing

Cello Set 1 - Brad Hawkins, Jesse Canterbury [from Brad Hawkins, Jesse Canterbury]

where
we are
in it
is
where
it is

So Lonesome and Blue - The Swearengens [from Waiting On The Sunrise]

all regret rolled into one

New Red Pants - Slothrust [from The Pact]

power suit
looks to kill with
trouble to trade away

On Neal's Ashes - Allen Ginsberg [from Holy Soul, Jelly Roll]

deathfirst into memory plunging

August 6, 2026

In Concordiam - Stephen Albert - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz, Ilka Talvi]

multiple curtains sweep open
our host explains the layout
a lumpy prop is dragged on stage
the winds explain its workings
our host remembers Stravinsky's Duo Concertante
and other fine moments sung upon it 

this piece is well-composed
and clearly storyboarded
it fits the bill perfectly:
a new work
with nothing overtly new about it 

an easy piece to like
ends on a high note

59-Year Old Defense Intellectual - Doug Haire [from The Crawford Opera]

inside the machinery of the machine

Crashing Waves - Lori Goldston [from Film Scores]

from a distance above
their slow progression shoreward

No Strangelove Ocean - Participants [from Waterloo Region Contemporary Music Sessions 2018]

its reverberant container
is part of its being
incorporating ones own vitrine 

if coaxed
it roams
empty display galleries

Echo Carol - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey [December 1968]

effectively clever
if somewhat plodding

String Quartet #1 (Already It Is Dusk) - Henryk Gorecki - Kronos Quartet

pop the lid loose
stand back 

this music sticks to its unmoving straight line 

judgment is delivered
in stern motions of the bow 

we are furioso
or
we are depressed
and oh so 

scrubbing tirelessly

The New Diabelli Variations (beginning) - Various - Quake

1 Theme
the ditty itself

2 Jazzbelli (Mary Cassat)
heavily swung 20s style piano

3 Scherzetto on a Theme of Diabelli (Rhododendron)
the others of the ensemble cavort inside the harp

4 Variation, Fughetta (Hucbald)
flute and strings tell the weary tale
strings played by violin and cello

5 Nightmare Prelude (Hal L'ouene)
on a starkly lit stage
for solo piano
some notes are banged out
in honor of the deceased
who is shot
right there on stage
the emergency vehicles wail in the street

6 Chantibelli (Sue Donim)
as if it were the opening
of a lonely Shostakovich symphony

7 With Humor (I.M.A. Funnyman)
the clowns arrive
driving tiny cars in tight circles

Stubborn Man - No Man's String Band [from Let The Truth Be Told]

music for liquor selling establishments
must promote the lifestyle
of customers of liquor selling establishments
it's a social contract

Waitin' For The Bus To Come - Lisa Puteska [from Untitled Album]

singing the act of its title
b/w with Aaron Keyt's If I Don't Ring That Little Bell

The Crowded Air - Milton Babbitt - Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose

all the stations tuned
in all combinatorial sets of stations
we squeeze through their twisty interstices
feel free to make any in-head connection that helps

Inside The Wallingford Transfer Station - Chris DeLaurenti

we hear the sounds of waste being transferred
from ours to ours
heave ho
away ye go
into our greeting arms 

pebbles in our pond

Track 7 - Pouch [recorded live at Victory Lounge, Seattle, July 6, 2013]

big wheels
high slung
off road
bone jarrer

Love Made Me Blind - Kara Hesse [from Sojourner]

fond memories no regrets

Desire - U2 [collected from Neal Kosály-Meyer's Bo and The Beat]

a musicological collection
a locus and its spread

The Artist - Shelby Earl [from Swift Arrows]

self-portrait as dialog

Bailey - Denise Glover [from Gaps In The Stories]

public blessing
witness
memorial

Sferics - Alvin Lucier

what it might be the sound of
does not immediately appear
two
no
three strands
a crackle
a whapping (quiet)
a high squeak
as of distant birds
but not from a distance
related to the crackling
as if
across a threshold

the whapping
is regularish
the crackling
is inconsistently consistent 

a multi-stranded sound
of uncertain origin 

would what I hear change
were I to know these sound's origins
mechanical or conceptual?

Coronach (slight return) - Princess [from Selling Sulphur]

ritual sway dance
as though calling up cartoon spirits
with spooky moves 

long silence

then we're back
but have jettisoned the gear

The J Stomp - Blazzed [from Blazzed]

stomp dancing across the street
against the light
without benefit of the cross-stomp

Woody - Donald Erb - Ross Powell

ah
for clarinet
title explains itself 

this music explains itself with strings of notes
gets up pretty high
E-flat clarinet?
nice tone up there
however 

Porque les vas - Chaotic Noise Marching Corps [from Smashed at Smash Putt]

power march into town
hoorah a parade 

from bar to bar
we crawl and quaff 

public figures like our pirates

The Old G---- - SeaStar [from Sinners and Angels]

casts hexes

In Session at The Tintinabulary

August 2, 2026

Lisbon - Keith Eisenbrey

Keith Eisenbrey · 161 Lisbon 260802 [260802]

Postscripts

Drops

Keith Eisenbrey 34: 2024-2026 Arrangements of Shape Note Tunes (Part 2: Common Meter)

Hymnals find me. For decades I had been wondering how I might make use of all those notes. In July of 2023 I decided that each Sunday morning I would make short piano arrangements of each tune in the oldest hymnal on my shelf, The Christian Minstrel, from 1846, which arranges them metrically. Since mid-2024 I have been working through the "Common Meter" (86.86) tunes, and am happy to share them with you now. Part of my discipline is to spend no more than an hour or two on each one, from first transcription of the tune to finished recording. When I got to the 100th tune in the book I amused myself by writing its arrangement with exactly 100 notes.

recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream.

Playlist

Preface

8 

Rose Thinking

If the world is round would a lion fall off.

Gertrude Stein, from The World is Round

Texts

Recorded

July 4, 2026

Ferris Wheel - Canals of Venice [recorded live at The Comet, Seattle, March 5, 2013]

we approach listening
with what we hope
are open ears
and good faith curiosity

Hard to Forgive - Brandi Carlile [from By The Way, I Forgive You]

one strategy
might be
to study the modes of expression
that persist
across musics of many times 

tropes atop tropes

Hot Shots - Steve Layton & Sound-In [from The Many Voices In Our Heads]

for example
music such as Ms. Carlile's
is couched in terms of personal feelings
writ large
with broad swaths
of bold colors
in order
to punch through
the wall of alienation
produced
by being in a crowd
while
this music
is an attentive chatter box conversation
requiring a more intimate ear 

it would be inaudible
to
a Ms. Carlile-expecting ear

Sonata in B-flat Major, Kk. 332 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

this Scarlatti doesn't express much
beyond amusement
at its own intricacies
its self-absorbed
mirroring world

Nocturne in C minor (#2) - John Field - Benjamin Frith

now this music
is doing expressing
and the mode it chooses
is to mimic a song being sung
by a singer
and to identify
with that singer
so mimicked
to imagine
what they must be expressing
in order to sing
so thusly mimicked

Ouverture des Francs-juges, S. 471 (After H. Berlioz) - Franz Liszt - Feng Bian

this music
is a stage being set
or rather
these musics
are stages being set
one after the other
all the activity
is fun to watch 

Albumblätter: Canon, Op. 124 #20 - Robert Schumann - Florian Uhlig

this music seeks peace with itself

6 Idylles: V. Alegretto Tranquil, Op. 24 #5 - Agathe Backer Grøndahl - Sara Aimée Smiseth

this music seeks a pleasure in dream
clever common tone tactic
at the key change
both unexpected and obvious at once

Lyric Pieces, Book VI, Op. 57 - Edvard Grieg - Håkon Austbø

this music seeks to impart a tale
so that
you care 

ballad-like
broad pantomime 

I was also thinking
that these pieces
are each
more or less
the length of a Scarlatti Sonata
but
that they are differently sized than Scarlatti Sonatas
because
they shape themselves differently
these seem larger

what stands like stone
what yields gently

2 Poémes: Fantasie, Op. 71 #1 - Alexander Scriabin Dmitri Alexeev

enchanted

July 5, 2026

Muggles - Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra [from Hot Fives and Sevens]

an issue seems to raise itself
with some musics
such as Beethoven or Armstrong
or... (the list sails on)...
as to whether
or how
one might hear it
without the taint
of its imputed historical importance

I Won't Say I Will (Incomplete) - Sarah Vaughan [from Sarah Vaughan Sings George Gershwin]

after all
at any music's originary moment
history
as a concept
was absent
except
perhaps
as background noise
of less presence
than what was for breakfast

Twist and Shout - The Beatles [from The Beatles Anthology]

or of the latest sales figures 

were record sales
reported at the wholesale level
or at retail?
I find it difficult to imagine
a system in place
in the 50s or 60s
for reporting retail figures
on a weekly basis
from the many hundreds of points of sale

The Song Is Ended - Rusty Dedrick Orchestra [from Irving Berlin All By Myself: Notable Compositions 1926-1933]

but the melody lingers on

When The Night Falls - T. Bone Burnett [from Proof Through The Night]

Mr. Burnett has a way
that he sings everything

Beauty Is But a Painted Hell (Rubra) - King's Singers [from My Spirit Sang All Day]

a rather misanthropic wisdom word

New Weather IV: Hedgehog - Edward T. Cone - Mimmi Fulmer, Jeffrey Farrington

the piano part
is the stage
the voice stands upon

Singer Twin - Goodness [from Goodness 1995-1998]

aimed to be clear
under the guitar noise
but
not to carry
past your privy ears

X-Static Processes - Madonna [from American Life]

a prayer
a confession
a plea

Soundform II - S. Eric Scribner [from Soundforms/Multiples]

neither its waveform
nor its sonogram
nor its envelope 

the forms
that sound forms
are mental images
that arise
bodiless 
in the ear

July 6, 2026

Bundle of Joy - The Swearengens [from Waiting on the Sunrise]

mom will always love me
bad boy though I boast to be

Doctor Spock - Brenda Ray [from Original Songs/1950s Music]

blaming hippies' purported errors
on the author
but thanks for opposing the war

Apperception - Tom Baker Quartet [from Begin Again]

grounded in regularity of proceedings
though itself irregular

What Kind Of Fool Am I? - Bill Evans [from Some Other Time / The Lost Session from the Black Forest]

the trio circles around the new tempo
then jumps in 

Catapult - REM [from Murmur]

all statements descend in the end

Interview with Prove It All Night - Bruce Springsteen [from Neal Kosály-Meyer's A Springsteen Miscellany]

the band accumulates
name by name
then turns a song
into a stamina strut

When You're Smiling - [from New Orleans Traditional Jazz Legends 2]

doing Louis Armstrong vocal style
comfort music

Dangerously In Love 2 - Beyoncé [from Dangerously In Love]

a plastic multiplicity of avatars

July 7, 2026

Prelude - The True Bugs [from 25 Songs]

a song can be like a journal entry
and require neither greatness nor commercial utility
to be a valid song

This Is (How I Know) - The Hunting Club [from Holiday Beach]

signs of imminent happily ever after 

some songs
can be a completed statement
all parts fully formed

Presidio - Strung Out [from Black Out The Sky]

this song wants
to be sure
we know
how long
all the parts of it
will be
no surprises in store
discoveries unlikely

Shellshag - Jack Robinson [from Dirt Cult Records: You Don't Have To Be Cool]

filter on the voice
a dissociation
a personal space bubble

Contemplation - Wayne Shorter [from The Classic Blue Note Recordings]

what's template about contemplation? 

here
we seem to be contemplating
a form
or a space
an outside
or an inside
each contemplator
is provided
a supportive time
in which to respond

I Believe - The Buzzcocks [from Nancy's Mix]

basic rock and roll orchestration
no oddities
and they takes some pains
to speak clearly
which is helpful
since they are verbally clever

slides into the pun from an angle

Quiet On The Set - N.W.A. [from Straight Outta Compton]

hip hop orchestration
is more varied
in what it allows to be included
but
the underlying concept
of rock&roll orchestration
is in its blood

Canada - Rachel Warrington [from The World Sings Goodnight]

as though from the lonely past
with frog chorus

Try Some, Buy Some - David Bowie [from Reality]

which is why
even when it goes all symphonic
as it does here
the effect
is radically different
than either Baroque-derived
or Berlioz-derived
orchestration models
it isn't
just
the instruments used
it's
in how the sounds
are conceptualized 

Back (Interlude)/Curtains - Janet Jackson [from Discipline]

sci fi fantasy smooth
retreat
return refreshed

Answer Boldly - Lori Goldston [from Film Scores]

I wonder if these were used in films
or whether they are a more conceptual project
either or both is plausible

Blank Page - Christina Aguilera [from Lotus]

down in the lower range
her voice has a similar ping to Brandi Carlile's

Diabelli Recomposed (Variations 11-16) - Various [streamed on May 11, 2023]

11
we're waiting for it here
glimpses
until the abrupt end 

12
in a cramped tonality 

13
the house pests
plot 

14
an old and lovely song
lies unsung
amid the trunks
in the attic 

15
kittens play this one 

16
the room is still
predawn gray 

{NB no guarantee that I'm keeping proper track of the variations as they go by}

Try Being Lonely - Dolly Parton [from Just Because I'm a Woman]

embodiment of the state of bereavement
as a public service

June Sunday - Richard Cann, J. K. Randall, David Tenney, Matthew Young [from Inter/Play]

out of doors
with songbirds
and soft strings
and cardboard brass tube
labially generated vibration sounds
we sing back at the birds
communication by behavior
dance with the forest
not in it
nor on it 

we'll be the talk of squirrelkind for decades 

we have established camp
civilization 101 

sounds are shared
birdkind may go about birdkind's business unperturbed 

the camp settles for the night
the night watch stamps about in the cold
the birds review their scripts 

mutters on small speakers
in the out of doors 

these sounds are discretely located
no complications arise
from the reverberance of walls 

the purpose of this music
is to listen 

rude reeds splat from the skies 

each sound
has distance
and direction 

they elicit
a fully round space
though horizontally thin 

apples
on an apple tree
say apples apples apples apples 

do not be alarmed
should I stand in a field
and shout
hey!
it is only to hear
what it sounds like 

communication with the forest
by behavior
that feels foresty 

yea though we walk through the valley of the shadow of steady beats
we will fear no malign intent 

a relaxation into
quotidianhood
but briefly 

a mere intake of breath
beyond the gates
of the ritual proper
the last moments
of a cassette tape
before it runs out
to the leader
has a tell-tale
pulsed
thumping
that sneaks in
behind the sounds
that were recorded

Simon Says - Marley Marl [from In Control Vol. 1]

question
as to whether the use of another's recorded sound
as part of your sound
is fair:
does the broadcast of a sound
imply permission
to reuse at will
whether the broadcast
is by record sales or radio waves 

to whom
does it
anymore
belong?

Une jeune fillette (1616) - The Baltimore Consort [from La Rocque'n'Roll]

lute so gentle in the arts of elaboration

Falling Out of Love - Aretha Franklin [from So Damn Happy]

the sad montage of intimate collapse

CCJIK-Sean - Sacajawea Elementary Students [from Digital Dreams]

this would be quite the alarming sound
for an EV to make
all of a sudden
on the street

Time Waits for No Man - No Man's String Band [from Let The Truth Be Told]

fatalism
defiance
stubborn
independence

Guernica - Bret Hart [from Dubble Thud]

add this
to that
the march
adds grim joiners
continuous
a mass
and potential mob 

a mass of bodies
is an inherent threat
a mob
is an amoeboid army

Wordless Lullaby - Megan Ihnen [from Sleep Songs - Wordless Lullabies from The Sleepless, volume 2]

a descending line cycles
while a voice twines it round

July 8, 2026

Just Like a Rose - ? and The Mysterians [from ? and The Mysterians]

spacious home base establishment
each stanza
through a new window

The Star Spangled Banner - U2 [from Rattle and Hum]

so that
The Edge
can do
his Jimi

Vocalise, Op. 34 #14 - Serge Rachmaninov - Itzhak Perlman [from The Art of Itzhak Perlman]

imitating a singer of infinite lung
being very beautiful

Epona - Frieze of Life [from Nuclear Frog Pond]

a strand of modernism
pushes
at the broad acceptance
of what counts as music
for good or ill
it demands
first
that we accept it
as music
and
should we reject it
as such
we
would be shamed

For The Record - Mariah Carey [from E=MC2]

every aspect controlled from the booth

Roosevelt - Peterman [from Red Vinyl]

infra-generational life information transference

Milam Hospital - Choke The Pope [from Who Cares]

report from rehab
which is pretty much high school
per said report

The Ghetto - The Staples Singers [from Written in Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos]

a sermon

Monk's Point (Take 1) - Thelonious Monk [from The Complete Columbia Studio Solo Recordings]

poking touch

Just a Closer Walk With Thee - The Canadian Brass [from More Greatest Hits]

done up in a New Orleans tuxedo 

Where Did You Sleep Last Night - Nirvana [from Unplugged in New York]

turning the kids on about Lead Belly

Track 18 - Eckstein Middle School Students [from Mach 6]

a beginning band doing pretty well

Money Honey - Lady Gaga [from The Fame]

love in the lingo of commerce

Track 6 - Pouch [recorded live at Victory Lounge, Seattle, July 6, 2013]

drum beat pushes the top of the guitar beat

Track 7 [from Unknown Christmas Album]

something about this album
a whiff of publishing industry advertising professionals
making professional industry standard music 

here we have
some pretty classy stuff
for your pretty classy choirs

Romulus Hunt (beginning) - Carly Simon - Nashville Opera, Dean Williamson

{the conductor Dean Williamson and I
met when we were in high school
we played piano duets together
and I played percussion
in the pit orchestra
of the first piece of musical theater
he ever conducted} 

apparently
there's an imaginary friend involved

due to the vagaries
of how music is heard around here
I've heard this opera
in bits and pieces
in disorder
absurding plot points 

conflict of parenting styles
in canon no less 

composed
as a sequence of operatic moments 

a love spell is cast
by the imaginary friend
and we are in a sultry cabaret
in somebody's head 

full voice
at all times
this is opera
after all

The Climb - The Kingsmen [from The Very Best of The Kingsmen]

dance craze classic
short listed
for the land of 1000 dances
up there
with the hokey pokey

White Lightning - Girl Trouble [from Hit It Or Quit It]

the social purpose
of dude-presenting dance music
is to convince dudes
to dance
so that
they attract
those
with whom
to propagate the species 

("play on!")

Desert March - Gyula Csapó - Gusztav Fenyö [from Open Space 7]

unadorned
flattened
across a plain
of few intervals
tightly wound registers
and sonority 

this march
is forced
and foreboding
the ground is hard
the whole way 

the image
of relentless forte

O Come, O Come, Emanuel - Whitney Houston [from One Wish: The Holiday Album]

steering just this side of salacious

Balladei - Christopher Bailey - Shiau-uen Ding 

it is important
that we be severe
for the world of electronica being entered
is harsh
and the light glares
no room in which to breathe 

funhouse jump scares 

the pace never slackens
a concerto in a cage

Track 5 - Old Man Williamson [recorded live at Victory Lounge, Seattle, July 6, 2013]

a cover
under cover
of a noisy bar

The Road I'm On - Lost In Space [from Live at The Player's Lounge]

another long road trip
along the empty interstate
destination hours off yet
keep awake by jamming

July 9, 2026

A Child's Question, July - PJ Harvey [from I Inside The Old Year Dying]

this track is danceable
but doesn't demand
that the body dance
is shaped in standard-enough stanzaic song form
but would sound odd
sung on a porch
with banjos

Stimmung (1968) (beginning) - Karlheinz Stockhausen

of interest
that I can clearly hear the correlation
of each sung vowel
to the set of partials blossoming above it (from it?)
and
can even
almost
convince myself
that the vowel
is
that set of partials
but
a nag remains
that the vowel
as a part of language
is a different
kind of thing
entire
phonemes
belong
to the world of words
their sounds
as music
are not phonemes
because
music
is the remainder of
song minus language 

this music
vibrates
between language-sound
and not-language-sound 

I never asked myself
what the central pitch of this is
{B-flat, I think,
thought it's been through some several mechanical devices}

Izpovod - Bulgarian State Radio & TV Female Vocal Choir [from Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares 2]

stately
in straight backed chairs

Gap 1st Batch - J. K. Randall - J. K. Randall [from Open Space 7]

how timely!
I have
in the last few weeks
started to learn to play these pieces

I remember the first time I heard this
it completely floored me
it occupies
an out there
that was so much further out there
than I had imagined
thentofore 

the pieces
that he marks
"play a bunch of times"
(there are two of them)
divide themselves
into two parts
the time intervals
between the two parts
as they repeat
are distinct
a functional articulation 

how to listen:
an alternate pedagogy

Don't Push Me (feat. Lloyd Banks) - 50 Cent [from Get Rich or Die Tryin']

to be in charge
by means of threat posture

Genius Loci - Frank Brickle - William Anderson, Oren Fader [streamed December 4, 2024]

applause
to acknowledge
and welcome
and to thank
and approve

This Is Me Now - Shelby Earl [from Swift Arrows]

folks change
so deal

Nothing - Whitney Ballen [from You're a Shooting Star - I'm a Sinking Ship]

this track kills 

Study in D (#5) - Jeremiah Lawson

an unerringly hymnodic sense of musical shaping

I Am Sitting In A Room - Alvin Lucier

so am I 

I am sitting
in a different room
listening to you
saying
you are sitting in a room
different from the room
I am in now 

the demonstration
conflates
room
with room
plus
the infidelity
of the recording process

the room
being articulated by speech 

it occurs to me
that the room
being articulated by speech
being played back
into this
my different room
is itself
articulating the room
I am sitting in now
different room
does not imply
separate room
his room
is
in
my room
and
inside
is not
separate
just
distinct  

the effect
on my image
of Mr. Lucier
is that
he is getting further and further away 

I wonder
if they had to adjust the gain
to keep it from feeding back? 

shrunked
beyond eyesight 

or
as it accumulates
we are hearing the room
articulated
by the room
being articulated
by the room
being articulated
by...
speech 

it's mostly the room
articulating itself by then

all that's left
of the sitter
is the chatter
of glasses
in a cupboard
in the next room
long since vanished
glasses
cupboards
kitchens
suburbs
and surburbs
one and all 

Brick Is Red - Pixies [from Surfer Rosa]

one for the guitar player

Sorrow Is Not Melancholy - Deborah Drattell - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz]

Fafner is depressed
head
turned
within
a lonely cave
in the subbasement
of a mid 20th Century
Russian
slow movement 
for strings
playing
king of the hill
with Barber's Adagio
or nearly
any interminable Gorecki
I've heard

My 1st Song - Jay-Z [from The Black Album]

rhymes
the ing
of thing
and sing
on a high
bell-like
TING! 

name check acknowledgments

Chapel Performance Space (February 29, 2008) - Seattle Phonographers Union [from Seattle Phonographers Union]

recorded with microphone in a room
or directly from the board? 

is this
what was played
or what was heard? 

that's a cat purring
over in that channel 

all the sounds
are in other rooms
we have searched them out for you

Ringing Vale - Princess [from Selling Sulphur]

legend
shout out
extended leitmotif

Alright - Red Ribbon [from Dark Party]

in a mood of alienation and oppression

In Session at The Tintinabulary

July 6, 2026

Lemnos - Keith Eisenbrey

Keith Eisenbrey · 157 Lemnos 260705 [260706]

Banned Rehearsal 1154 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1154 260706

July 8-9, 2026

Variations - Aaron Keyt

Aaron composed this set of variations in 2013 and I have had it on my piano desk to learn several times since then, but it kept being back-burnered for other projects. I had finally had enough and worked at it until I could play it well enough to record I plan to include it on an upcoming album in the next month or so

Postscripts

Drops

Music of Aaron Keyt - Part 3

This third collection of the music of my long-time collaborator Aaron Keyt is composed of two sets of short pieces: Hedgehogs (2014) and Music for Wallace (2016). The recordings were made at my home in 2020/2021.

recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream