Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, Small Gestures #1 (2011)
Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, Small Gestures #1 (2011)
A Finnish composer, writer and visual artist who resides in Kitee, Finland. Jukka-Pekka specializes in software and algorythm-driven musical compositions including the programming of 8-bit video game chips. His compositions are distinctively electronic in nature and that is why this piece – ‘Small Gestures #1′ – is something of a surprise to those who are familiar with his music.
‘Small Gestures #1′ is a minimalist piece in the classic sense and here Jukka-Pekka has managed to capture the energy and optimism that characterized the early works of Reich and Glass.
Jukka-Pekka Kervinen contributed a piece to the most recent Roanoke Marginal Arts Festival and the Jyvaskylan taidemuseo (music for videos), Finland, also in 2011. When he is not writing music, Jukka-Pekka is involved in photography, poetry and publishing. Further information here.
Eris – Jon Brenner (2011)
From the composer:
“‘Eris’ was originally written as a wind ensemble piece in late 2006. the piece is named after the dwarf planet that was responsible for the ousting of pluto. This version of ‘Eris’ was recorded in May, 2011, with synthesizers, electric guitars, electric piccolo bass, and electric bass with one on a part.”
Jon Brenner is a Seattle-based composer and musician who writes contemporary art music and performs chamber music, new and old. His works include music for soloists, chamber ensembles, film, art installations, and larger ensembles. Jon plays viola da gamba and harpsichord and has appeared with the New Baroque Orchestra in Seattle.
Artwork for ‘Eris’ by Jon Brenner
Further information at www.jonbrenner.com.
Dave Seidel (Mysterybear), Following a Line Part II (2011)
Dave Seidel (Mysterybear), Following a Line Part II (2011)
“Another improv, this one for the ImprovFriday Jan. 13-15 session. Auduino, FM2 and FM3 Buddha Machines, Memory Man delay box, MoogerFooger ring modulator. Trimmed at the beginning and end.
This track is also available as part of the “Following A Line” release on the mysterybear netlabel:”
Wash 2 – James Ross (2010)
James Ross is a Brooklyn, NY-based composer and performer who writes music for orchestral and chamber ensembles, as well as solo music for the guitar and the zhongruan (a type of Chinese lute). He has also performed and recorded electronic and improvised music. I find his most compelling work to be reflective looped ambient pieces, of which ‘Wash 2′ is an excellent example.
Ross’ music unfolds slowly into an introspective space that carries the listener along on a gentle current of soft sounds and textures. Even at its full 25 minutes ‘Wash 2′ seems short – the music is fully engaging the entire time.
Embody the Struggle, Evan Kuchar (2010)
Embody the Struggle, Evan Kuchar (2010)
“Chamber minimalism with electronics. Violin, clarinet, cello, bass clarinet, piano, synths, drum machines. Slowly unfolding introspection, building, climaxing, remixing.”
Embody the Struggle by evankuchar
C Garden – Steve Layton (2011)
C Garden – Steve Layton (2011)
(feat. Paul Hertz, Diego Monroy, Jim Goodin, Paul Muller)
A mashup by Steve Layton from mid-2011. Paul Hetrz’s organ playing anchors this like a foghorn in dangerous waters. The other parts flow perfectly around this to form a beautiful texture, bubbling in a sort of reflective optimism – like a sunset the after the perfect day.
Steve Layton is a Dallas-based composer specializing in mixing and mashing of disparate pieces. C Garden was originally created for an ImprovFriday event on August 12, 2011.
Jaime Fennelly (MindOverMirrors): Gearlidine (2010)
Jaime Fennelly (MindOverMirrors): Gearlidine (2010)
Mind Over Mirrors is the solitary reeling of American harmoniumist/electronicist Jaime Fennelly. Known primarily as a founding member of transatlantic gothic junk folk expressionists Peeesseye, and psychedelic free jazz trio Acid Birds, Fennelly developed Mind Over Mirrors while living on a remote island in the Salish Sea of Washington State from 2007 – 2010. Utilizing a custom made Indian pedal harmonium, oscillators, tape delays, and an assortment of synthesizing guitar pedals, Fennelly bends slowly-building, repetitive melodies into massive sonic mountains, that fits somewhere between American Primitive, Drone and Kosmische aural territory, and as XXJFG eulogized, sounds “like some drum-less-techno titan stalking the sand blasted bazaars of a near-future, eastern city.”
mindovermirrors.com
facebook page
http://www.sswilloughby.com/
Polymetric Piano Counterpoint (The Dawn), Fabio Anile (2010)
Polymetric Piano Counterpoint (The Dawn), Fabio Anile (2010)
“Minimalist composition based on patterns of different lengths sharing the same pulse. Instruments: grand piano, marimba, shakers, claves, live looping software.”
Dance – Polymetric Piano Counterpoint by Fabio Anile
Fabio Anile website (www.eterogeneo.com)
I Will Begin a Journey – Jim Goodin (2011)
I Will Begin a Journey – Jim Goodin (2011)
download mp3
Jim Goodin is a Brooklyn-based musician who frequently contributes to ImprovFriday. “I Will Begin a Journey” is a simple folk tune that begins with a series of pizzicato arpeggios that are looped, creating an infectious texture that is complimented by the tune that emerges towards the middle. This is excellent traveling music!
Charlie Hoistman: Skittery I (excerpt, 2011)
Charlie Hoistman: Skittery I (excerpt, 2011)
“Skittery 1″ is a short excerpt from a longer 25-minute electronic piece made with SuperCollider, my preferred noisemaking environment. I had made lots of pieces in a kind of Fripp & Eno style long-delay, sound-on-sound method, using steady tones with long attack and decay. I wanted to try a very different texture from this, so fed a sequence of some of these same tones through a short clipped envelope with an extremely short attack and release, which had the effect of chopping them up into short staccato blips. As I recorded the results I tweaked the note and delay length to alter the texture. Harmonically, the piece uses a pentatonic scale using Just Intonation.”
Programmed and recorded January 15, 2011
you can also find more of his music at a snow of butterflies and the soundbites podcast
Derek Rogers: Boxing Demons in Sleep (2010)
Derek Rogers: Boxing Demons in Sleep (2010) “I wrote this piece to demonstrate the five phases of sleep; that is, the moment of awareness before relaxation, the transition from lighter to heavier sleep, and the creation of dreams in the final REM sleep stage. ‘Boxing Demons In Sleep’ was created utilizing guitar, synthesizer, and electronics [...]
Chris Schlarb: Dream State > Police State (2010)
Chris Schlarb: Dream State > Police State (2010) Dream State > Police State by Chris Schlarb “An astounding work of passion and patience over one thousand hours in the making, Long Beach musician/composer Chris Schlarb bestows his latest musical vision, Psychic Temple, onto the world. Known for his work as half of the hypnotic, jazz/drone [...]
Greg Hooper: Unselected (2011)
Greg Hooper: Unselected (2011)
“A new piece using surrogate techniques to generate new works from old. This time I used a recording of the loudest drops of rain falling into a swimming pool as the timing sequence and mapped the pitch sequence of Gymnopedie#1 onto that. It sounded like Brian Eno circa Ambient 1. Some notes didn’t fit and were removed. What remains is that which was unselected.”
Marco Lucchi: Marco is Moondogging (2010)
International ensemble/collective o.e.s. created an album with a multitude of interpretations to a composition by the eccentric avant-garde composer, Moondog.
With vocal and instrumental executions, samples and remixes contributed by Hidekazu Wakabayashi, Harold Nono, Roberto Corsini, Marco Lucchi, Giampaolo Violi, Antonio de Braga, Cometa, Eerohz, Massimo Croce, iN2Ni, Jean Montag and Steve Layton.
“Marco is Moondogging” is the hommage that Marco Lucci pays to the legendary figure of Moondog. o.e.s. worked on a song of his entitled “Lovesong” that has a twin in an instrumental track titled “Fujiyama”. The song tells a story that is similar to the one of Tristan and Isolda or of Romeo and Juliet. A very tragic love story.
Listen to the track (via soundcloud)
listen to the track
Download the whole album as a zip file or click here for more downloading and streaming options.
Jim Perkins (Bigo and Twigetti): Chopin Prelude (2010)
Jim Perkins (Bigo and Twigetti): Chopin Prelude (2010)
“The original prelude was one of the first pieces I learnt to play. It sparked hundreds of ideas for potential re-arrangments and just provided a lot of opportunities to experiment. I wanted to be able to fuse all the experience I had of editing digital audio files and mixing, with the sounds of the piano but not by chopping up an existing recording as that is quite limited but by starting with the musical arrangement and the playing of the piece, whilst also keeping in mind the editing and effects I might use later on. This allowed me much more flexibility in producing the piece I wanted. That recording triggered a whole series of events which led me to record endless hours of piano, meet some incredible musicians and studio engineers and ultimately create a whole album of piano and laptop pieces.“
Jon Brenner: Espresto (2010)
Jon Brenner: Espresto (2010) part 3 of 3. all sound sources take from coffee appliances. no instruments were used in this recording. from caffeine machine, released 08 March 2010 music written, performed, and mixed by jon brenner. published by klomp music (ascap). for more info: www.jonbrenner.com jon brenner bandcamp page
anonymousremains-a-hack-in-a-trance (2010)
anonymousremains-a-hack-in-a-trance (2010)
“a music boffin enunciates Shostakovich’s signature motif, this is doubled up as 2 loops of different length
producing a phasing effect, loops of voice,mouth organ,and harp add an swirling impressionistic wash.
The title is a ‘fellow’ composers critique of Shostakovich.produced in Soundforge.”
O – anonymousremains – a hack in a trance by anonymousremains
Matthew Hunter: Prepared Piano Improv. I (2009)
Matthew Hunter: Prepared Piano Improv. I (2009)
Prepared Piano Improv. I (2009) by Matthew Hunter
“”Utilising the unusual timbres of an inelegantly prepared piano as devised by myself and my sound engineer friend Dan.
A chance meeting with resulted in us toying with a piano at the school of music. I was being clever and showinghim how to mute the strings with my hand. In response he took 4 or 5 plastic folders out of his bag and placed them across all the strings.We liked the sound so much that we moved into the studio. He set up mics, carefully spread the folders across the strings, put some headphones on me, and told me to play. This was the result, and it was only when he played it back to me a few weeks later that I realised how well it worked. Hopefully there will be more in the future.”
EMU Recording Studio, Edler Conservatorium of Music. Recorded by Dan Pitman.”
Martin White (Bonang): Pools (2009)
Martin White (Bonang): Pools (2009)
“This piece is based around rhythmic and melodic permutations. I love the idea of winding up processes and seeing where they go. One day someone’ll figure out the title… which has nothing at all to do with water”
Jim Goodin: Window (2010)
Window is a looped piece that slowly builds, layer upon layer, with the various pitches and timbres of the violin added as it progresses. The piece has a somewhat Asian feel at times, but the effect of the increasing strings is to fill up the space almost like an orchestra.
Here is what Jim Goodin writes about this piece:
“Window was created with my rather primitive violin technique and a Digitech Hardwire Delay/Looper pedal. I’m using some arcing technique as well as repeated figures indicative of my interest and influence in minimalism in music. … My violin is a custom made electric solid body 4 string. Window is completely improvisation, no music was pre-thought or noted.”
Further information can be found here.
First posted on the ImprovFriday October 15, 2010 event.
JC Combs: The Drone In My Life (2010)
JC Combs: The Drone In My Life: (2010)
Dark, mysterious combination of piano and menacing ambient atmospherics fashioned from processed piano sounds. Creates a feeling of anxiety as if in an alien cityscape at night. Tension builds nicely by the restrained suspension of long tones.
Here is what JC Combs writes about this piece:
“The Drone in My Life” is from a small scale set called “Affliction Suite ” … The piece consists entirely of piano improvisation, including the inside of the piano. As with the other works I employ post-improvisation (what I and others nowadays refer to as re-composition) techniques via audio tool platforms. As for its form, its split into two sections. The first showcasing free piano improvisation with the drone backing up the piano, and the second half where the drone permeates the piece – as the title suggests. Of course, I strive for some humor in my works, in this case the title word play on Feldman’s “Viola in My Life.”
Alex Carpenter: Fainting Spell Mix (2010)
Alex Carpenter: Fainting Spell Mix (2010)
Fainting Spell Mix is an ambient work similar to that being created by James Ross and Richard Lainhart. Alex uses a self-designed multi-amp and delay network he calls the Live Audio Delay System and achieves a convincing sense of stasis and movement simultaneously. In this piece Alex plays guitar and produces a fine, music box-like texture that seems to hang in the air. The result is a restful and engaging piece that holds your interest even as it slowly unfolds. ’Fainting Spell Mix’ was originally posted at ImprovFriday for the September 25, 2010 event.
More info at http://transparentmeans.net/
KraftiM: Itsium (2010)
“Itsium is a part one of a little symphony and can be seen as a short successor of FraxurY, because again soundwaves from my Swedish collegue and mate frags were used here.
For this release again a combination of scandinavian names and dutch dodekagrams are used to give the hopeful feel in these serious pieces. These tracks will be used on a full album that will be released summer 2010 on netlabel Musictrade
Developing since then with influences from classic masterpieces towards more ambient, drone-like pieces that try to capture the full complexity of silence, as well as more rhythmic experimental pieces that try to shift yer mood rather than move yer feet”
jamendo website
uvumi website
musictrade.info website
indie music works
Simeon-Diex/Marcello Dirks (2009)
Simeon-Diex/Marcello Dirks (2009)
“Originally a pure piano-piece, this is breaking in Garitan’s Personal Orchestra on Kontakt 4 with a tribute-work-in-progress to one of my favorite Dutch composers; Simeon ten Holt”
marcello dirks soundcloud (synopsis decay)
marcello dirks soundcloud 1
marcello dirks soundcloud 2
