A field recording/sound collage from last Saturday at the Fort Worth MOMA. Sounds inside the Serra sculpture Vortex, and the African percussion/dance ensemble Jumbie.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
oMY
I've just discovered one of the most beautiful guitar records, ever! Bill Frisell's In Line.
His first solo release, on ECM, has some great improvised guitarscapes, alot of deep delay/reverb stuff, and some fine bass accompaniment by Arild Andersen.
..."The distance traveled from his first solo record, In Line, until today is enormous, and Frisell has shown such a broad scope in his playing. But some of his trademark features were present then. The playing is kept deceptively simple, with so much attention given to melody and sound. His thoughtful improvisations are creating contemplative and impressionistic soundscapes, and the result is very beautiful music. And the unique sound leaves a lasting impression on your heart. "I hope I've made some progress since In Line. In some ways, so much of what I do now was already there then. The basic idea was there. I hope I've gotten stronger. I think I have more confidence now. I'm not quite as afraid to do what I want."
In Line
His first solo release, on ECM, has some great improvised guitarscapes, alot of deep delay/reverb stuff, and some fine bass accompaniment by Arild Andersen.
..."The distance traveled from his first solo record, In Line, until today is enormous, and Frisell has shown such a broad scope in his playing. But some of his trademark features were present then. The playing is kept deceptively simple, with so much attention given to melody and sound. His thoughtful improvisations are creating contemplative and impressionistic soundscapes, and the result is very beautiful music. And the unique sound leaves a lasting impression on your heart. "I hope I've made some progress since In Line. In some ways, so much of what I do now was already there then. The basic idea was there. I hope I've gotten stronger. I think I have more confidence now. I'm not quite as afraid to do what I want."
In Line
Saturday, November 20, 2010
How nice...uh, New Age?
I am grateful that I've been getting some mentions in the FW Weekly here recently. Here's an excerpt, describing the new BL album Proto-Sapien:
"What you may notice is that the album lies at that bloody crossroads of experimental and New Age — “bloody” because while we applaud experimental (Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream), we look down upon New Age (Yanni, John Tesh, Vangelis). Who cares about labels, though, right? Listen without prejudice, and you’ll find that Breaking Light (né Kavin Allenson) creates music that while atmospheric is highly durable and pleasing. He achieves his sweeping, airy sonicscapes merely via guitar and some sampling wizardry. Quite a trick."
And this week in the FWW Turkey awards, I was mentioned as an example, along with some other fine local artists, of whom local clubs should be booking, instead of the standard "Texas Music" fare. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
"What you may notice is that the album lies at that bloody crossroads of experimental and New Age — “bloody” because while we applaud experimental (Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream), we look down upon New Age (Yanni, John Tesh, Vangelis). Who cares about labels, though, right? Listen without prejudice, and you’ll find that Breaking Light (né Kavin Allenson) creates music that while atmospheric is highly durable and pleasing. He achieves his sweeping, airy sonicscapes merely via guitar and some sampling wizardry. Quite a trick."
And this week in the FWW Turkey awards, I was mentioned as an example, along with some other fine local artists, of whom local clubs should be booking, instead of the standard "Texas Music" fare. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
Friday, November 19, 2010
improvFriday submissions
I shall try to start posting these here every week, as time allows. ImprovFriday is a great new music site where participants upload, share and discuss improvisational recordings every week, from Thursday evening to Saturday night (the site is on Pacific time). Their link is over there on the right.
For this week, my focus was on son Eric's Line 6 POD XT which he let me borrow. The POD really opens a wide range of sound colors for the electric guitar (here I'm using the trusty Squier Tele).
PT's Groove utilizes Peter Thoegersen's 10/8 drum groove which he submitted to improvFriday last week.
I edited down to 2 minutes from the original 4:09 length, because jamming to the whole thing would have taxed the listener a bit much, being improv....I wish I had written down the patch I used, a nice distortion tone that worked well.
Pod Mind- used the Octave Bend setting on the Pod for this one, the pedal used to modulate the pitch bends. Using some slide and ebow, got some pretty wild sounds. Some live looping, reverse and half/double speed looping on my delay modeler (line 6 DL4).
PT's Groove
Pod Mind
For this week, my focus was on son Eric's Line 6 POD XT which he let me borrow. The POD really opens a wide range of sound colors for the electric guitar (here I'm using the trusty Squier Tele).
PT's Groove utilizes Peter Thoegersen's 10/8 drum groove which he submitted to improvFriday last week.
I edited down to 2 minutes from the original 4:09 length, because jamming to the whole thing would have taxed the listener a bit much, being improv....I wish I had written down the patch I used, a nice distortion tone that worked well.
Pod Mind- used the Octave Bend setting on the Pod for this one, the pedal used to modulate the pitch bends. Using some slide and ebow, got some pretty wild sounds. Some live looping, reverse and half/double speed looping on my delay modeler (line 6 DL4).
PT's Groove
Pod Mind
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
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