Lucid Dreaming by Scarcity of Moments

a collaborative project by Johann Meier and myself. nearly an hour of guitar and bass ambience realizing a sonic version of the multiple view points, fractured geometry, and repetition found in the literary works of Alain Robbe-Grillet and Ryunosuke Akutagawa. edition of 72 copies packaged in three variations of manipulated images by Johann. available from Small Doses.

now the shadow of the column 1:18
cylindrical glass half filled with a golden liquid 7:10
leaning toward the liquid surface 6:09
six internal surfaces of the cube 5:27
particles in motion 6:13
the opaque veil of its innumerable meshes 5:27
a violently illuminated sky 19:42
shapeless darkness 5:04

"Memory belongs to the imagination." - Alain Robbe-Grillet

Although the Large Hadron Collider is broken until at least next year, I keep it tucked in a back corner of my head wondering what will happen to reality when they fire that hula hoop up again. Especially since if they don't punch the solar system's ticket with strangelets, monopoles or black holes, they plan on opening up other dimensions. Infinite worlds of possibility.

If they pull it off, all we probably get is a roll of the dice. Then again, since quantum physics says that the observer influences the experiment - and we are all observers of reality - perhaps we can nudge it towards a better world.

So in addition to world peace, caritas, respect and provision for all, there's one reality we almost realized and got cheated out of. I'd like to give that one a shot.

Listening to Charlie Parker's The Complete Verve Master Takes (Leap Frog is killer) and Moondog's "Bird's Lament" - his tribute piece to Parker - I'm reminded that these two sax giants not only had a huge respect for each other's music, but they actually knew each other - they were friends. At one time while Moondog was living in New York, Parker had suggested that they record together.

On the other side of that coin is the apparent fact, according to Parker's widow, that he followed Edgard Varese through the streets of New York for two years before working up the nerve to speak to him. Finally he appeared on Varese's doorstep and asked to be taken on as his pupil. Varese agreed, but first was off to Europe. Interviewed by Paul Desmond in 1954 Parker said, "I had the pleasure to meet one Edgar Varese in New York City. He's a classical composer from Europe. He's a Frenchman, very nice fellow and he wants to teach me. In fact he wants to write for me because he thinks I'm more for ... more or less on a serious basis you know, and if he takes me over ... I mean after he's finished with me I might have the chance to go to the Academy of Musicalle out in Paris itself and study, you know. My prime interest still is learning to play music, you know."

Moondog and Varese also met, although there's little said about it. The street music genius and the father of electronic music coming face to face might certainly have been less than effusive. Parker was the catalyst. If either of these collaborations had taken place it would have been awesome... but what if, through the common denominator of Parker, all three had worked together? I've got a pretty good imagination and a head full of six decades of music addiction, and I can't imagine it.

Before any of this could happen, Parker died in a suite at the Stanhope Hotel on March 12, 1955 while watching Tommy Dorsey on tv. His passing was accompanied by a loud clap of thunder.

It seemed destined, yet it never happened. Strange really. So close you can almost hear it.

So next year, if you notice your surroundings start to shimmer and bend, give all this a thought, and you might get to hear some incredible music just before all the lights go out

Alveromancy; the act of conjuring using sound

1) Calabi Yau (G2 manifold) is a massive, droning, striated solo electric guitar improvisation with it's title is taken from string theory;
check out this image search

2) Deep Blue Dreaming is an electronic improvisation using audiomulch. Deep Blue was the IBM computer that defeated the human chess champion Gary Kasparov in 1997. now, with the growing sentience of AI computers, programmers are hoping to give them the ability to actually dream. "Commerce is our goal... 'more human than human' is our motto." - Eldon Tyrell in Blade Runner

3) Morpheus Descending free falls into the subconcious underworld as it rises up to meet you, leading you through a topography of shadowed memories and cleansing enigmas. skin drum, erhu, conch, melting ice, shortwave, flute, Tibetan bowl, electronics.

4) Beneath the City the darkness weaves together the muffled rumble of traffic, the diffused keening of subway trains on the rails, the rush of ghostly air streams you hear but never feel, the threatening hum and crackle of electric mainlines and the shaking of the earth itself. shortwave, electronics, sax.

5) Ariel, the magical air spirit in Shakespeare's The Tempest appears here clad in white noise and glass

6) Aurora (Daughter of Heaven) is an improvised electric guitar duet named for both the mythology of the dawn as well as the shifting, pulsing curtains of light dancing in the night sky.

7) The Visitation is processed harmonics and percussion with an orchestral character and Pandia on voice. in the middle of the night, in the dark, amidst the echoes, in the solitude... revelation.

Dedicated to Arie van Schutterhoef

Limited edition of 96 numbered copies,
56 minutes, CDR, full color artwork print in a transparent sleeve, 3EUR plus shipping
Available from Triple Bath

I sadly pass on the announcement that Dutch composer Arie van Schutterhoef (1957 - 2008) passed away on Saturday, June 7 while on a short trip to Paris. He was a true friend and one of the sharpest, funniest, insightful people I have ever known. I post this here because this is also a tremendous loss to anyone with an ear and mind for abstract electronic music. Director of and performer in the Schreck Electroacoustic Ensemble, he was also an amazing composer in his own right. In addition to the music he also collaborated with Hans van Eck on video and sound projects and designed and built the Stratifier which allows performers to play electronics and computers like a real instrument.

A selection of his music is available off the Schreck website here (that's Arie's voice towards the end of The Shining Room).

Most of the music posted here is mine and it covers a lot of ground, so just to avoid confusion...

on the MC Sampler;
Straw in the Wind is an acoustic blues improvisation from my soundtrack to Misha Nogha's novel YellowJacket

Jade Bees in an abstract duet between wine glass and an electric guitar played with tweezers and a glass paperweight

Sand, Wind and Stars is cinematic world music in collaboration with David Farewell

Rain is IDM based on the sound of rain dripping off the eaves;

A banana plant in the autumn gale -
I listen to the dripping of rain
Into a basin at night.
- Basho

The Golden Man is a rain forest built from processed VLF recordings by Stephen P. McGreevy

Noir is abstract downtempo jazz

Continuing Westward is a processed remix of Richard Dunlap's Onion Peelings with Misha on conch and a few small additions from me

Monoster in minimal techno

Tendrel is techno jazz fusion (with Michael Gibson on sax)

Albion is a feedback piece created through manipulation of resonating circuits

Heavenly Stone is a drone piece in the form of a comet with an AI voice reading a excerpt of poetry by Misha Nogha breaking up into a long droning tail.

Labyrinth of the Long Night is an electroacoustic 'orchestral' piece expressing the long dark nights of the soul

Waking East, Walking West is a soundscape beginning with cherry harvest - which often started before dawn - that is interrupted by a thunder storm, segueing to a walk through Portland, bells, ducks and piano from the Whitman campus, a toy piano in an antique store, and a few other bits here and there with an underpinning of hypnotic cello. dedicated to Luc Ferrari.

the other tracks...

Staring into the Sky - getting lost in the blue with the cloud people. somewhere between a drone and an ambience... and a dream. harmonics, metallics, sax & guitar.

Bhavanga - gazing upon, the long soul of a river, flowing movement, no thirst - Anaguma. flute, drum, harmonic tones

Aeolus - wind breath sighing oceans of air singing through throats of glass. dedicated to the rack on my pickup truck. processed harmonic tones

Lu Sang - traditionally a smoke offering to the Nagas, serpentine beings associated with water which itself often symbolizes the collective unconcious. it was they who raised their hoods to protect the Buddha from the rain. sleigh bells, glass bottle, digital incantations

Sun Through Trees - prismatic dancing of light on leaves

The Stars turn Green - Líf and Lífthrasir emerging from Hoddmímir's Forest after Ragnarök discover a Ballardian re-greening of the world. metallic percussion, harmonic tones

Koorie Wind - No didg, no tree frogs, no crackling fire... that main pattern played non-stop at roughly 6.2 megs on the shortwave. God on a didg. Makes you think twice about the Dreamtime. wind chimes, radio waves, processing

Salmandra - Persian for "lives in fire." Ode to the magical salamander. Mostly short wave and wind chimes again. I just couldn't resist the rhythm. processed short wave and wind chimes, a very little synth.

Sferic Beach - this is a real time improv I did using a live nasa vlf feed from outer space. the 'frying bacon' sound at the beginning is the raw source - lightening strikes - called sferics (from atmospherics) - that occur within a thousand kilometers of the receiver which is in huntsville, alabama. done 9:20 pm on 7/3/07. processed lightening

Twelve Twelve - My remix of Christopher Orczy's December 12 from his Harmonium Diaries

Ke-qua-hawk-as - Spirit of the wolverine. “A boreal animal has stretched out in my soul causing me to prick my animal thoughts. Coyote’s mirth, a wolf’s pant, blazing hunger of tiger and cold salamander creeping toward yellow flame.” - Misha from The Animal Who Eats Winter. sax, flutes, percussion, voice, guitar

Protocols of Transit - Heya - Happy Birthday Raven! (I really liked the way the timbres worked together on this one). didg, honey bees, trumpet

Quadrigemina - The corpora quadrigemina located in the mid-brain are composed of two pairs of lobes which are visual and auditory reflex centers. This four part composition is an example of structured improvisation recognizable but different each time it is performed. Instead of regular musical notation, the performer is provided with tape accompaniment and sets of suggestions, images, descriptive phrases, excerpts of prose or poetry, and instructions relating to sound processing. Michael Chocholak - composition & tape, Hein Pijnenburg - bass clarinet. Recorded at The Hague by Hans van Eck. Both Hein and Hans are members of the Schreck Ensemble.

Simoon - a sound/loop collage from the YellowJacket soundtrack

Prophase - from my soundtrack to Greg Bear's novel Blood Music

Second Object, White Spider White Web and Red Ivory - from my soundtrack to Misha's cyberpunk novel Red Spider White Web

The Sagas - a sonic metaphorical retelling in the traditions of the triple goddesses featuring the vocals of Pandia and Misha on conch.

Forbidden - for Bebe Barron, who, using circuits built by her husband Louis and tape recorders, composed the music for Forbidden Planet as well as other short art films. the homebuilt electronics were often overloaded until they burned up to create their unique sounds. mostly steel pasture gates, a wire fence and a home brewed id monster

In Search of Daedalus - A hybrid of musique concrete. Imprisoned in a Labyrinth of his own design by the king he had built it for, Daedalus anticipated Da Vinci by designing wings and escaped airborne with his young son... only to face a series of further trials and tragedies, which tends to be the way with ancient Greek heroes.

Falling Man - although Morton Feldman once said, "I loathe the sound of electronic music", this one is dedicated to him and the music he wrote. Theme and sonic variations in an open space.

Mechacolloidal - neither homogeneous nor heterogeneous neither solution nor suspension. the future will be reconstructed by billions of nanofactories endlessly and tirelessly replicating reality according to their mother codes... or mutations thereof. processed metallics and harmonic tones

The Building in Vukotinoviceva Street - Magis of magnetism and Elders of electrics burned the night blue in the cast of voltaic spells.

lavalamps - the 'lavalamp' series are not complete compositions. they are meant to be downloaded and played in any number and combination, continuously and simultaneously (looped). since they have differing durations they will interact differently over time. the effect is a subtlely and constantly changing and evolving ambience.

Ariel - the magical air spirit in Shakespeare's The Tempest appears here clad in white noise and glass from the Alveromancy CD on Triple Bath.




as far as the other playlists of my music;

ambient drones is just that; rivers, forests, wind, the far reaches of space

Songs from the Void is a collection of pieces created from vlf and shortwave; beaches, rain forests, didg by the campfire

Sonitechtures is a collection of my more abstract pieces including a few from my soundtrack to Misha Nogha's novel Red Spider White Web

the sonicblogs are field recordings from our farm Badger Sett

and there are a few more tracks - abstract - on a few of the other playlists and scattered here and there as well

enjoy