Music

Somewhere faraway (a poem)

2014/09/12 — Leave a comment

Yesterday morning, I arrived early for an appointment. For my in-car listening that morning, I had chosen a mixtape I made in 1987 (the CD player in my car stopped working back in February). One of the songs on the tape, included as an instrumental interlude, was ‘Somewhere Faraway’, from Melon’s 1987 album Deep Cut. (Club-goers may remember Melon from dance track ‘Hardcore Hawaiian’.) Seeing that title on the j-card started me thinking, and I began to write…
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27 November 2009

2014/09/06 — Leave a comment

Happened upon this today while going through a personal project from a few years ago. If I’m recalling correctly, it’s from a day when I was driving a few blocks from home while listening to Ruby Throat. It had rained the day before, but this particular day was sunny (or perhaps cloudy yet warm). As sometimes happened in that particular neighborhood, the heat from the sunlight caused steam to rise from the wet pavement. Continue reading

Plundering the Archives #6

2014/04/12 — Leave a comment

The last of the four live performances I did in 1996–97. By the end of this piece (the second of two pieces performed on 31 May 1997), one of the four paying audience members had fallen asleep on a sofa that served as some of the seating in the Anomalous Records performance space. Eric (Mr. Anomalous Records himself) asked me if I’d been listening to Nux Vomica. To this day, I’m not sure if he was being complimentary or dismissive (or both)…

(12 April 2014)

Plundering the Archives #5

2014/04/08 — Leave a comment

This track, ‘Refraction grid’, is one of my favorite pieces. It has a shimmering, luminous quality that remains constant through the various shifts from light to dark/heavy; it’s relatively simple; and it’s relatively short.

In addition to appearing as part of the Veiled Faces, Moving Shadows cassette, it was the first track on the Unit Circle compilation Nocturne Concrète. I’ve had my music appear on three compilation CDs (the other two were Mind/Body 3 and the Doppler Effect compilation Resurgence); Nocturne Concrète is still my favorite. Even though it covers a fairly wide swath—including ambient, experimental, noise, goth—it has the best overall track listing. Plus the artists got to design their own pages in the accompanying booklet; I got one of the color pages. And some of the connections I made as a result of that compilation are still in place today. As Martin Mull once said (on his album I’m Everyone I’ve Ever Loved, “Aren’t records a wonderful way of meeting people? I certainly think so—and that’s why I do them.” Okay, that wasn’t why I made recordings, but records can be a wonderful way of meeting people…

(8 April 2014)