Adam levin

Music by Adam Levin
(c)(p) Adam Levin (Different Drum Music / ASCAP)

Albums:

TLU2
soundclick.com/adamlevin/?albumID=1611&content=albumInfo

Essentials
differentdrummusic.com/Essentials.htm

One of the challenges often put to composers is, try something different or “outside of the box”. As habitual artists, it’s easy to slip back into comfortable, predictable tendencies or trademarks. This piece was a concerted (pun unintended) rebellion against my own inclinations, pursuing a more minimalist path instead, even if I didn't completely get there. It was later set to ballet and choreographed in performance.

"...a fine contrast between the darker sound of the bass and crystal clear keyboards turns it into something magical."
- On-Reflection

"...the crystalline 'Mantra'...initially an attempt at bare-bones minimalism, the embellishments of this musical mandala take it – and us – from its Reich-ian roots into the sublime territory that is Adam's own."
- Peter Stoller

(Prior listener responses at soundcloud.com/adamlevin/mantra1)

Mantra

(live performance)

Wendy Boulding, vocal
Adam Levin, piano
Steve Wirts, saxophone

Music by Adam Levin
Lyrics by Peter Stoller & Adam Levin

(c) Adam Levin & Peter Stoller (Different Drum Music | ASCAP)

Feeling What I Feel

(live)

Wendy Boulding, vocal
Adam Levin, piano
Steve Wirts, saxophone

Music by Adam Levin & Peter Stoller
Lyrics by Peter Stoller & Adam Levin

(c) Adam Levin & Peter Stoller (Different Drum Music | ASCAP)

Album: Live(OnTape)
http://differentdrummusic.com/liveontape.htm

DVD: See It
http://differentdrummusic.com/See_It.htm

Let It Go

Flo Rida Ft. Robin Thicke & Verdine White - I Don't Like It, I Love It

Wendy Boulding, vocals & piano
Adam Levin, keyboards

Music & lyrics by Wendy Boulding
(c) Wendy Boulding (All rights reserved)

Feathers Everywhere

Wendy Boulding, lead vocals & piano
Adam Levin, keyboards, vocals

Music & lyrics by Wendy Boulding
(c) Wendy Boulding (All rights reserved) 

Midtown Meditation

Lock Away -Adam Levin ((Moombah)) 100Bpm Dj Carlo Remix

(live recording)

Adam Levin, lead vocal & piano | Ellen Weiss, vocal

Music by Brian Wilson | Lyrics by Tony Asher

God Only Knows (live recording)

(A condensed version of 'Islands' Parts 1, 2 & 3) 

Music by Adam Levin
(c)(p) Adam Levin (Different Drum Music / ASCAP)
Engineered by Jay Mark

Full-length versions:
soundcloud.com/adamlevin/islands (instrumental)
soundcloud.com/levin-collab/islands-modern-mind (spoken word)

Amidst our national climate of division -- and creating and sustaining solidarity -- 'Islands' is a metaphor and musical reflection of those challenges.

Its Movement One ('Pandora's Box') resembles a slightly twisted piano concerto, Two ('Needle's Eye') a piano in solitary confinement, and Three ('Testament') an electric guitar sneak attack....with jazz, classical and rock elements forming the erratic atmosphere. Or a lengthy Rorschach test with no correct answer. Using a roadmap and compass, the first movement is marked by themes and variations, the second hosts a development with thematic signposts at the entrance and exit gates, and the third reflects them all back at you in a funhouse mirror.

"Portraying issues of human isolation and connection is 'Islands', one of Adam's most challenging and invigorating works to date.....Adam's magnum opus engages in a bit of seriously playful one-upmanship, daring the listener to keep up with him as he takes us on a rollercoaster ride through an apparently haphazard collection of themes that is ultimately revealed to be an intricately balanced construct, bringing order out of chaos just as a kaleidoscope wrings symmetrical beauty from broken glass."
- Peter Stoller

"Lovely! I'm enjoying listening to this immensely. Who can resist such subtlety of emotion and such powerful imagination? The music has a Personality and it's a very attractive one....really great writing and playing...the sound quality is stunning, crisp clean and wonderfully dynamic...loads of influences that blend to make something new. Yeah!"
- On-Reflection

"That bass line at the beginning of 'Islands' still freaks me out, as it is so perfectly melodic."
- Ian Smit, Monkeyworks

Islands Suite

Music by Adam Levin | Poem by Joe Lobell
(c)(p) Adam Levin & Joe Lobell (Different Drum Music / ASCAP)

(Full-length) 'Islands':
I. Pandora's Box (including 'Modern Mind')
II. Needle's Eye
III. Testament
soundcloud.com/levin-collab/islands-modern-mind

(Condensed) 'Islands Suite':
soundcloud.com/adamlevin/islands-suite

Album:  I  S  L  A  N  D  S  .  .  .
soundclick.com/adamlevin/?albumID=1608&content=albumInfo

Islands, Part One: Pandora's Box (including 'Modern Mind')

I. Inspired by the Sound of Your Own Voice
II. Verbalosity
III. Family Discussion

Music & lyrics by Adam Levin
(c)(p) Adam Levin (Different Drum Music / ASCAP)

Albums:
Blissful Behemoth
differentdrummusic.com/BlissfulBehemoth.htm

et al.
differentdrummusic.com/et_al.htm

Blissful Behemoth / et al.

ver bal o sis

I. Pandora's Box (including 'Modern Mind')
II. Needle's Eye
III. Testament

Music by Adam Levin | Poetry by Joe Lobell
(c)(p) Adam Levin & Joe Lobell (Different Drum Music / ASCAP)
Engineered by Jay Mark

Album: Islands
soundclick.com/artist/default.cfm?bandID=1245099&albumID=1608&content=albumInfo


Movement One ('Pandora's Box') resembles a slightly twisted piano concerto, Two ('Needle's Eye') a piano in solitary confinement, and Three ('Testament') an electric guitar sneak attack....with jazz, classical and rock elements forming the erratic atmosphere. Or a lengthy Rorschach test with no correct answer. Using a roadmap and compass, the first movement is marked by themes and variations, the second hosts a development with thematic signposts at the entrance and exit gates, and the third reflects them all back at you in a funhouse mirror.

Joe Lobell’s poem ('Modern Mind') in 'Pandora’s Box' was written independent of the music, and vice versa, yet almost magically fits that music’s mood, pace and duration (right down to the poem’s own references to “islands”.)

"Lovely! I'm enjoying listening to this immensely. Who can resist such subtlety of emotion and such powerful imagination? The music has a Personality and it's a very attractive one....really great writing and playing...the sound quality is stunning, crisp clean and wonderfully dynamic."
- On-Reflection

"Really cool. Jazzy and advanced. The poem framed by the music. Very hip rendition. Exhilarating. I forgot how good the poem is. Your feeling musical exposition (not backdrop but surrounding) multiplies the poem. Your reading is, in a nutshell, cool. Makes me want to do a full album with you (a big project I know) of my poems and your musical expositions and turning the album into a show."
- Joe Lobell, poet ('Modern Mind') (1951-2019)

"Portraying issues of human isolation and connection is 'Islands', one of Adam’s most challenging and invigorating works to date. If Joe Lobell's poetry in 'Modern Mind' exhorts the contemporary artist to dig a well of inspiration in the morass of modern culture, Adam's magnum opus engages in a bit of seriously playful one-upmanship, daring the listener to keep up with him as he takes us on a rollercoaster ride through an apparently haphazard collection of themes that is ultimately revealed to be an intricately balanced construct, bringing order out of chaos just as a kaleidoscope wrings symmetrical beauty from broken glass. Joe tells us each individual is 'an island in a universe of islands'; Adam shows us how all those islands are connected."
- Peter Stoller

Islands

Adam Levin, keyboards
Wendy Boulding, John Eyre, Adam Levin & Peter Stoller, vocals

Songs by Adam Levin
w/Wendy Boulding ('So Alive') and Elena Rye Pellicciaro ('Do You Feel It?')

Mantra

Adam Levin

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