Original music from the Fall 2021 Creative Repertory Ensemble at the CalArts Herb Alpert School of Music

Music by Caroline Baughman, Claire Goh, Liam Hayden and Lily Maase
Lyrics by Caroline Baughman and Claire Goh with additional lyrics by Lily Maase

Claire Goh - Vocals, Guitar
Claire Rivers - Vocals, Additional Guitars
Guthrie Gates - Guitar
Lily Maase - Guitar, Backing vocals
Marley Wall - Synthesizer, Backing Vocals
Rosa Evangelina - Acoustic Guitar, Backing Vocals
Robert Weddle - Acoustic Guitar
Liam Hayden - Electric Bass
Gabe Perluss - Percussion
Caroline Baughman - Drumset

Produced by Lily Maase and John Baffa for the CalArts Creative Repertory Ensemble
Recorded at CalArts by John Baffa and the HASOM Project Recording Students
Additional recording by Claire Goh, Gabe Perluss and Lily Maase
Mixed by Joshua Salgado
Mastered by Evren Goknar

Better To Fall (CalArts Creative Rep F2021)

Original music from the Fall 2021 Creative Repertory Ensemble at the CalArts Herb Alpert School of Music

Music by Alice Sandahl, Rosa Evangelina, Gabe Perluss and Lily Maase
Lyrics by Rosa Evangelina and Gabe Perluss
Guitar Solo arranged by Claire Goh and Guthrie Gates
Additional vocal arranging by Robert Weddle and Claire Rivers

Rosa Evangelina - Vocals
Gabe Perluss - Vocals
Claire Rivers - Backing Vocals
Robert Weddle - Additional Vocals
Claire Goh - Guitar
Guthrie Gates - Guitar
Lily Maase - Guitar, Backing vocals
Alice Sandahl - Mellotron
Marley Wall - Acoustic Piano, Electric Organ, Synthesizer
Liam Hayden - Electric Bass
Caroline Baughman - Drumset

Produced by John Baffa and Lily Maase for the CalArts Creative Repertory Ensemble
Additional recording by Gabe Perluss, Claire Goh and Lily Maase
Mixed by Cole Sandman
Mastered by Evren Goknar

Because Of You (CalArts Creative Rep F2021)

Original music from the Spring 2022 Creative Repertory Ensemble at the CalArts Herb Alpert School of Music

Concept originated by Menghe Jing
Music by Menghe Jing, Sage Henricksen, Amanda Carter, Angelo Yousef and Lily Maase
Lyrics by Menghe Jing, Sage Henricksen, Amanda Carter and Angelo Yousef
Additional lyrics by Lily Maase

Arranged by Lily Maase
Auxiliary Percussion arranged by Alexander Reyes
Horns arranged by Seth Giles

Sage Henricksen - Voice, Auxiliary Percussion
Diego Magaña - Voice, Auxiliary Percussion
Chris Lyric - Voice
Logan Whitworth - Voice
Arian Powers - Voice
Brent Lopez - Guitar
Lily Maase - Guitar
Alexander Reyes - Auxiliary Percussion
Simone Summers - Flugelhorn
Seth Giles - Trombone
Mason Moy - Tuba
Liam Hayden - Electric bass
Cole Sandman - Drumset, Auxiliary Percussion

Featuring special guest vocalists Menghe Jing and Angelo Yousef

Produced and edited by Lily Maase
Recorded by John Baffa and the members of the CalArts Project Recording class
Additional engineering by Nathaniel Sellin
Additional vocal coaching by Magdalena Baldych

Mixed by Gabriela Sierra
Mastered by Evren Goknar

Soymilk (CalArts Creative Rep S2022)

Original music from the Spring 2022 Creative Repertory Ensemble at the CalArts Herb Alpert School of Music

Music by Sage Henricksen, Diego Magaña and Lily Maase
Lyrics by Sage Henricksen and Diego Magaña
Additional lyrics by Lily Maase

Arranged by Lily Maase, Liam Hayden, Cole Sandman and the members of the CalArts Creative Rep Ensemble
Horns arranged by Seth Giles

Sage Henricksen - Voice, Guitar
Diego Magaña - Voice
Chris Lyric - Voice
Logan Whitworth - Voice, Guitar
Arian Powers - Piano
Brent Lopez - Guitar
Lily Maase - Guitar
Alexander Reyes - Vibraphone
Simone Summers - Flugelhorn
Seth Giles - Trombone
Mason Moy - Tuba
Liam Hayden - Electric bass
Cole Sandman - Drumset

Produced and edited by Lily Maase
Recorded by John Baffa and the members of the CalArts Project Recording class
Additional engineering by Nathaniel Sellin
Additional vocal coaching by Magdalena Baldych

Mixed by Christopher Eisland Birch
Mastered by Evren Goknar

The Last Beginning (CalArts Creative Rep S2022)

This mix combines my favorite sections from my neuro and heavy bass sets this summer. Mostly from Sonic Bloom and my night set at Moontribe's 29-year anniversary FMG, but also a little from the Untz Festival and the Ultrasloth show at Cervantes in Denver

dela Moon - HEAT.wav (Sonic Bloom/Moontribe 29-Year FMG)

Concerto for percussion duo and orchestra. Performed on May 14, 2024 by the Artosphere Festival Orchestra and arx duo, Corrado Rovaris conducting.

Commissioned by arx duo and Symphony Tacoma. Premiered on April 22, 2023 by Symphony Tacoma at Pantages Theater, Tacoma by Garrett Arney and Mari Yoshinaga, percussion, Sarah Ioannides conducting.

PROGRAM NOTE:

My Double Percussion Concerto for arx duo was a dream project for many years. I have known arx for almost a decade and love many things about them: the energy in their playing, their infectiously engaging personalities, and their habit of imagining percussion instruments as seamlessly integrated members of the orchestra. Above all, I admire arx for their commitment to drawing together everyone in the room – for their desire to engage with as many communities as possible in their music-making, which is a passion we share. My concerto is inspired by all these qualities. 

I wanted to deliver the goods in this music, leaning into some of the things percussion does best. This music grooves, pulses, and above all, dances. There are moments of rhythmic trickery in this piece that were influenced by my favorite contemporary dance music—work by composers like Anna Meredith and Squarepusher. The rhythmic language in these passages trades on expectation and surprise, emphasizing repeated patterns before subverting expectations. 

I think of this piece as a syncopated, slithering way for the orchestra to move together with the percussion soloists. That idea of togetherness is centrally important to the piece. Instead of engaging with the traditional soloist vs. orchestra dynamic of a typical concerto, I imagined this work as a concerto for percussion duo and orchestra, with both parties working together. The phasing section of this piece captures that kind of virtuosity: it foregrounds the artistry of how two musicians interact with one another, and with the orchestra, rather than emphasizing their technical ability as solo players.

For a percussion concerto, this piece is also very much obsessed with pitch. In that domain, my Double Percussion Concerto has an especially close kinship with Beethoven. Love him or hate him, it’s undeniable that Beethoven’s favorite musical patterns have influenced composers for centuries. I suppose I’m now joining those ranks, except that in this piece I’ve worked towards an aesthetic that twists Beethoven’s turns of phrase. This concerto is partly comprised of stolen elements of Beethoven’s vocabulary, ones that have been distorted into somewhat deranged progressions that I think sound fresh.

The way this piece atomizes and twists standard classical grammar is meant to reveal once- familiar patterns as slightly strange, only partially translated bits of musical material. That aesthetic was inspired by my favorite episode of Star Trek, in which we hear an alien musical language that tantalizingly hovers just on the brink of intelligibility. 

“Darmok and Jalad” is a phrase from that alien language. The full thought is “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra,” or “Darmok and Jalad on the ocean.” These phrases convey something like “cooperation,” or “new friendship.” As Captain Picard translates it, “Darmok and Jalad” means “that a danger shared might sometimes bring two people together."

Double Percussion Concerto: Darmok & Jalad (live)

pink russian (symph 10)

Dj Fokus - Chill Out - VFS070 - 192mp3 clip

Ember and Tide

Whitney Houston was still alive. Gas was just $1.70 a gallon (unless there was panic pricing, when it rose to a then unprecedented $3/gallon).

We discovered this clip from the day after 9/11 while digging through the NNG radio archives. At that time @NatalieNicole was the news anchor on an oldies radio station at Cox Radio.

Ember and Tide

bluetone