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Harmony Games

Unfiltered Thinking

Prelude and Fugato from Mama Dee’s Notebook is a tribute to my grandmother, an extraordinary woman. Born the thirteenth child to a coal miner in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, she lived through the full force of the Great Depression. Despite the hardships of her upbringing, she earned multiple college degrees, her first being in music.
During the pandemic, as I sorted through some of her belongings, I discovered her harmony notebook from the spring of 1938. It was filled with routine theory exercises, but at the back were several short sketches, only a few measures long, labeled "atonal, March 1938." In those fragments, I glimpsed the workings of a fascinating musical mind. They reminded me of the times I’d heard her improvising organ preludes for her congregation— moments of pure, spontaneous creativity.

Inspired by those sketches, I crafted this Prelude and Fugato. The work draws from her ideas and evokes the rich, resonant sounds of a pipe organ, the kind that fills the space of a large church. As you listen, I hope you hear echoes of the music my Mama Dee might have composed had she pursued the life of a composer. 
Commissioned by World-Wide Concurrent Premieres and Commissioning Fund, Inc. this work is dedicated to Dr. Matthew McInturf.

Puckett Mama Dee Prelude and Fugato premiere SHSU McInturf

Prelude and Fugato from Mama Dee's Notebook

'Unstable' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den397
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/dictaphone

Dictaphone are back with their 6th full length called "Unstable". In the 25th year of the project Brussels born composer and mastermind Oliver Doerell is surrounded again by a lot of musicians & friends. Roger Döring is there, his clarinet and saxophone play has always been a trademark sound of the band - also Alexander Stolze's ghostly violins. The dark atmosphere and experimental sound of the new album is a reference to the 80s belgian art music scene, which Doerell had the luck to experience in his formative years. Minimal jazz meets musique concrete meets a postpunk mind. On this new album “Unstable“ more voices and vocals than usual can be heard - especially Helga Raimondi (who already sang on the last album “Goats and Distortions 5") . As a collage artist she is also responsible for the visual side of Dictaphone - she designed the cover artwork and the visuals for the live shows.

The Brussels-Berlin-Teheran connection: Other guests on "Unstable" are the voices of Kaveh Ghaemi and Ashkan Afsharian, who Doerell met during a modern ballet production by Modjgan Hashemian (2008). The trumpet of Shahab Anousha can be heard in the track “La fin“ - Oliver Doerell and Shahab Anousha also share the spoken words Project “Noufān”. For nearly 20 years Oliver Doerell is linked to the Iranian Diaspora in Berlin and the Dictaphone track “Rattle” from the classic album “ Poems from a rooftop “ (2012) has been a hit in Teherans underground scene since the beginning. Furthermore the title track “Unstable“ is a homage to Ian Curtis of Joy Division. The words of this piece are based on the setlist of Joy Divisions last show.

Dictaphone played more than two hundred shows all over the world (including festivals Mutek, Transmediale, Unsound , Benicassim and many others). Their music can be heard in countless films, tv series and theatre pieces - (“the responder“ (BBC) , “the love he knows” (Ali Mohammad) , “Don´t move“ (Modjgan Hashemian) , Ring (Felix Ruckert) among others.


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