Live at "Call of the Fall" - 9/24/22 @ Phoenix Theater

Studio version at http://2020album.com

2020 Vision (live)

Train (live)

Self Help Is Easy (live)

My composition Balitúk: The Divided Child was chosen as a finalist in the Banaue International Music Composition Competition. It was performed by the TOFARM Festival Orchestra, conducted by Chino Toledo, on July 25, 2018 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Thanks to Dr. Milagros O. How and TOFARM for sponsoring this competition and composer immersion program in the Philippines, to raise awareness for the Banaue Rice Terraces Restoration Project.
https://www.banauemusic.org/

Program Notes:

Balitúk: The Divided Child  is inspired by the traditional Ifugao tale of love and loss between a goddess and a human. The goddess Búgan is urged by her parents to find a husband, but she’s unimpressed with any of the bachelors in her sky world. Even the god of lightning, Bagílat, seems like a terrible (and very likely harmful) husband for Búgan. So she travels down to Earth, and there she finds a poor and lonely hunter, Kinggauan, who she’s instantly attracted to. Feeling pity for Kinggauan, she uses her powers to provide him with an abundance of animals in his traps. The two are soon married, and they have a son, Balitúk.

Over time, Búgan realizes she can’t stay on Earth. Jealous neighbors have been trying to scare Búgan away by surrounding her house with vegetables and fish, which make her ill. Búgan proposes to Kinggauan that they move to her sky world. Despite all of Búgan’s reassurances, Kinggauan is afraid he won’t survive the journey, so he decides to stay on Earth. Búgan thinks the best thing to do with their son is to divide him in half, so they can each reanimate their halves into separate Balitúks. But Kinggauan, being the human he is, cannot reanimate his half of Balitúk.

When Búgan finds out the earthly half of Balitúk has perished, she comes back down, and in a rage against the people of Earth, she transforms his corpse into a number of cursed and foul things. From his ears, she makes tree fungi. From his head, an owl. From his ribs, venomous snakes. From his hair, maggots. From his arm, she makes rotten tree branches that fall on people below. She also creates bats, rats, and diseases.

The music, like Balitúk himself, is divided in nature between heavenly and vile. The beginning of the journey is romantic and peaceful, while hinting at a tragic conclusion. At the piano’s first entrance, a stark, somber key change signals the evil about to unfold. As Búgan’s rage comes to fruition, the formerly peaceful themes unravel in a cloud of chaotic rhythms and dark harmonies. Throughout the composition, traditional Ifugao percussion instruments and rhythms are used to root the story in its native sound world. The pentatonic hudhud chants of the Ifugao serve as inspiration for many of the melodic themes.

Although gruesome and fantastical in nature, the underlying story of Búgan and Kinggauan is one that we can all relate to. Many relationships are destined to end because of a physical or emotional distance, and the end result is often ugly. The challenge for us is to somehow find beauty in the pain and chaos of the aftermath. In the end, Búgan didn’t create just pestilence. Out of Balitúk’s heart, she made a rainbow.

Balitúk: The Divided Child

A demo from my upcoming album 2020, on Kickstarter now: bit.ly/charlie2020album

Words Too Wrong (Rough Sample)

Train (Rough Sample)

Thinking Of You (Rough Sample)

Hypersensitivity (Rough Sample)

A demo from my upcoming album 2020, on Kickstarter now: http://bit.ly/charlie2020album

Friend For The Ages (Rough Sample)

My submission for the Two Hour Album Challenge in October 2020. I made this in two hours using Ableton Live. Watch the process at https://youtu.be/_5AJnyFc6qA

You can hear all the other tracks made for this challenge on Volume 12: Twist https://2hac.abstractionmusic.com/

Cast A Pastel Spell (Two Hour Album Challenge)

Available Dec. 1 - http://2020album.com

Samples in order:
- Better
- Train
- No Turning Back
- Thinking of You
- Friend for the Ages
- Creatures Large and Small
- Hypersensitivity
- Words Too Wrong
- Clipped Wing
- Bugs
- 2020 Vision

2020 is an upcoming album by Minneapolis songwriter Charlie McCarron. With the help of Kickstarter backers, Charlie recruited 20 other musicians to record in their home studios. The result is a blend of chamber orchestra textures with deeply personal lyrics about lost relationships, anxiety, and the search for meaning in life.

Mixed by Andy Thompson (Dessa, Jeremy Messersmith, Belle and Sebastian) and mastered by Doug Van Sloun (She & Him, Bright Eyes), 2020 has a chamber pop sound akin to Sufjan Stevens, Fleet Foxes, and Jon Brion.

For an advance press copy of the album, contact charliemccarron [at] gmail [dot] com.

2020 Album Sampler

I write melodic classical pop songs and alien electronic concept albums. I also compose film and video game scores. 

I formerly produced the podcast Composer Quest.

CharlieMcCarron

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