Giorgio Moroder's Remix of Messiah by Prides

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Prides - Messiah (Giorgio Moroder Remix)

telegraphharp.com/patrick-higgins-bachanalia

People have been reinventing Bach for nearly 300 years but there has never been anything quite likePatrick Higgins’ Bachanalia. Equal parts gorgeous and severe, these highly original arrangements of JS Bach prove the endless possibilities contained within the master’s pen. Bachanalia emerges from a dynamic relationship among three main elements: Higgins’ own virtuosic classical guitar playing, stereo electronic processing, and the recording spaces themselves. Truly site-specific, it makes unique use of the extreme and special acoustics of St. Cecilia’s Church in Brooklyn and Future-Past Studios, an upstate New York recording complex housed in a historic Lutheran church. While Bach’s compositions will be familiar to almost everyone, Higgins gives us a mesmerizing glimpse into the future.

Described by The New Yorker as one of the “prime movers of the local avant-garde,” and an “exacting avant-classical guitarist” by Time Out NY, Patrick Higgins is a New York-based composer/performer of experimental music. Higgins has composed works for some of the nation’s leading ensembles, from chamber orchestra works, percussion cycles, and string quartets to smaller ensembles and soloists. He has scored music for television, museum exhibitions, and films both short-form and feature-length. Higgins plays guitar and composes in Zs, hailed by The New York Times as “one of the strongest avant-garde bands in New York.” As a producer and studio owner at Future-Past, Higgins has helped produce records for The National, Josephine Foster, John Zorn and Dither Quartet, Mantra Percussion, Zs, Eric Wubbels and Josh Modney, Ensemble Contemporaneous, Vicky Chow, and many more.

For Bachanalia, Higgins and co-engineer Ben Greenberg worked with a collection of rare vintage Neumann, RCA, and Sennheiser microphones to carefully capture a spatialized natural room reverb. This provided a palate to warp, manipulate, and re-process the sound in precise counterpoint to Bach’s compositions. The end result weaves together live performance and studio composition. The musical arc reaches from light to dark, both in the emotional timbre of the compositions and in the density of the electronic elements. In the final three tracks (“Minuet,” “Chaconne,” “Aria da Capo”), both the experimentation and emotional intensity are pushed to new heights. This is highlighted in the “Chaconne,” Bach’s infamous death mass written after the passing of his first wife, presented here as a 14 minute epic recorded in two continuous takes. While any piece on Bachanalia can stand alone, the album articulates Patrick Higgins’ singular narrative vision from start to finish.

Patrick Higgins "Prelude - Violin Partita No. 3 BWV 1006" - Bachanalia (Telegraph Harp, 10/16)

This is 3 tracks from an album I recorded in the late 1990s that was later lost -- I recently was given a copy by a friend who still had the files after all these years. It'll be released in full shortly via the usual iTunes/Spotify/Google Play/etc. suspects.

07 Floating with Blades

It's been something like 15 years since I was asked to take part in a remix EP project for the noted folk singer-songwriter, Martin Carthy. Nothing came of the release, so this has been sitting around since then. I'd hope nobody minds me putting this up here, rather than have it fall forever into digital oblivion.

John Parfitt (Martin Carthy Remix)

I Can Let Go Now_5

John Cage's 4'33" with a Huge Shitty Drop at the End

The title track demo that never made it to the album.

Swing is Dead
That's what I said
Wrap it up in a box and send it home
When the movement began, well I shoulda known
It's hard to understand
Why the whole thing began
I'm sure all would agree
How long it would last there was no guarantee
Swing is Dead
That's what I said
Everybody misused it
Ripped it off and abused it
Another jughead plan
Makin dough for the man
A terrible blow but that's how it goes
The next fad is set to go
And if you wanna be a sellout, well
Just remember
Swing is Dead
We're all fed up with progress
Going retro now, I must confess
It's the music of my dreams
But the latest scene, what does it mean?
Ain't a damn thing said
'Cause Swing is Dead
All I want is some peace of mind
Just a good time out I'm trying to find
This could be such a beautiful thing
When the band's playing swing, jiving like anything
Why can't the dancers give me any answers
No one's serious & it makes me furious
Britney Spears is waiting in the wings
It's the death of Swing

Swing is Dead

A version of Billy Strayhorn's Take The A-Train I arranged in 1988 for an Ensoniq Mirage (an 8-bit sampling keyboard with 128kb of RAM), and Yamaha TX81z rack-mount FM synth.

Many parts of this piece, performed by various farm animals. The drummer's swing-rhythm is provided by a group of chickens.

ZooTrain (1986, Comedy)

"One take, One song, One bad weather system." 

- In which myself and Chris record a cover for fun, whilst it's hailing outside after the main session. 

Thanks to Andy Land & Cain McCormak for this :)

We'll do a more professional version soon! 

ZooTrain (1986, Comedy)

pejril

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