A deeply personal album that I recorded in 2022. This album reflects on issues such as the pandemic, the death of loved ones, politics and estrangement as well as a few lighter issues. 

This album is my first using Reaper DAW and a definite learning experience. I'm sure it is one that I will personally want to hear time and time again. I can't speak for the rest of you. lol

Reflections

On the Sparrow is a meditation on the rich complexity of paternal relationships. The music ebbs and flows between disparate sections, careening from hopeful driving lyricism to dark atmospheric stasis. All the while, the music teeters on the edge between dark and light; the hymn tune, His Eye is on the Sparrow, hovers somewhere in the background.

Violist Dr. Scott Rawls commissioned On the Sparrow, which was made possible by the Gertrude Burke Endowment.

Scott Rawls, viola & Annie Jeng, piano: Premiere live recording 2/1/2024

video available: https://youtu.be/ev2lX0w-KK8 

score available: https://slandismusic.com/solo/

On The Sparrow

Chamber Cartel treat you to a performance of Drew Baker's "Riding with Death" from Northwestern University in Chicago.  Afterwards we're treated to a technical break down of Baker's newest piece "Domination of Black".  The Cartel will premier "Domination of Black" at the First Existentialist Congregation of Atlanta at 8 pm on May 16th.

More info at https://www.facebook.com/events/939595266061351/

Domination of Black Notes by Drew Baker

Years ago, while taking an accompanying class in undergrad, two of my colleagues were working on the Brahms Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 78. It is piece that continues to floor me. Of the many astonishingly beautiful moments throughout, the piano chords at the outset have always been of particular interest. Brahms takes simple triads and voices them perfectly—the register, the spacing of the notes, the way those chords provide a buoyant cushion over which the violin melody stretches out—all of these elements combine to create something sublime.

In a way, I’ve been trying to live within the world of those chords for some time now. Brahms’ chords serve a traditional role in harmonizing a melody, and yet, is the melody necessary? More simply put, can chords, these monolithic musical creatures, rome free?
//
Domination of Black is taken from a poem of the same title by Wallace Stevens. The notion of a singular color exerting “dominance” reminds me of a James Turrell exhibit I once attended. For one of Turrell’s pieces, I entered a room that seemed pitch black. My eyes, however, adjusted and I realized there was a light sculpture in the corner. The darkness, once absorbed, provided a focus that illuminated so much subtlety. 
//
Out of the window,
I saw how the planets gathered
Like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind.
I saw how night came,
Came striding like the color of the heavy hemlocks
I felt afraid.
And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.

(closing stanza to Domination of Black by Wallace Stevens)

Chamber Cartel - New Ears - Riding With Death

TPAB (Old)

Santa Don't Like Milk And Cookies Ok

An experiment with clock division. A 7-step sequence programmed into the Mother 32, with its LFO acting as clock source-to a Doepfer A-160/161 combo. This, in turn, is clocking the M32's sequencer (periodically being affected by a second Gate or the M32's own clock division) as well as providing the "Boom" via a Tiptop Audio BD808. 

March Of The 7

The debut album of the band DÖDAREN. 
Recorded in 2012 in Kanon Studios, Falkenberg, Sweden
All songs written and producded by DÖDAREN
Mastered by Thomas Eberger @ Stockholm Mastering
Engineered by Jon Solheim
Cover art by Eric Rådegård

01 Ågren Ner i Graven

"For Unto Us A Child Is Born" from Handel's "Messiah"

recorded LIVE in Louisville, KY on Dec. 1, 2019

Bourbon Baroque
John Austin Clark and Alice Culin-Ellison, directors

Reflections

Gabe Monticello

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