wip
objects and other things
music video by alex kaniewski: https://youtu.be/5kZio3vsHo8

too many drams not enough time

Dream//Orbit (Vocal Transmission Edit)

In the language of particles and light, prayer becomes motion—an equation whispered through the void. Thought and energy converge, folding into patterns too precise to be seen yet impossible to break. Every vibration carries intent, every silence holds meaning. Within that invisible dialogue between mind and cosmos, faith transforms into frequency, and understanding becomes the universe’s quiet reply.

Lucid Harmony

Miss U

Disquiet Junto 0426: Cellular Chorale

"Create a new piece of music using only the source audio. Use as many of the samples as you’d like, but don’t add other sounds, or process the samples to any extent more than slightly altering the individual material.

Background. Patricia Wolf has said of her original piece: “Cellular Chorus is a work of spatialized aleatoric music using smartphones to bring people physically closer to have an interactive and collective experience with light and sound. The piece is played by each user visiting Cellular Chorus on their smartphones. … The sounds I made are meant to harmonize. There is no right or wrong way to play them. The intention of this piece is to repurpose your smartphone for deep listening, creative experimentation, and to immerse groups of people in a sound and light environment with face to face interactions.”"

https://disquiet.com/2020/02/27/disquiet-junto-project-0426-cellular-chorale/

All sounds from Patricia Wolf's Cellular Chorus: http://cellularchorus.com
Photo by Suganth: https://unsplash.com/photos/yAV-5jb1pyA

Terminal C

Terminal C [disquiet0426]

Night Rain (Naviarhaiku 323)

All sounds made on the Bass Guitar by Tommy Orza.

Artwork by Clara Brault (IG: https://www.instagram.com/skylinerart/)

The basic tracks for some of these songs were scattered through other music I had recorded over the last ten years.  Quarantine has given me the time to hear some of this music with fresh ears. In most instances dozens of instrument tracks were stripped away to find some forgotten core that made me nod or smile.  Then I started again.  All new recording has been done since the start of lock down and tries to put a sound on the subtle dislocation of a global disaster that is mostly (for me) expressed in my daily life as an absence, a taking away rather than a presence; a distantly felt thing.  

All tracks recorded and mixed at Shadowbear Studio.  Mastering at Black Knoll Studio.  Photo taken by Csilla Varadi.

Pelican Bay

This is the world premiere of the new work for double-bell horn, developed during the Virtual Brass Academy with Christine Chapman and Ensemble MusikFabrik, July 2020. This performance took place on July 30th, 2020 - in Cologne.
I am indebted to Ensemble MusikFabrik and the fantastic work they did with us in introducing us to the worlds of double-bell instruments, and to the ever-expanding repertoire of new music for these instruments they are bringing to the world.

The work explores a sense of dual forces that act and react upon each other, and how the relative mediator (the performer) indeed interacts with the score, the instrument and it's two bells, and finally how the theatre of the piece - both through actions and the position of the instrument - is transmitted to the audience. In the four sections of the piece that each explore a different facet of the manipulation of the horn - first through the use of a contra-bassoon reed to produce aggressive yet fulfilling multiphonics; then in the second and third exploring the two bells and their range of possibilities. The final section condenses the instrument down to only it's single-bell form and the mute and interacts briefly with it to express a settling within the performance. Gasping, grunting, growling and grandeur are all some of the ideas explored in this short miniature.

Image: LIGO/Caltech/MIT/Sonoma State (https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/6/1/15721268/gravitational-waves-ligo-future)

Understated Matter - for solo double-bell horn [premiere]

no (fog bath demo)

restless - Single

restless

james mcIlwrath is an experimental irish composer/performer based in birmingham.

posting bits and pieces, i do other things too

too many drams not enough time

ʲᵃᵐᵉˢ ᵐᶜⁱˡʷʳᵃᵗʰ