Texture 2

RAINBOW ROLL Piano Reprise Of Cure [20220610]

Rapsodi for solo-klarinet

Drive link to writing accompanying the pieces :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yQB4Ne39iQjZi8bykPPNrneU0Yj9FZbg/view?usp=sharing 

Artwork & additional vocals by @flagrastama

Bandcamp release includes bonus tracks & artworks! 

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“ofania” is an album inspired by a very hard period in my life. During 2021-2022 I struggled with an intense case of body dysmorphia. Hours spent in front of the mirror compulsively checking my appearance every single day, completely rewired, obsessive thought patterns, compulsions that partially stayed with me until now - and so on. It even got so bad I almost broke a part of my face while trying to “fix” a self-perceived flaw. It felt like my brain turned into a puddle. I couldn’t think of anything else, the compulsions felt like worshipping a god that gets off on watching you decay.

I made ofania throughout 2023, as soon as I started getting out of that shit. Of course it’s still not perfect and some days can be hard, but I am in such a healthier & happier place now - and I'm really proud of that. I learned to deal with intrusive thoughts better and not let them bleed into my identity anymore.

Making the album was really therapeutic for me. It tells my personal experiences through a grandiose, kinda gaudy fictional narrative. I’m an overdramatic bitch sometimes. Building a grand fantasy setting around a very intimate experience was an intuitive way for me to let my emotions out & express myself.

It tells the story of Veels - proud creatures brought to their knees by an infection breaking their minds into a submissive, drone-like state and submerging them in black tar. It tells that story from two perspectives - a protagonist named Finn trying their best to not give in to the virus - and an environmental view of the valley in which it’s taking place.
It ends with Finn and the rest of their kind fully giving into the corruption. Thick black slime spewing out of their mouths, empty stares and quiet moans is all that’s left. Story-wise, it felt fun to end the album on a dark note, but on a personal level it serves as a bit of a warning. The twisted view you had of yourself was never real and you needed to separate yourself from this parasitic symbiote if you didn’t want to end up like this.

The project obviously has a very kinky undertone. The hypno/drone elements have been implemented consciously - I noticed that the way I think about dysmorphia somewhat crosses with what entices me about those. I tried to lean into it and explore the line between the two. Can I make something therapeutic by expressing those heavy topics through a kinky fantasy lens? How do these two mesh in my brain and can I explore the connection safely & carefully for myself? It’s a really interesting dynamic - I find the album as dark as I find it hot lol

Sonically, I wanted to represent the corruption settling in the valley. Initially it’s rejected - the noise is brutally polluting the instrumentation around it, which sounds erratic & anxious in response. As the infection settles in, so does the instrumentation which starts to harmonize with the noise the more it lets it in.
Structurally, it’s definitely program music. I tried to represent the story events in the actual audio very methodically - to the point of me knowing which sounds are diegetic vs non diegetic to the universe inside.

With the release of ofania, I'm closing a chapter in my art and I am ready to enter a new one. I’m really fucking proud of this piece and my journey to get here. It’s honestly what I wished I could create when I started making music - and then some! I hope you can find something in it too.

-Raz


Special thanks to Mom, Flagrastama, Shevvy, Vidvana, Fen, Nadpher and Mei for supporting the project thru-out the process <3

ofania

ofania (full album)

Alexandra BELLON - Viva SANCHEZ MORAND - Raphael KRAJKA - Anne BRISET - Jeanne LARROUTUROU

Assonance VIIb Rhizomes  Michael JARRELL

Drømmer du stadig

Arild is composed in 2003, dedicated to Irina-Kalina Goudeva, this recording is at KECD4, c&p Kanding Edition 2011, performed by Irina-Kalina Goudeva. 

In 2002 I was awarded the Triade Preis from Neues Kunsthaus Ahrenshoop which entailed a commission for a new composition for solo instruments and live electronics, based on a text by one of the project's sex selected poets. My choice fell on Swedish poet Marie Lundquist's Arild:

"I have carried a child inside me. It was when I still had a place vacant below the curve of the ribs. The child lay there so nicely swinging in its cradle of water. I used to sing to it. Only outdoors, for one who carries a child within herself needs the wind's accompaniment. My body changed, also those parts that used to be fixed began to move around in an unrecognizable way. Sometimes the abdominal wall bulged with small bumps that billowed back and forth. I lay my hand against it to show I was there. Immediately the movement ceased as if it had never existed. If it was a child it did not want to answer.

I carried his name with me long before he existed. The name was Arild. I don't know any human who bears this name, only a place with sturdy jetties. I baptized him already the first time I felt a quivering in my body. I sat in bed and weighed the breasts in my hand and thought that now I will never again need to be alone. I had a room that stood empty and ready for anyone to settle in. I was careful with that room. It had to be kept clean and warm and inviting. I washed it with cotton rags soaked in almond milk. One morning when I woke my breasts were smaller and my belly not as taut, but soft and supple below my hand. The bed was full of blood and Arild was no longer there. Perhaps he had never existed. I did not cry, only wound a wreath of hazel and rosehip, for it was that time of year, and hung it on the wall over the bed where the pillowcase already lay on which his short name was embroidered with cross stitching."

Arild (2003)

Leopold van der Pals - Metamorphosen

Kaffepunch - Iron Chef challenge Rumkraft

is a type of traveling music to reconnect the mind

Liux Rex- The Misty Universe

Based on a live recording at Ullers Jazzklubb.
Produced by Ullr.
Mixed & edited by BHLB.
Mastering by Rune Lindbæk.

The Miscreation

Composer Ejnar Kanding (b. 1965) is internationally known for his unique colourful sound, where the electronic and acoustic are united in complex textures, physical energy and delicate simplicity. To him, music should not embellish, but be a realm of fantasy. A journey into the ambiguous – a hall of mirrors. Kanding originally got his degree in composition and musical theory at The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen in 1993, followed by studies at IRCAM in Paris and with Professor Lev Koblyakov in Jerusalem in 1994 and 95, but has since his debut concert from the Royal Danish Academy of Music in 1996 specialized himself in composing music for computer and instruments. This has led to an extensive use of the software MaxMSP in the development of his works and as an instrument in live performances. Despite this obsession his focus is never the electronic experiment, but always the musical expression, form and phrase.
The way Kanding uses the digital mixing console and MaxMSP as an instrument is pioneering the new assignment as a musician which is known as live electronics or sound direction. His virtuosity in this field has led to numerous performances of own works or others of both improvised and written music with various groups, for example, works by Saariaho , Nono and Stockhausen; and ensembles as Cikada (NO), Ars Nova (SE), Jack Quartet (NYC), Transit ensemble (NYC) and Adpater (DE).

Arild (2003)

Kanding

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