Recorded Performance. Presented with 4 other ensemble members. (for copyright reasons I'm leaving the piece unlabelled). Alongside other instruments like a synthesizer, upright piano and electric guitar, played samples through Ableton.

Improv Ensemble

lyrics:
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what would it take to hold your soul, to sit close by and listen and make no demand for space in your deciding
no food to take, you fooled us both there are different types of hungry and you're on my mind -- i always hope you're doing fine.

are the murals on your wall
worth not risking truth at all

surprise

joan baez's "joe hill" & "the night they drove old dixie down", the northland college voyageurs' "i went to the market   ah! si mon moine voulait danser", the sound of 50 years -- the 1920's to the 1970's (a cbs news production), [something in bethlehem's best], [a pre-release i can't tell where from], daniel eu, and i c
over
o holy night!

O Holy Night (+ Daniel Eu)

Virtual concert done in collaboration with Ailis and Charles, for IU. The piece was performed distanced at various parts of a parking garage, representing, linearly: circle, line, concrete. The three of us played a range of instruments, including: voice, water + wok + contact mic, sheet metal (Ailis); broken amp, cymbal + contact mic, toy piano (Charles); turntable + pedal, coffee grinder (myself). 

It moved through, at various points, the ideas of: circle (loops, roundness, etc.), line (linearity, dynamism, speed), concrete (sound wall). These were meant as an homage to, and dialogue with, these elements in the space (parking garages are full of circles, lines, and most of all, concrete). In preparation for the concert, we would attempt a different ordering of each at every point, to see what their different emotional arcs and effects were. (--and I would need to dig through messenger archives to check which order of the three we chose for the concert...)

The concert, recorded, was completed around the time of the loosening of Covid measures and the return to live shows.

Ailis: https://soundcloud.com/ail-s-clyne
Charles: https://soundcloud.com/charles_chatman

Caution Floor (2021)// Noise concert ft. Ailis and Flose

also a sketch, and this is what the lyrics will become re-recorded:
("-- what hell sounds like. so high-pitched")

i grew up with the equal chance
now the right religion, right skin
wasn’t dismissed as a poster marked lesser by brothers or blamed for society’s center eroding
reangle your guns it’s not cold structures you want

and my father asks if they were grateful enough
was she grateful enough, am i grateful enough
and everybody bends backs, and that critic held back, “i could’ve written it better but why would i”

he grew up with the equal chance
made brighter with his tunnel visioned 
fourth generation he can pray for donations with good paper and able hands and sleep at night
all proves his black or white, his saved or damned to hell 

he grew up with the equal chance
“but what shame, the wrong crowd, not his fault”, and the load he now hauls as his circle from surface to surface his dreams tied by debt and the mark on his record
and he asks which school must he send his daughter to 

she grew up with the equal chance
and a radiance too different from the insular wealthy
who decide to take personally measuring truth without money and think the mystery of sentenced lives extreme for this country
by these I’m pulled aside, aren’t you bothered they’re all going to hell

and with her eyes wet she asked
if the middle ground’s enough,
is the how about enough, is the quiet no enough,
and if they’re all bending backs, why not lie yours down flat
“i could carefully pick battles but why should i”

every X a good X (draft)

Bb Cm F
put up good missions to die for, and you’ll bait good slaves
Dm A Dm 
i watched a martyr trade in his name
G F C
for prescription labels and their title gains
he’s slaving for the futures of rental flat children
E A
with his own forgotten, and the rich taxed richer

give them their futures to work for and they’ll hold their peace
i watched a comrade trade in his vision
for a social paycheck and a legible home
much more precious than a rice bowl is his estimated potential
so he stops at armchair op-eds and has hobbies on the weekend

but take their progress from them you’ll rewire their conscience
i watched an intellectual’s caveats
combust to clean aggression and hashtag vitriol
for one who never liked the ladder, pomp and money will not stop her 
her loyalties bought different now her husband’s distant 

whose war are we fighting
whose cause are we hurting

tell him his integrity is his prison and you’ll know you’ve lost yours
his wisdom will not refuse your story
you sign off on social good that he never performed
if the measure of a man, is his commitment to his stand
detained all of these years for the sake of his future

traitors (sketch)

this will eventually be in piano (or had that in mind)

he told me she’s nervous we’ll cut off her aid and she’s weighing which story to tell us
so the numbers are changing her son names expenditures higher than what she reported
i said mary the truth will give you the help that you need

and i could deny all the comforts i want
but my courage still comes from deep pockets
I’m paid by the people who vote for invisible scales who weigh right and wrong differently
but i speak for myself, the errors entirely my own

my friend she insists i give up my invisible chance make my own decisions
the son probably saves round 500 a month and he’s trying to get a computer
and i tell my friend there’s a silence i keep with myself, a reward for the careless

the numbers discussed and they’re asking all the same questions she claimed had no answer
and who would hang on to defend or reward the omitting over the honest
and with no sense of system when asked again tells us her husband’s now sharing his pension
mary the truth will give you the help that you need

"a silence i keep with myself" (sketch)

hang around for some variance in frequency! all made with a loop pedal + 1) "beyond our ken", an LP of a really dated comedy show (sexist jokes, etc.), 2) DFS home video sound effects (where some of the bell sounds came from)

inspired, in part, by nadya, and the prospect of dancey experimentation.

loop experiment

music video pending! updates to this track also pending (the beats now are somewhat campy -- i wanted to work with samples, but the way they're put together now doesn't let their sample-hood stand out)

kerosene (draft)

(initially posted elsewhere, gathering old tracks here)
beeping courtesy of an ECG scan

lyrics: 
the scratch of your stubble in backseat slumber, brisk crisp and inches away
 and how cheap i’ve turned suddenly yearning for your mercury spoon, 
for distance for blushing red-eye coinciding the ride to the airport 

sleepless amnesia i drink neat your narratives, past and old relatives, fresh and conservative 
taken aback by a crack of dawn in your slippery moon 
each surface turns obvious when you speak of solitude (you’d weigh it differently)

forgetful at best I’m too hopeful for novelty, anxious for memory, careless for seriously 
drawn to the light in the cold room, playing the part of the bright-eyed fool 
all patient with answers, content in this silence hide gravity elsewhere

surprise taxi

from the end of 2019, finally recorded late last year (more conventionality/singing proper starts ~1 minute.) the rain comes from looping a record with rain manually using tape (adjustments to frequencies directly from the amp).

lyrics:
woke up to nothing, clustering deafening loud 
then habit mistake, letting the storm burst good morning 
there were times you responded with the grace that we needed: walk the lake for a while 
it’ll be bright and dry by the afternoon   

we prescribed our own pills, prayed for it all but a final cure 
our prayers found their answers but not the prophets we heeded 
we had it coming for months and it’s still coming though it’s already come, let it go wane the moon in your heart
it’ll burn something worse in the afternoon   

I’m tired but not too tired I’m scared but not scared blind 
it can’t fail forever let’s try a fifteenth different science 
our sun cant burn out like sense it just hides for a while well it’s been setting on us all of these months 
somehow it turned clear one afternoon  

snore my dear don’t weep 
the ocean of your breathing
is the peace in which our thunders sleep, but separately  

i wake up these days, worrying still just more privately 
work it through in my head train my own reservoir 
i don’t feel my soul you’re the last time i felt secure, i dared spend my heart for a while 
i felt some wind warm 
i saved a drop (from our afternoon) 
it’s gonna pour when i return it

Sense In The Afternoon

the last chorus sounds better than the second-last chorus!!
i like this song, and was particularly thrilled to discover its music video. 
i couldn't find a fast enough metronome on garageband so apologies in advance hope this disclaimer doesn't make you extra aware of anything displeasurable you may hear along the way

krstlmqngl

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