70th installment of the Joyful Union Select series.

Tracks by Honeymakr, Robanzee, Albyrd, Antoje, Not399093, and more.

Joyful Union Select 070

In loving memory of Neil Macarthur Owen
1956 — 2023

Eastern Nurseries no. 31

Hasfeldt & Burning Pyre - Conversation

Lead single from Osaka, the third EP in my Japanese cities series. This track is a theme for a city so big that its edges are blurred, with a downtown that fizzes with sci-fi intensity. The track bathes in the neon that illuminates with an effervescence reflecting the cultural uniqueness of Osakans.

A Different Kind of Light

A Different Kind Of Light

FUNKS SELECIONADOS

corredor

Vancouver-based composer Marc Junker presents his debut release in the Doom Trip catalog with "Prepared Piano 1.0," a collection of meticulously sculpted miniatures that foreground his varied piano performances against webs of high-fidelity sound design. While Junker’s music under the moniker R23X, along with that project’s frequent collaborations with Chicago-based artist Equip, find him exploring the traditions of video game music and vaporous sample manipulation, his work under his given name highlights his forays into film scoring and orchestral composition. In truth, all these disciplines are inextricably linked throughout his work, regardless of moniker. "Prepared Piano 1.0" welds the heart-string tugging drama of film music to the dynamic short-form narratives and uncanny valley synthetic instrumentation of video game music, all frosted with bursts of hyper-digital electronic texture.

Junker’s treatment of the piano as lead instrument manifests in varied roles, often within the space of a single composition: tiers of consonant glitched loops spiral around the edges of the mix; passages of lush melody swell into cinematic grandeur; dissonant interjections burst through and steer listeners down divergent paths. Junker cites the influence of the prepared piano experiments of John Cage and the sweeping neo-classical piano sketches of Hauschka. These forebears appear in Junker’s repeated curlicue piano figures and heart-on-sleeve melodic architectures as much as his detours into atonality and moments that treat the piano as a raw percussion instrument valued as much for its textural capacity as the notes it produces. Junker works in miniature on "Prepared Piano 1.0," with six of its ten tracks clocking in at less than two minutes. Like video game composers prepared for each morsel-sized track to loop endlessly during the game’s runtime, Junker makes sure to cram each mini-narrative with enough twists to form a sinuous arc that can withstand repeated looping, but that can still keep us transfixed with just one playthrough. Like the Playstation-era output of video game composers including Nobuo Uematsu and Yasunori Mitsuda, Junker delights in toying with the potential of synthetic orchestral instruments. Passages of vibraphone, music box, and violin take lead roles in his compositions, while orchestral string sections flow through chord progressions against networks of piano arpeggios. While modern listeners can be quick to identify a particularly evocative piece of music as a “soundtrack to a video game or movie that doesn’t exist yet,” "Prepared Piano 1.0" resists that distinction. It exists as music for its own sake, capable of flourishing in a vacuum of headphone reverie as easily as it can conjure scenes in our mind’s eye. 
credits

releases April 21, 2023 on DOOM TRIP RECORDS http://doomtrip.bandcamp.com

This album is dedicated to Vanessa and Dijon

"Prepared Piano 1.0" comprises ten pieces composed and performed by Marc Junker on the "digitally prepared piano."

All music written, mixed, produced, and performed by Marc Junker

Mastered by Z. Emerson at Doom Trip Records

Cover art by VHS Stills (Video-20XX)

Arrangement 1112

Vodkadanslaru

SAMOSH!T DELUXE

FLUX

Music from Maureen Bradley's debut feature film Two 4 One (co-composed with Marc Junker).

http://two4onefilm.com

Music from Two 4 One

Composer/producer based in Vancouver, BC, Canada!

Arrangement 1112

Marc Junker

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