Ensemble Dal Niente:
Alejandro T. Acierto, contrabass clarinet
J. Austin Wulliman, violin
Jesse Langen, guitar
Gregory Beyer, percussion
Winston Choi, piano
Dan Nichols, recording engineer
Recorded on Without Words. Carrier Records 022, 2013.

Post-Paleontology for contrabass clarinet, violin, guitar, percussion & piano

On set we had to stop for a sudden storm but my little foley brain kept on clunking away. 

Thunder foley (best take)

traces that time leaves on built form [2012]
for piano &amp; percussion
Ensemble Nikel (Reto Staub, piano; Tom De Cock, percussion)

More info <a href="http://www.timothy-mccormack.com/traces" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>.

Image: Bernard Tschumi, from "Advertisements for Architecture"

traces that time leaves on built form [2012] - Ensemble Nikel

Nous-Apparatus [2012]
for chamber ensemble
musikFabrik

More info <a href="http://www.timothy-mccormack.com/nousapparatus" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>.

Nous-Apparatus [2012]

My attempt at a late-baroque style fugue.  I recorded myself playing each part separately on the guitar because I'm a lousy keyboard player.

Fugue in G Major

Decke [2012-13]
for string quartet
JACK Quartet

Video of the JACK Quartet performing this piece <a href="https://vimeo.com/69351091" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>.

Central to Gerhard Richter’s post-1988 abstract paintings is the concept of the drag: after applying a layer of paint, he then drags a typically canvas-sized Rakel across the surface, effectively eviscerating the previous orientation of the paint and therefore radically altering the image. The drag functions both to displace the paint from its fixity upon the canvas, and to tear asunder the paint’s surface, thereby revealing the accumulated subjacent layers. The result isn’t so much a disorganization of form, but a paraorganization of formal surface articulation. 

"Decke", which takes its title from the 1988 work in which Richter solidified his Rakel technique, is shrouded by way of the drag. Materially, the performers’ bows act as the Rakel, smearing the sound into a dedifferentiated body. Formally, the drag transforms musical events into glacial erratic: material displaced from its origin. The piece is a weathered monolith, its surface and form eroded such that subsumed sedimentary strata periodically reveal themselves, to the point that the aural surface only suggests its corporeal form. The drag functions to simultaneously reveal and shroud the figure, enveloping it in a blanket of smeared aural moraine.

More info <a href="http://www.timothy-mccormack.com/decke" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>.

Image: Gerhard Richter's "Decke"

Decke [2012-13]

consider a binary void. in the first patch (involving many sin waves > 1 billion herz, creating 'foldback' madness) operating specific kind of homogenous dialogue between various algorithms that aim to obstruct any capacity for pattern or sense. In the performing of this instrument, my aim was simple: stay sparse enough to let the sounds propagate their own fate and doctrine rather than be swept up by contextualization. trying to alienate my own agendas from the material is what necessarily leads to void, i've never had a counter-expressive bone in my body but i love the idea that a thing can be autonomous. ('thing' as in any musical material, aesthetic spur, motive, or musical thought) so i had reason to engage in an exercise of void. I created the second patch to provide the quasi-ambient backing to the first half. Many of these things contribute to making a formal sense that anyone could have come up with and anyone could interpret (rather than the alienation that comes from expression) and this is a consequence of void. that's why i distance myself from it by referring to it as a mere exercise of form.

It is called prestorm because the counter-expressive stride brings us to the balance of nothing before the big bang. that singularity (identical to after the end, don't forget) is said to be the only perfect sense in cosmogenetic history. everything since then has been a storm, a catastrophic nonsense, and stepping away from the idea of expressiveness is stepping into the part of the mind that is in tune with that quantum-cadence. ALL my music concerns in the storm, the disaster, the imbalance. but this (as i've alienated as 'exercise') is before, or (if birth is death and dimensional progression is symmetrical) after the everything.

a glance at patching http://i.imgur.com/Mwr3qv6.png

I must add that myself and this piece are both humbly and insanely indebted to conversations with marek poliks, tim mccormack, and steve takasugi; conversations on aesthetics, forms, and structures. 

Prestorm

November 2010 to April 2013
present day and onward found here https://soundcloud.com/quinn-dougherty

FIRE IS THE FIRST AND LAST LEITMOTIF.

THE WHOLE HISTORY OF THEISM IS A COPING MECHANISM AND SOON MY MUSIC-THEATRE WILL INVENT A NEW RELIGION. 
SUBTLETY IS THE ULTIMATE FACADE AND CHAIRS ARE FOR THE COMFORTABLE. STAY UNCOMFORTABLE. BREAK CHAIRS. 
IN WAGNER IF YOU FALL IN LOVE YOU DIE. 
WHEN JULIET IS SCREAMING ABOUT GETTING LAID AND DYING SHE MENTIONS THAT SHE WANTS TO RIDE MAD HORSES INTO THE SUN ITSELF. 
I LEARNED FROM BELA TARR ABOUT THE SACRED COMEDY OF THE APOCALYPSE, THAT A JOKE COULD BE WRITTEN CONSISTING ENTIRELY OF SERIOUS AND GOOD PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS.
SAPIENTIAL ESCHATOLOGY MY GENERATION'S CULMINATING REDEMPTIVE GESTURE TO TAKE BACK THE PREMATURE FEAR IN NIETZSCHE'S THE MADMAN.
IT IS OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE THAT BARDS AND SOOTHSAYERS ARE WILLING TO DENY OR OTHERWISE UNDERMINE THEIR OWN DIDACTIC ENTITLEMENT. 
(THEATRE OF NO CHAIRS MEANS NO HIERARCHY. CHAIRS ARE A COMFORT ZONE. A SUBMISSION TO FOLLOW. TO LET OTHERS DO THE WAKING FOR YOU.) SCREAM AT THE LIGHT

SCHEME TOWARD THE PLANLESS. 
ARCHITECTURE TOWARD NONSENSE.

THE IDEA IS THAT THE FRIAR LOVES THE WOLF LIKE DODD LOVES FREDDY QUELL.
CONCERNING WITH THE PRIMORDIAL NECESSITY OF HUMAN NATURE, THE BEING OF THE STORM. 
IN BLADERUNNER THE REPLICANT SHOWS US BYRONICISM WITH A KIND OF HUMILITY THAT IS INEVITABLE AND A KIND OF INEVITABILITY THAT IS HUMBLE.
I AM CONCERNED RATHER WITH THE STORMFIGHTER'S TRAUMATIC BATH IN THE UNCANNY. 
THE MIND OF THE ROMANTIC IS THE GAZE OF THE SUBLIME.

THE SECRET IS THAT EMERSON UNDERSTOOD STARDUST THEORY; ON BEING ASKED WHENCE IS THE FLOWER.
THE CAPACITY FOR IRRATIONAL THOUGHT IS THE FINAL TRIUMPH OF MIND, MAYBE IT HAS TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT IT IS ATOMICALLY COSMIC. THIS IS INEVITABILITY AND HUMILITY. THE DUST TRAVELED NO DISTANCES BETWEEN THE FIRST STAR AND THE LAST BRAIN. BECAUSE OF THIS, I CANNOT FASCINATE WITH THE FIRE AT A DISTANCE, I NEED TO GO UP WITH THE CATASTROPHIC ANXIETY. BEING AWAKE AND UNCOMFORTABLE. 

IN MESSIAEN'S PLAY THE FRIAR LEARNS THE TOTALITY OF GRACE AND IN THE STORM OF TRAUMATIC ECSTASY HIS BRAIN GOES UP IN FLAMES.
MUCH LIKE NIETZSCHE AT TURIN, WHO BY THE WAY HAD AT THAT POINT DONE AWAY WITH CHAOS/ORDER AND FOCUSED THEN ON CHAOS/DIVINE.

THE MIND IS BY DEFINITION A CATASTROPHIC IMBALANCE SO LIGHT UP THE STORM AND BATHED IN THE UNCANNY THE LIGHT THE DISASTER SEE THE IMBALANCE TO ITS END: FIRE, LOVE, NONSENSE, AS SEEN BY THE STORM AS PRESCRIBED BY THE PRIMORDIAL NECESSITY INHERENT IN THE BEING OF THE AWAKE. IF THE ARCHITECT CAN WORK TOWARD GRACE AND THAT ENDS IN THE STORM OF THE GRACE-DEATH, THAT ISN'T BETTER THAN NONSENSE, THE STORM IS IN THE GRACELESS. 

NONSENSE IS THE CATASTROPHIC IMBALANCE, OURS US I, NONSENSE IS THE STORM ITSELF. 

EVERYTHING BEGINS AND ENDS WITH THE INTERNAL THEISM OF BEING. THE IDEA THAT ALL TRANSIENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE IS BY DEFINITION AN ILLUMINATED ILLUSION AFTER YOUR MIND'S TRIUMPHANT CAPACITY FOR IRRATIONAL THOUGHT. 

WITHIN THE PYROTECHNICAL POTENTIAL OF OUTDOOR THEATRE THE SCHEMES COLLAPSE IN THEIR TRIUMPH. 
LIGHT UP THE STORM.

Prestorm

QuinnDougherty '10-apr/13

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