('Flight') - Carlos Salzedo

December 2013 recording with McMaster Chamber Choir

The Sky Can Still Remember

Franz Ferko (Interlude)

A 20th century/Romantic composer trying to sound medieval. As you do.

Sicilienne, Respighi

Track 2 from my 2011 recording "A Hundred Tiny Holes."  (all A Hundred Tiny Holes tracks recorded on small lever harp)

How the light gets in

the final track from "A Hundred Tiny Holes", a meditation on my song "lighthouse". 

09 lighthouse (reflected)

Track 7 from A Hundred Tiny Holes.
What happens if you take a war march and pass it through a magic harp that doesn't believe in death marches? 

07 brian boru's heart [my anti-war song]

Collaboration with Ned Nolan and Andy Baines.

Every day of my life [with ned nolan]

This is a show piece for pedal harp by harp forefather Carlos Salzedo, written in 1928. This recording is a work in progress, but I had the file uploaded for a collaboration with aerial silks artists  so I thought I would add it here.

Chanson Dans La Nuit (harp solo; written by Carlos Salzedo)

A song built by my brother and me around a monologue I wrote, plus a verse by a friend of his after we built the frame.
verse I - andy baines
verse II, beats, guitar and genius mixing - ned nolan
harp, vocals + original monologue - me

Because I know it's hard to hear the words, here they are:

Sometimes I stand here for what feels like hours. 
Evaluating; 
tracing; reading; interpreting, 
could I live in this?? 

My heart beats to the same rhythm that 
pumps the universe 
badaba badaba da. 

size and contour 
how to hate such things. . . 
a functioning frame 
a dancing shape 
my dancing shape 
ears that can hear melodies in stuffy air 
and wind of course. 
that picks up my hair, picks me up 
by the arms I streeeeeeeeeeeetch out reaching 
Reaching as far as I can as though 
I believe some day I'll sprout them 
into wings and the road and the ground 
and their yellow lines will fall away. 


sometimes I stand here for 
fucking days. 

In the space in my room where my body should go 
there's a space and in time time fills in the 
spaces and gaps and cracks with 
just time. 
just time-in-space. 
In space, with time, 
you can learn how to breathe. 
./. 
Every song ends on the same damned beat 
blessed be. 
look at them. going. walking, creeping, plucking 
with harpsichord mechanism instead of with their 
own blessed hands. 

I have trouble keeping up, you know. 
but I play it pretty close to the chest. 
There are so many songs I keep to play there 
'cause I'm too afraid to learn them. 
But it's the same place I keep my words 
when there's nothing else you could have said, 
you can find it there.


The mirror (mix 2)

This is a (unfortunately rather out of date) selection of recordings of instrumental harp in solo and collaborative work. Playing for over 30 years, Rachel uses her extensive experience as a harpist working with different acts and ensembles from folk singers to symphony orchestras to celtic jam bands to hip hop and funk acts, blended with her classical training as a soloist, to create a sound both refined and unique.

wickedrache

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