Quare Fremuerunt (Live at the Clubhouse)

Virtus Moritur (Live at the Clubhouse)

Presum Prees (Live at the Clubhouse)

Recorded on the Pataphysical Freakout Tour at The Playhouse in Montevallo Alabama 2019

Live From The Playhouse 2019

Le Roman de Fauvel, a medieval French allegorical tale about a donkey who becomes the corrupt ruler of his master’s land, arrived at its 700th anniversary in the wake of the 2016 election. We began performing musical excerpts from the codex during that time. This piece describes the chaos of a society ruined by unjust rule. The vocals are processed during performance through computer modules which make use of real time record, playback and rate of playback functions, allowing us to employ repetition and distortion as compositional and allegorical tools.

Laura Thomas: vocals
Lauren Jones: vocals
Joel Nelson: electronics
Jasper Lee: leaves, engineering

Why Do The Nations And Peoples Rage? (early verison)

This track features Jasper playing his handmade pyraharp, a conical 18-stringed harp built on a wooden base. The harp provides a hurdy-gurdy-like drone that darkly contrasts with the beautiful 14th century vocal canon.  The deceptively simple lyrics speak of enjoying beautiful music and forgetting all worries. It is easy to read this text as simplistic, but the constant reference to avoiding displeasure belies its constant threat around the edges of the pleasant sound. We represent this through real-time computer distortion of the harp's sound.

Laura Thomas: vocals
Lauren Jones: vocals
Joel Nelson: electronics
Jasper Lee: pyraharp, engineering

The Harp Of Melody (Live Improv Version)

The source for this piece is “Kalenda Maya,” 12th century Occitan troubadour song by Raimbaut de Vaqueiras. We first encountered this song via a recording by Musica Reservata, one of the core groups of the 1960s early music revival. We were struck by the “outsider” sound of these first attempts to recapture this music. They have a rough, shout-y vitality, with plentiful recorders and shawms and ample percussion. Our rendition aims to distill the joy of that pioneering sound. We present a singalong romp with frame drums, tambourines, and call-and-response phrasing. We also use a computer module centered on real-time playback, which allows us to add a layer of time manipulation within the song. We can improvise with this program and expand or contract time. Our goal is to create something that sounds as fresh, countercultural, and revolutionary to modern ears as those 1960s groups did in their time.

Laura Thomas: vocals
Lauren Jones: vocals
Joel Nelson: electronics
Myles Cain: percussion
Jasper Lee: percussion, flutes, engineering

May Day

Avant Folk Noise made with vox + custom electronix + homemade instruments in the American South.

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