Radio Al Hara 2 hour Special celebrating 10 Years of Never Records

Transfigurations is inspired by Philip Glass's 1989 album Solo Piano. Riffing off of Rauschenberg's De Kooning erasure, Transfigurations is an homage to an influential album. Transfigurations is  the coalescence of over a decade of experiments in Skip Music creating a new musical idiom.

Transfigurations

Transfiguration 1(God is Man-made)

Transfigurations is a song for song lock groove interpretation of Philip Glass's 1989 album Solo Piano. Riffing off of Rauschenberg's De Kooning erasure, Transfigurations is an homage to an influential album. Transfigurations is  the coalescence of over a decade of experiments in Skip Music creating a new musical idiom.

Transfiguration 3(The Empty True Nature of Mind)

Transfiguration 6(If You Go Looking for Heaven You Are in Trouble)

Embers in the Ash is the latest release from New York based artist/musician Ted Riederer. Building upon his 2021 release Transfigurations, Riederer's latest limited-edition dives deeper into lock-groove experimentation. Embers in the Ash is inspired and dedicated to the late Philip Jeck. For 10 years, Riederer and Jeck played an audio Exquisite Corpse game sending music back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean. During a 2022 Philip Jeck memorial at Hyphen Hub in New York City, the seeds for From Spark to Arc were planted. Embers in the Ash is a composition made by cutting and layering a series of lock grooves from the solo guitar improvisation. Only 10 copies will be cut with limited edition archival pigment print covers printed. These limited-edition releases reflect Riederer’s belief that vinyl records are sacred objects not to be mass produced. In this era of ubiquitous streaming, Riederer believes that vinyl record releases should be treated like fine art print editions.

Embers In The Ash Mastered

A bonus EP to start 2023. I thought Something Happened to you is a guitar improvisation and Something Happened to Me is a lock grooved re-imagining of I thought Something Happened to You

I Thought Something Happened To You

A track recorded at the Hermitage residency in February, 2015.

New World Song

Philip Jeck
Johnny O'Sullivan
James MacArthur
Conor O'Kane
Bill Fallon
Ted Riederer
Never Records with Philip Jeck & Touch

This September, Never Records will open at 11 Southwark St. near London Bridge tube station, as part of Illuminate Production’s Merge festival, sponsored by the Tate Modern, and Better Bankside. Philip Jeck will be performing from 8pm The Bear Pit at on 24th September.

In the daytime, Touch will be recording at Never Records at 2pm for two hours. Two vinyl cuts will be made of the recording, one for display and listening in the shop and one, the other copy goes to the archives…

Phil Jeck and Never Records Live at the bEar Pit London September 24, 2011

PHIL JECK INTERPRETS MARK GARRY SIMON JERMYN AND Ted Riederer PERFORMANCE CALLED ALL HUMANS DO AT WHITE BOX GALLERY.

For Ted

Dismantling a Piano

It is a song without a beginning, or an end and it never sounds the same as the first or last time it was played. Up until this moment I’ve never allowed anyone to hear this song except in the form of a sculptural installation, two technics auto repeat turntables and one giant projection, yet it begs to be played and to be heard. I find that I keep returning to this song and I probably will for the rest of my life.
In 2008 I set out to do the impossible. I joined the opposite sides of the earth and the opposite sides of the day. It was during a period in my life that I was struggling to balance my work life versus my artistic life in a city like New York that imbalances those that live here.

In order to shake myself awake, I wanted to make the most ambitious art that I could make and I set out to do so no matter the cost or time or distance it would take. That’s my advice to younger artists, what kind of work would you make if you had all the money and time you needed, now make it, you will find a way.

So I took a globe and spun it like a character out of a Jules Verne novel, stabbing my index finger on the opposite side of the Earth from New York City. I traced my finger through an inch of the Indian Ocean until it hit Cape Leeuwin on the Southwest tip of Australia.
In October of 2008 I traveled to the other side of the earth armed with my electric guitar, battery powered amplifier, and recording equipment and for 2 weeks I woke up before the sunrise and played music to accompany the dawn. Cape Leeuwin happens to be the point where in Southern Ocean and the Indian ocean meet. Everyday I’d climb along the rocky coast with mocha colored sand and  stake out a new spot to meet the sun which rose over the Southern ocean and set over the Indian Ocean.

It was a halcyon adventure for me. I met the same Kangeroo at the same crossroad road each morning as I drove to the out onto the cape, like night shift and day shift workers. I learned that if you hold a guitar into the wind an ethereal chord is played. This Aeolian guitar reflects my quasi Shinto belief that art and music can be conduits of the divine. that if you are true of heart and take a creative risk tthen something greater than you channels through you. It’s a rather romantic idea, but when you are on the other side of the earth and the nimbus clouds are unfurling like a slow motion nuclear blast and the wind is playing a chord that you hold in your trembling hand everything feels possible.

And so every morning I composed a guitar piece, which I finally captured on my last day of the trip. It’s a simple piece, no effects, no pick, just the pads of my fingers tapping out some code conjured by the ocean and the wind and the sun. If you listen hard enough you can hear seagulls, surf, and even a little rain from a morning shower.
I cut this song to one side of a vinyl record, and a few months later with the help of my friend Bill, I composed a sister song to the setting sun from the roof of my studio in Long Island City. The sunset song incorporated the sounds of the Aeolian guitar, the rhythmic clank of cars driving over a metal plate on the long island expressway, guitars and keyboards. I cut this sunset song to the other side of the record.

And so I am going to play for you now. Two copies of the same record, this side and the other side, the sunrise and the sunset. As they are different lengths they get out of synch immediately but yet they remain harmonious, and to me  when played together on auto repeat turntables its like a prayer, or better still an offering to things greater than us, a love letter to the world.

The Other Side Mix

Part Lock

Gaza Lock

Thumper The Trooper

Thumper live at The Rat in 1996 All Fall Down

I've always believed that art has the capacity to re-enchant this disenchanted world. As part of a larger artwork called Persistent Echoes I dreamed that I could play the Brooklyn Bridge like a piano, a 14,680 ton musical instrument. So yesterday, early in the morning, I whacked the tension cables of the bridge with a plastic mallet and recorded the strikes with these custom clamp piezoelectric microphones made by this guy named Crank Sturgeon. Initially, I was disappointed that I could hear no discernible tone, but when I watched the cables vibrate I marveled that they looked like vibrating guitar strings.
So last night I pitch shifted the cable strikes, just a simple pitch shifter no bell filter, and voila I was able to compose a simple piece that sounds like a undersea xylophone. You can hear the vibrations of the wind and the cars on the roadway. It's noisy and sounds like sonar yet miraculous nonetheless. I'm in awe of all of the possibilities for discovery that surround us.

Playing the Brooklyn Bridge like a piano

Lollise (BF Dub)

Lock groove opera featuring Heather Green and Ted Riederer on guitar

Day May

A composition using electric guitar, lock grooves, tuning forks, loops, and bicycle wheels strung with guitar strings.

Harmonic Spheres

The 'Lion’s Path' EP was written and recorded by S.J. Downes in the summer of 2020, comprising of four subtle and nuanced instrumental compositions. Recorded in real time to tape at his home studio, the tracks feature harmonica and multiple guitars, including a century old Lyon & Healy that takes central voicing on glass bottleneck slide. These beautifully layered recordings and arrangements capture the organic and spontaneous process, and take the listener on an acoustic journey from the 1920s into the 21st century. 

Contained within the EP are 4 tracks, 3 acoustic voices, 2 magnetic tape machines and 1 giant tortoise called Darwin - overseeing the proceedings. Aside from that, Downes takes care of all writing, playing and production. 

LOVE, DEATH, HOPE, and UNITY perhaps simply describe the overall theme of each track… 

“"This EP represents a straightforward road map, or soundtrack of sorts, to rising feelings and questions posed by my hearts mind and desires, recorded in reel time over a large slice of seclusion from society during late summer Aug - Nov 2020. LOVE, DEATH, HOPE, UNITY perhaps simply describe the overall theme of the collection. A rare opportunity of a crossroads in time, away from the discord and chaos of the outer world, to safely journey within my own soul and explore my inner landscape of causality, guided solely by the twin auspices of my intuition that Courage will command and Peace will prevail led to these sounds surfacing in their spontaneous nature and I feel delighted that they form my first official release in collaboration with Mellowtone Records.” 
S.J. Downes, November 2020

Visit Mellowtone Records
http://mellowtonerecords.com/releases/sj-downes-lions-path-ep?fbclid=IwAR1UuajGoLkW1ATsM6lGLJbayRc00oCdgVR5Km1e6MOv_KJoyb-ZuK_FNAg

 Radio Alhara

SJ Downes hosts a special premiere of Lions Path on Radio Al Hara

A live capture of Thumper in the late 90's at the Rathskellar, Boston. Pre Hellfire with Tim Kelly on bass Saeed Kobiakov on drums and Dougie, Ted , Neil, and Loretta.

Thumper Set Live At The Rat ca. 1996 with the Scofflaws and MU330

This set features the line up that went on to record No One Left The Disco Alive with the addition of Albert Anthony on trumpet.
Rob Machold - Drums
Tim Kelly - Bass 
Neil Miller - Guitar
Ted Riederer - Guitar and Vocals
Dave White - Hammond XB2 with Leslie Cabinet
Doug Riechgott - Alto Sax
Loretta Fernandez - tenor sax
Albert Anthony - Trumpet

Thumper live on WMFO ca. 1995

A composition for solo guitar with lock grooves made from original recording then overdubbed with vinyl cuts.

Ted Riederer

Pinned to spotlight

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