recorded at The Church of Christ at Dartmouth College
October 22, 2021
Hanover, NH

Jack Langdon, organ

enth, for organ

BREAD [2021], from "interbeing"

score: www.wubbelsmusic.com/bread_score.html

written for and performed by TAK:
Marina Kifferstein, violin
Laura Cocks, flutes, wine bottle
Madison Greenstone, clarinet
Charlotte Mundy, voice, wine glasses, beer bottles, autoharp
Ellery Trafford, mixing bowls, beer bottles, wine glasses, autoharp

BREAD [2021], from "interbeing"  (w/ score)

Episode 1
Mattie Barbier: threads (SOFA 592)

The Los Angeles-based musician and composer Mattie Barbier recorded threads in The Tank Center for Sonic Arts, a seven-story steel water tank whose formidable resonance propelled Barbier down new avenues of sound. On the podcast’s debut episode, Mattie recounts close encounters with cowboys en route to the venue; the significance, in brass playing, of not obscuring the breath; and their love for dioramas, among other sundry subjects.  

Learn more about Mattie: https://mattiebarbier.com/

Hosted and edited by Jennifer Gersten
Produced by Barry Tan and Liza Yeager 
Thank you to Mattie, Ingar, Martin, and Kim 

SOFA Music, based in Oslo, Norway, is curated by musicians Ingar Zach, Martin Taxt, and Kim Myhr. 
sofamusic.no
sofamusic.bandcamp.com
instagram.com/sofalabel/

SOFA STORIES episode 1 - Mattie Barbier

beta version of installation made for Tuesdays at Monk Space, April 2023.

for organ, field recordings, dirt, metal.

if you kids are good i'll take y'all to the cemetary [2023]

premiered by Miroslav Beinhauer on April 28, 2023
MicroFest Prague 2023, Academy of Performing Arts, Prague, CZ

performed on the 36tet August Förster harmonium, originally built for the performance of Alois Hába's "Six compositions for sixth-tone harmonium."

the harvest manual, for 1/6-tone harmonium

no dirt to call, with Ashley Walters, cello.
Mattie Barbier- prepared euphonium

1/19/2024 for wildUp darkness sounding and feels like floating at tree people.

no dirt to call

Cassette/digital available from Imprec.com

“The Generous Law,” a new album by organist Jack Langdon and guitarist Anthony Vine, presents a glimpse of the inner voices and acoustical splendor of the Fisk Organ at Wellesley College, enlivened by the intuition of two improvisers. At the keyboards, Langdon crafts geometries of patiently braided lines and incisions, configuring the hues and shades of organ stops with an ear to the materiality of sound. Vine seizes on this, tuning his guitar to the organ and bringing his strings into alignment with the harmonics of the reeds and pipes, becoming an extension of the instrument, an organ stop of sorts. The guitar flows in and around Langdon’s angular counterpoint, like the shimmer between the divots of a jigsaw puzzle, illuminating its matrix. 

The tonal design of the Fisk Organ brings these interactions into vibrant relief through its quarter-comma meantone tuning and 17th c. Danish and German stops—giving organists access to sonorities only found in historic North European churches. Resurrecting a distant sonorous past echoes the design of Wellesley College's Houghton Chapel itself, a braiding of ecclesiastical motifs with no historical center, designed to impart a sense of old-world sacredness. Fisk’s ahistorical mélange yielded something extraordinary, not a cheap replica or period imitation, but an instrument of sui generis chroma and expressivity.

The musical idioverse of Langdon and Vine is defined less by interior imaginations, established style, and compositional formality, and more by the inexplicable pull of the organ, its guiding and grounding voice. In a letter to Ross Feld, Philip Guston speaks to this abstract, yet ubiquitous dynamic in artmaking with his notion of the “generous law,” the namesake for this collection:

“I think you are writing about the generous law that exists in art. A law which can never be given but only found anew each time in the making of the work. It is a law, too, which allows your forms (characters) to spin away, take off, as if they have their own lives to lead—unexpected too—as if you cannot completely control it all. I wonder why we seek this generous law as I call it. For we do not not know how it governs—and under what special conditions it comes into being. I don’t think we are permitted to know other than temporarily. A disappearance act. The only problem is how to keep away from the minds that close in and itch (God knows why) to define it.” -Philip Guston to Ross Feld

This music is not driven by concept, process, or system, but by the wanderlust of sound, time, and listening.

Jack Langdon & Anthony Vine - The Generous Law - 1  July 27, 2022 - 1pm

recorded live in Köln, DE. November 2024. 
written for BONECRUSHER: 

Moritz Anthes, Till Künkler, Moritz Wesp, Anke Luchs, Matthias Müller, Weston Olencki, Matthias Schüller, Adrian Prost, Maria Trautmann, Matthias Muche; trombones 

Etienne Nillesen, Rie Watanabe; percussion

glass [2024], for ten trombones and two percussionists

fixed media portion, no live trombone. 

made with trombones.
 made for the Bemis Center Low End.

teeth of the second range

Guitar and custom software

Electronica B • Minor Crush

for Microtonals Accordions ©Xamp
Electric Guitar, Amplified Harpsichord, 
Piano, 3 Percussions, 3 doublebass,
& Wind Ensemble (with NO electronics)

For my beloved friends <3
Tribute to Mark Fell

Conducted by Julien Leroy
With Duo Xamp (F.Vicens & J.-E.Sotty)
R.Reber (Guit.), P.Hattat-Colin (Pno.),C.-U.Kim(Clav.),
& Musicians from the CNSMDP Orchestra
Live Recording by Jean Marc Lyzwa 18th September 2020
Paris CNSMDP
Edit & Mix Samir Amarouch
Master Charles D. Wajnberg

glass [2024], for ten trombones and two percussionists

Weston Olencki

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