# Some non-film music / some context of time



## poseur (Jul 4, 2009)

some folks may have heard bits of this, already,
but..... i thought some might enjoy it,
or at least it may lend some kinda further background,
a bit more musical context
to the nature of my person/my posts, so......

*from my most recent non-filmic release, my band recorded c. 03/2006:*
"structural functions of presence"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=6542721&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 42721&amp;q=hi)

"them buried standing"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=6542713&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 42713&amp;q=hi)

"ever more other"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=6542710&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 42710&amp;q=hi)

"bulbs"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=6544329&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 44329&amp;q=hi)

*from a "solo" release, recorded c. 1998-'99:*
"shumri"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=6543327&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 43327&amp;q=hi)

"a dozen books to break the fall"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7787764&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 87764&amp;q=hi)

"is love"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7787772&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 87772&amp;q=hi)

"hedewa"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=6565858&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 65858&amp;q=hi)

"busy cutting crap"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7787773&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 87773&amp;q=hi)

from one more "solo" release c. 1995:
"wms, t?"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7774582&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 74582&amp;q=hi)

a quasi-blues:
"tiny burns a bridge"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7774540&q=h (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 774540&amp;q=h)

*another quasi-blues, recorded c. 1990:*
"shofar"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7778540&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 78540&amp;q=hi)

*closer to an actual new orleans blues, really..... c. 2008:*
"green fairy blues"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7788826&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 88826&amp;q=hi)

*some songs with a friend, c. 2001-2004:*
"should i"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7788831&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 88831&amp;q=hi)

"wanting"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7788841&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 88841&amp;q=hi)

"right here"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7788838&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 88838&amp;q=hi)

*a very old song, re-recorded for my youngest son in 1996:*
"the ghost of iasi, elle a perdu en charité....."
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7788944&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 88944&amp;q=hi)

*my "power trio" (ha!), c. 1994:*
"open letter to the heart of diaphora"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7787789&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 87789&amp;q=hi)

"palms for lester"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7787806&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 87806&amp;q=hi)

"snail hair dune"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7787796&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 87796&amp;q=hi)

"honey sweating"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7787817&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 87817&amp;q=hi)

*and, yet another of my bands, c. 1986:*
"suyafhu skin..... snapping the hollow reed"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7788778&q=hi (http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplaye ... 88778&amp;q=hi)

etc.

enjoy, criticise, whatever.....
i'm fine with it.
in any case:
i know i'll learn something from your comments.
_thanks_ (in advance) _for listening!_

d


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## JohnG (Jul 4, 2009)

I really enjoy the way your music keeps disrupting my expectations.

You start with a "regular" electric guitar or drum and throw in either effects or sonic surprises or rhythm (or lack of rhythm) or ironic use of context, all of which disrupts and forces the listener to actually listen to what is going on.

In a peripheral way, there are some points of contact, I think, with Badalamenti, who also uses many normal instruments and harmonic / rhythmic elements, but introduces odd sounds and tunings, and otherwise distorts context, but without doing it gratuitously.

Paradoxically, as eclectic as some of your tracks are, they feel for me as though they have unusual intention and coherence.

It makes me think about music in a way that I find very stimulating -- thanks!


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## poseur (Jul 4, 2009)

j,
i'm checking out new studio monitors,
and found myself a veritable wackload of mostly older material,
for my reference.....



JohnG @ Sat Jul 04 said:


> Paradoxically, as eclectic as some of your tracks are, they feel for me as though they have unusual intention and coherence.


thanks much, j.
yes, it seems like i have some kind of "line" / "threading" going on;
i think it's likely fed by a kind of inability to dispense with any music
based upon consensual idiomatic/branding definitions thereof,
& those idioms' more "social" associations..... which become conventions,
when their non-musical subtexts become "accepted". 
did that make sense?
ha!
i dunno.

but, i'm fortunate enough (or: not, depending upon one's perspective)
to have had that fostered in me:
by my folks & my musical "education",
by my wife & kids,
by certain friends/teachers/infliuences.....
among them, don cherry, john abercrombie, gil evans,
l. bernstein, teo macero, manfred eicher & ecm, d. bowie, tim berne, jon hassell, carter burwell,
jan garbarek, eberhard weber & etc etc etc, along the way.....
folks who encouraged me, despite there always having been
some daunting tide of resistance.....
that same resistance that we all experience,
i think, when we somehow put our musical & career-ic asses 
and reputations up for public consumption.
often, our own peers can build the highest walls, which i find unfortunate.
but, there will also be peers present for support, so.....
no matter.
what i do, is what i do.....
..... perseverance vis á vis some central core of self-dignification & integrity remaining intact & evolving
remains important for me, in any case.
man, that was mouthful of jibber-jabber, really!
dayum.



JohnG @ Sat Jul 04 said:


> It makes me think about music in a way that I find very stimulating -- thanks!


you're more than welcome!

btw:
thinking about that curry, o'er the next coupla days or so, fwiw.

d


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## JohnG (Jul 4, 2009)

poseur @ 4th July 2009 said:


> & those idioms' more "social" associations..... which become conventions,
> when their non-musical subtexts become "accepted".
> did that make sense?



Yes, actually, it makes perfect sense.

In fact, I think that's part of the reason no composer ever is satisfied with his or her existing palette. Everyone searches continually for a sound or texture or tone that _lacks_ idiomatic context (or seeks to use that sound in a way that lacks it) so as to produce something that sounds / is new.


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## poseur (Jul 4, 2009)

JohnG @ Sat Jul 04 said:


> poseur @ 4th July 2009 said:
> 
> 
> > & those idioms' more "social" associations..... which become conventions,
> ...


yeah, i think that's what i was trying to say;
ha!
except, for myself, i'm not on a path that actually _seeks_ "the new";
i simply want to write & play what "feels right" & most personal to me.....
..... and know that my commitment to the music is full,
without entertaining reservations & fear, whenever possible.....
regardless of however the uses/abuses of idiom & style are employed and/or ignored.

again: another flipping mouthful of stuff from me;
sorry if it appears ivory-tower-esque.
it isn't actually so, i think;
this is my "real stuff".
i'm alive,
& simply wanna minimise time-spent
in creative prisons of my own devise,
where i might tend to fade out while hopelessly gazing
at the creeping & encroaching bars of once-avoidable regret.

i guess i believe that i'd prefer "failure", but.....
my optimism & will don't even accept that "failure" is necessary,
nor that the concept of "success v. failure" in this is truly
a realistic paradigm by which to view the creative world.
silly me, eh?

(o) 

d


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## Craig Sharmat (Jul 4, 2009)

i knew I would love these. I have not listened to everything yet but a decent cross section. Curious to what you are playing on Shofar. Why name the piece Shofar anyway, what a hideous instrument!

loved the textures "Them Buried Standing" but I can't imagine chicks dig it much. Hey that would be a good title. Loved the off time funky feel of :Busy Cutting Crap". Did a dog die in the making of it? I'll comment more later. Like the whammy pedal stuff too.


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## poseur (Jul 5, 2009)

Craig Sharmat @ Sat Jul 04 said:


> i knew I would love these. I have not listened to everything yet but a decent cross section.


thanks, c.!



Craig Sharmat @ Sat Jul 04 said:


> Curious to what you are playing on Shofar. Why name the piece Shofar anyway, what a hideous instrument!


'twere a loooooong time ago, but..... i might remember correctly.

that piece consists of 2 tracks.
both were (probably) played on my original klein electric guitar (fitted w/barden pickups)
w/a Steinberger TransTrem .
the solo used a volume pedal and a wee bit of modulated-delay from a lexicon pcm42.
the "textural" track would have been performed 
w/same guitar & amp, but played through (at that time)
some kind of harmoniser (likely, a digitech),
a modified lexicon pcm42 and a lexicon pcm70.....
with no "dry" guitar-signal present,
and printed "direct" (in stereo) via an ADA MicroCab II.

as to the title..... well, it's a long story,
and one which my ex-pat israeli friends do not really accept, so:
later, for that, ok?
ha!



Craig Sharmat @ Sat Jul 04 said:


> loved the textures "Them Buried Standing" but I can't imagine chicks dig it much.


i don't ever imagine much in that regard, but still.....
i'm happy to report that the band has a healthy balance of genders
present at its performances, to date, depending much upon the place.....
brooklyn, nyc, minneapolis, ann arbor, london, amsterdam, barcelona,
innsbruck, cork, dublin, paris: many women in the audience.
copenhagen, malmo, middelburg, columbus, boston, new haven, philadelphia: not so well-balanced.
still, overall?
a much more even balance, that way, than most of the bands with whom i've toured.
(the most unbalanced male>female ratio was the tour of japan w/b.l.u.e. & king crimson..... really strange; the opposite was true, ie flip the genders,
for performances w/david sylvian, ryuichi sakamote, jan garbarek & my trio with
will calhoun & meshell ndegeocello.....)

what i have noticed even more:
where the audiences are younger, there are more women present.

and, re: the band-in-question.....
the sales of the recent ecm recording numerically topped my previous "best"
(under my own name, that is), "cloud about mercury",
as far as those things go & for whatever they may really "mean", so.....
go figure!
¿ who knows ?
in fact, i'm satisfied by making the music, seeing it in release
and performing for people, when possible.



Craig Sharmat @ Sat Jul 04 said:


> Loved the off time funky feel of :Busy Cutting Crap". Did a dog die in the making of it? I'll comment more later. Like the whammy pedal stuff too.


no dogs died in the making, mixing & mastering of that track!
of course, my dogs did not dig it..... but, they respond much more negatively to sub-tones
than they do to "killer" mids.
and, the birds do seem to love it, as usual.
(they're usually my biggest audience & "backing band",
esp. when i'm working with higher freq'ed material
and anything even remotely ambient..... they absolutely love looooooong, warm reverbs.....)

of the tracks posted,
i should think you'd dig "shumri", "open letter.....", "palms for lester", etc,
that material from the trio of myself, mick karn & terry bozzio (c. 1994).
it's possible you might like the track "should i", too, from the song-type perspective,
though any guitarisms are hard-to-spot.

ah, and:
no, i've never used a whammy pedal.
i am, though, very attached to using the whammy bar intensively on electric,
and have spent much time practising linear scales with it over these many, many yrs.
sometimes, it's amazing what we can pull off with our hands 
working some highly functional acousto-mechanical devices!

d


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Jul 5, 2009)

Yo d,

Loving that Cutting Crap! BIG smile on my face, and wife yelling "COOL" in the other room! A bit over-the-top with the lo-sample-rate bit-crushing but the guitar is golden fried nugget-ly. The cut-up at the end... FUN!!!!

Many more to check out, but duty and bills call.

A joy to have you in our midsts! ~o)


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## poseur (Jul 5, 2009)

Ned Bouhalassa @ Sun Jul 05 said:


> Yo d,
> 
> Loving that Cutting Crap! BIG smile on my face, and wife yelling "COOL" in the other room! A bit over-the-top with the lo-sample-rate bit-crushing but the guitar is golden fried nugget-ly. The cut-up at the end... FUN!!!!


ha, coolio!
and, yeah!, for sure:
in 1998,
i was still so focussed on the possibilities for modification of actual performance
(both in real-time, & offline) that, as a sidelong result,
i became overtly enamored of reduced _everything_,
multiplied digital distortions, manipulation of granular delays etc etc etc.
my fascination became a bit of an obsession, 
which certainly bore some harsh aural fruits.
!

my 2003 tune for jeff beck, "plan b", was one of those odd fruits;
i do wish i'd have delivered a less modified-sounding mix of it, but..... there it is.
i still like the little tune, and surely can't deny that i appreciated
the nice little award i received for it, but..... but.....
there it is; it was what it was, & is what it is.

i still find myself to either be musically excessive or lacking,
in one way or another.....
most def that my own view of "sonics"
(which i tend to hear as a very direct _function_ of orch/arr)
is just one big piece meant to fit _somewhere_ in my own ongoing puzzle.
ya know?
 
dude.

you might dig the tune, "shumri", if & when ya get there,
from the same recording..... in any case,
it's a bit warmer/darker as go the abuse of reductions & stuff.

d


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## Craig Sharmat (Jul 5, 2009)

poseur @ Sat Jul 04 said:


> of the tracks posted,
> i should think you'd dig "shumri", "open letter.....", "palms for lester", etc,
> that material from the trio of myself, mick karn & terry bozzio (c. 1994).
> it's possible you might like the track "should i", too, from the song-type perspective,
> ...



Enjoyed the suggested tracks. Loved the oud in shumri. you realize I bought an oud because of you....bastard!
In Green fairy blues are you playing anything?


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## NedK (Jul 6, 2009)

I'm having a good time listening to your music here. So far, just heard the "Power Trio" tracks....really great stuff. And "the ghost of iasi"....one of the coolest tunes I've heard in a long while. Thanks a lot for posting these d.


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## poseur (Jul 6, 2009)

Craig Sharmat @ Sun Jul 05 said:


> Loved the oud in shumri. you realize I bought an oud because of you....bastard!


never pick up an oud unless/until you're ready to get serious,
right?
ha!
(i practiced briefly, today, for the first time in like 4 months..... frustrating!
apparently, i have the worst feathering technique east of glendale & west of claremont.....)



Craig Sharmat @ Sun Jul 05 said:


> In Green fairy blues are you playing anything?


just the clarinet and piano.....
kidding! surely, i jest.
so: no.
i wrote it, mixed & mastered it (quickly, of course) for a filmmaker friend of mine,
who needed something in that '40's new orleans, george lewis style of "blues".
i did want a more irregular, tremulous vibrato from the (wonderful) clarinetist,
but was still good w/it as played, anyways.....

d


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## NedK (Jul 7, 2009)

(Just want to add) Listened to the rest of your tracks tonight. Man, really interesting/captivating music. And you're one hell of an electric guitar player.


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## Craig Sharmat (Jul 7, 2009)

poseur @ Mon Jul 06 said:


> Craig Sharmat @ Sun Jul 05 said:
> 
> 
> > Loved the oud in shumri. you realize I bought an oud because of you....bastard!
> ...



That's a particularly rough corridor for Oud players.


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## poseur (Jul 7, 2009)

Craig Sharmat @ Tue Jul 07 said:


> poseur @ Mon Jul 06 said:
> 
> 
> > Craig Sharmat @ Sun Jul 05 said:
> ...


ha!
indeed.
i should add to that geography:
_north of orange county!_
d


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## poseur (Jul 7, 2009)

NedK @ Tue Jul 07 said:


> (Just want to add) Listened to the rest of your tracks tonight. Man, really interesting/captivating music. And you're one hell of an electric guitar player.


thanks, ned.
i dunno if you've listened to any of my scores,
but some film-cues remain, for the moment,
mounted here:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=831564

grouped, generally, together in random numbers by each individual score/project.

again, thanks for listening.
i do _so_ love to play, modify & abuse guitars, oud, cumbus, electrons & etc!

d


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## lux (Jul 9, 2009)

just found the time to listen the pieces

art. every bit of your music sounds like youre doing a form of art. usually that puts a smile on my face and makes me more positive. Definitely.

Thanks for sharing that, D
Luca


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## Ian Dorsch (Jul 9, 2009)

Thanks for posting this, D. It's really fantastic stuff. I'm looking forward to having the time to sit down and listen to all of it with some headphones.


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## poseur (Jul 9, 2009)

thanks, luca!
dude.

and, ian --- careful w/those headphones,
on the stuff that i've mixed..... watch out!
dangerous waters, wear your fins!
*-)

d


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## mathis (Jul 10, 2009)

I immediately pressed the "Play All" button and really enjoy this inspiring music, thanks for sharing!


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## poseur (Jul 11, 2009)

mathis @ Fri Jul 10 said:


> I immediately pressed the "Play All" button and really enjoy this inspiring music, thanks for sharing!


thank you, mathis!
d


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