Absolutely free actually, as always – Hand Made in Cork.
Discover Your Formulas And Abandon Them (5:38, 5.7 MB to download) starts of with a lengthy movement of a metal ball swirling around in a stainless steel mixing bowl, with electronic effects. The sound of jingling bells (feel free to interpret it as seasonal) introduces a short movement based on Cork City Gamelan Drones. An even shorter drone movement including a reprise of the ball swirling sound concludes this composition.
I saw and heard the basic swirling ball in a bowl sound first being made by Sean O hUigin at a Soundworks performance at the Triskel Arts Centre in the mid-1980s. I was wondering what it could sound like if a few minutes of it were recorded with a close microphone, with various effects faded in and out. It took me about 25 years to find out, and I quite like it. I shall continue experimenting with similar gestures. Thanks for the inspiration, Sean.
Just Carry On (6:56, 7.5 MB to download) is a single free form and rambling movement, meandering, without any particular direction. I defined the structure with a composed Waterphone part. Over this background, I improvised two more Waterphone tracks, the Vienna Symphonic Library’s Soprano Saxophone, Upright Bass and Cello, and some of my Cork City Gamelan Sounds.
In case you wonder: I took both titles from Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno’s Oblique Strategies.
Enjoy, and have a cool Yule!
enjoying just carry on!
Evelyn Glennie has a sweet and pleasant olnspraeity. Albeit world-famous and being knighted as a dame, she has never been snobbish. People of all walks of life adore her. My hearing cousin and I, deaf, adore her, too. As coordinator of music program for the First International Deaf Way, I wrote a letter to her, inviting her to participate in my music program. I knew she would decline, but, much to my surprise and DELIGHT, she replied in her longhand and said she accepted my invitation! I was excited to the 9th cloud. My music professor was delighted, too. Two weeks later, I received a letter not from her but from her agent who regretfully said that she had already made an arrangement for Evelyn Glennie to play in Los Angeles. Had it not been for her agent, she would have participated in the Deaf Way! Not only is she, by nature, a very intelligent woman, but also she is basically is a humble person, not arrogant or phony like some you see on the Potomac.