ART BEAT

Yesterday I taped a segment about AUGUST for Art Beat, the MWSU-produced show hosted by my friend Stacey Park. I showed her (and cinematographer Tara Stoll) my studio and we chatted about the process of making the album. It should air in a few weeks on a rotating basis. Watch for it in St. Joe and Kansas City on Channels 97 and 39, respectively, and on the website too!

New Piece Premiere at Electronic Music Midwest

As previously posted, I've been invited to premiere a new work at the KcEMA- curated concert this Friday evening at the Electronic Music Midwest Festival.

My new piece, Shuffle No. 1, is a short exploration of the Shuffle mode of listening to electronic tracks. Here are the program notes:

The Shuffle pieces take the sounds that surround us—music, landscape, noise—and use the randomizing shuffle mode, in both the construction and presentation of the pieces, to defamiliarize them and present them in new ways. The sounds are recorded and then divided into fragments as small as 1/8 of a second each. These segments are randomly sequenced back together and then shuffled in performance. The primary sounds in Shuffle No. 1 come from the gorgeous hymn, “O Salutaris Hostia” by Pierre de la Rue (1452—1518). The fragmenting and chance ordering of the normally fluid, continuous, and structured sounds creates a rich tapestry of its own. The use of the shuffle mode in playback makes each performance unique.

The concert begins at 8pm, this Friday (Sept. 30) at the Performing Arts Center at Kansas City Community College. It should be a fascinating show!

SLBM recommended to Krugman; interweb shakes with excitement

Nobel Prize-winning economist, NYTimes columnist, and Arcade Fire fan Paul Krugman recently solicited music recommendations from his readers. Apparently someone recommended yours truly and the recommendation was noted in this blog. Blogger Glenn Peoples of Billboard.biz writes:

The best recommendations - and there are many - offer some context to better explain why Krugman should listen to that band over the dozens of other bands suggested. Some contain a high degree of personalization. Describing The National's "Bloodbuzz Ohio" as a "good (loosely) economics themed song," or noting that Still Lost Bird Music is "a MacDowell fellow and a PhD in Composition from U Chicago" are probably good ways to get Krugman's attention. Other helpful suggestions included links to videos, which makes it easy to access the band's music.