scottm and I gathered at my home art room (now referred to more properly as "Landsford Studios") to record an improvised six hours of would-be ambient music termed "Vibrating Electric Fields--Experiments in Ambient Improvisational Music". I've described the process in detail in the journal post on the day of recording. After ten months of getting the CD duplicated (i.e., months of sitting around and about a week of actual duplication delay) and the jewel box inserts completed (i.e., about two weeks for Scott to design them and a couple of months of needless delay while I got around to getting them printed out), we finally have finished CDs. I ran out of brother before I ran out of new releases, so Scott's CD will have to be finalized in an upcoming weekend.I am a more or less a music-reading non-musician (given to plinking my autoharp, tapping a glockenspiel, and humming into a kazoo or didjeridoo), while Scott is a non-music-reading musician capable of playing the guitar, the bass, the ukelele and a number of other things. We set out to make "Vibrating Electric Fields" as an experiment in the creation of recorded product on a wholly improvised basis, aiming for an ambient sound. The title derives from the centerpiece instrument of the affair, two electric football fields, which emit metallic vibrating sounds subject to changes in speed and pitch, depending on the way in which the field is manipulated. In our quest for ambience, we nearly wholly failed, because our improvisatory instincts turned out to be much more song-driven than I would have imagined prior to the beginning of the project. The result of the session, which took some six hours, is 12 songs of decided oddness. Some sound like rather ordinary acoustic melodic songs, but for the whine and grate of the electric football field, while others sound like two norelco razors in a match to the death, or a 60s gladiator movie soundtrack played entirely by kazoo. For a lament about the low quality of the music, made just after a marathon failed mixing section, look here.
This is low-fidelity, instrumental, quirky/weird stuff. But now it's time for its initial world-wide release. Because I don't use white wine, gouda cheese, turquoise jewelry, shoulder-length hair, discussions of fixations on bands like the Romantics or words like "deconstruction", I've elected not to have a live music release party. Accordingly, this post will have to suffice as the initial release party for "Vibrating Electric Fields", now being offered for the first time anywhere. I must thank my brother, who got the jewel case inserts to print out correctly, Hypnos and Ralph Records, whose artists were the initial pathwinders on my winding roads to making this music, the indelible
scottm, who made this project happen, and Harry Partch, Bill Nelson and Brian Eno, who should always be thanked for everything. But every album release party should have a freebie, shouldn't it? Please fill out the poll below to get yours; as a courtesy, it's easier for me if you can fill it out even if you are one of the ones (and you largely know who you are) to whom I'd send the CD anyway, because it gives me a one--stop address resource.
Here's my thanks to each of you for the inspiration you all provide to me:
Would you like a free copy of the gurdonark's first CD release, "Vibrating Electric Fields"? If so, please enter a name and mailing address in the space below. Feel free to leave work addresses or other similar addresses, as I have no interest in your address, but only am interested in sharing this CD. I should have enough quantities to meet the modest demands my friends are apt to provide, although after number x or so, I'll be sending disks in mini-cases rather than jewel cases, so the "first come" get served the silly jewel case inserts, while the late-comers get disk only, and perhaps an e mail of the text of the inserts. Oh, and as for those to whom I owe various mail art (e.g., Hagerman) cards--you are not forgotten! I'm working on catching up on everything. But today I've got the music in me!