About ME
I am a composer and multi-instrumentalist. My work lives at the intersections of Song, Sonic Arts, and History. Many of my projects reflect an awareness of process, location, and medium, and they draw upon Popular and Folk forms- most recently, American pre-jazz and rural music.
As a composer, I’m interested in a new understanding of the score that considers, for example, the memorized performance, studio recording, or piano role as valid documents/artifacts of music.
As a performer, I try to adapt my mode of performance to answer questions posed by the music and life. Recently, this has led to a solo style of performance in which I play piano with my hands, and modified marching-band style percussion with my feet. Sometimes I also use tape collage play-back as well. I try to perform in as many different kinds of venues and situations as possible, for as many different kinds of audiences as possible.
My recordings use a mix of archaic or ‘dead’ technology, consumer-line equipment, and modern studio tools. Much of the work is done in a mobile, field-recording style of instruments over long periods of time, resulting in final products that are a hypothetical time-space. In response to the predominance of virtual media/mass reproduction, I have established a record label, Archaic Future Recordings, which focuses on the physicality of the recording by presenting products that are one-of-a-kind, handmade, and unified in their music and presentation.
“Is it Dance Music?”
“Yes, but you don’t necessarily have to dance to it.”
<pause>
“So it’s function music? ”
“No, but it’s functional.”
Excerpt from a recent conversation with my great uncle, Meyer Marcus.
photo:jon donnell