arrivé / knuckleduster

well, they are here.  the new CD, Anudrutam, arrived today.

you can buy tracks or the whole CD here, and in Toronto they will be available @ Musideum.  There is a distribution deal in the offing…more details later.

the berlin trip was everything robert and i hoped it would be—we have a CD’s worth of music, easily.  we also now have a name (those of you in bands know this is no mean feat): knuckleduster.  we like it.  you can be our fan.

we’ll be working on the music over the winter and see what happens.  likely something good.

stay tuned….

berlin again/new site

i’ll be heading back to berlin at the end of january to continue recording with my good friend robert lippok (our previous session in november at the amazing former DDR Rundfunk studio buildings is detailed here —opens in a new window, or you can just scroll down the page).  we will be recording in east berlin at a beautiful small studio owned and run by bernd jestram, one half of the great duo tarwater (the other half is robert’s drummer brother, ronald).

i also have launched version 3.0 of the debsinha.com website.  part of the re launch is to officially “release” the multichannel video installation i made about the passing of my father, entitled he sat on the glittering precipice (many thanks to yvette tollar for the name).  please visit and let me know what you think.

expect more coffee and beer fueled comments from berlin at the end of january.  until then….

pics of DDR Rundfunk

well, i’m back.  still recovering and processing the whole trip.  robert and i recorded @ P4 studio, tracked by the very excellent human christian bader who runs planet roc in the same building.  we got some great music down and generally had a good musical time.  hope to be doing more of this soon.

in the meantime, here, in no particular order and most of them very fuzzy, are some pictures.  also check out the studio websites above—they have some great shots.

best for the holidays.  lots of upcoming things, including a feature in musicworks magazine and an artist talk hosted by vague terrain.

the long threatened CD is on its way as well…..stay tuned.

The Bell Garden / Berlin

my new solo live performance project, the bell garden, had its debut here in toronto tonight as part of musideum‘s live performance series, terrain.  the bell garden is a new series of performances using harmonium and percussion objects, along some of the archived field recordings with which i often work.  it is an extension of the shruti performances, more “musical” but still exploring a contemplative and personal sound world.

the first performance, rough edges and all, is available here for download.  i would suggest downloading the file for higher quality listening.

i am off to germany to visit family, and finally, finally record with my good friend and colleague robert lippok, in the former east berlin radio studios.  i am tremendously excited to be making music with robert, and even more excited to be doing it in a building so steeped in world history (and intrigue).  watch this space for news on the upcoming release.

happy holidays.

nuit blanche 2009

a time lapse film of the peggy baker dance project nuit blanche performance is up, thanks to filmmaker midi ondera, here.

many thanks to peggy, the dancers, meredith potter, ben grossman and phil strong for all their hard work.

incidentally, confluence, the triptych of works that i have spoken about earlier, will be premiered in toronto feb 24-28 2010.  the music is coming along nicely and the final show will be about an hour long.

hope to see you there.

listen in spanish

a big thank you to miguel alvarez fernandez for making a radio feature on me to introduce listeners to my work before the broadcast of “kailash”.

i met miguel while in alicante to present  “kailash”, which was commissioned by Centro para la Difusión de la Música Contemporanea /Radio Clasicá/RNE (Spanish National Radio)—the prize i wrote about a few posts back.  everyone there was really wonderful and excited about making my work sound the best it could.

please enjoy.

a good time was had by all

back from belfast, and what a trip!  the friendliness of the irish is by no means exaggerated.

had a great set @ an excellent venue, the black box, highly recommended if you are looking for a place to play.  the ISEA conference was quite an experience—never been to an academic conference before, and some of the seminars were of a different focus than the performative or process-oriented kind of explorations i usually seem to expose myself to.  however, i did see some good performances, even though the focus was on academia everyone made it out to the shows at night.  in particular i am very pleased to have finally met my now good friend yasuhiro morinaga, who had a great performance during the day the first day i got there.  we are on track for a performance in toronto for the new adventures in sound art festival soundplay.

there are pics of the set on my site thanks to colin, who was the volunteer in charge of the night.  only a few though—it was, after all pretty dark.

hitting the ground running, now.  kailash comes up at the end of the year, and the nuit blanche project with peggy baker is on tap as well—more on that later, and see previous posts here for links.

good night, and see you at a show soon….

belfast

well, here i am.  belfast is a lovely city.  the weather is nuts.  the people are so friendly, and i could listen to them talk all day.

finally, after many months of emails, met my (now) good friend yasuhiro morinaga, who did a beautiful set of field recording performance yesterday.  saw some interesting pieces, and a wonderful peformance by d-fuse last night.  looking forward to my set this evening @ black box:

black box (@ soundcheck)

tonight’s performance is the Big Event here @ ISEA today, so i am very excited.  now, if we can only find a step-down transformer…..