Saturday, December 19, 2009

Déjà-Vu Reflection Refraction Déjà-Auditu


I was driving our drummer Sean home from the KFJC 50th Anniversary Party concert at the Cafe du Nord tonight, where we'd listened to our bassist Will and his drummer Laura from his other band The Thralls make a guest appearance with the band Al Qaeda. Good show.

Dropping Sean off, I had to run up to his place to grab my bag (which I had left there earlier in the evening) and experienced a moment of déjà-vu. About a year ago I had dropped Sean off after another show and didn't come up, but in tonight's episode I experienced that first instance again as if I had.

Sean and I started talking about the phenomenon and reflecting on the refraction of déjà-vu, the whole thing suddenly came to me.

As announced in our last blog, Project Soundwave accepted our proposal for their Green Sound festival next summer. In its Green Sound manifestation, this performance won't be taking place in the form of a show on a local shoreline, as conceived in that proposal, but we have still been intending on incorporating some form of the visual prinicple of the original proposal.

In our original proposal, to explore the visual aspect of sound and environmentalism for Green Sound, we projected visiting two Bay Area shorelines, one which has been well preserved and then another which has been environmentally devastated. We wanted to record these visits in some form of a visual documentary, recording our interactions both with these two forms of landscapes and with each other as a band mates.

In déjà-vu, our unconscious minds simultaneously enact a moment of observation from within the space of the mind and a moment of preservation of the environment outside. You are both within and without, observing and preserving, but these processes, which are concomitantly empirical (i.e. of the conscious mind) and transcendental (as are all advents of the unconscious), these oxymoronically deconstruct each other.

Another aspect of the visual element of our Green Sound proposal was this. Alex (our didj player) filmed two short films in a visit to Sequioa National Park. In both films, he pointed his camera straight down towards the water and the shallow river bed beneath it. In “Reflection” (the first), he had the camera above the water, recording the reflections of sunlight upon the surface of the water. In ”Refraction” (the second), in the same location and at the same angle, he immersed his (waterproof) camera in the water, and recorded the refraction of that same sunlight within the water, its refraction onto the smooth sandstone floor of that river bed.

Reflection:




Refraction:



The idea is that the light and water and environment are all the same---even the orientation of perception and the representational means for framing that shore, that liminal space-- even these are all the same. But for both our eyes and for the natural as well as the unconscious elements of that empirical experience, for these the image and the sound are correspondingly different, yet the antithetically the same. This came out in both the visuals of the films and in the audios of those two same-different spaces.

Reflaction, refrection: (the 2 below aren't our videos, but they illustrate the principle we're after)





Our idea was we wanted the songs to be based on this relationship, this interchange, in the several literal as well as metaphorical meanings of this word and its roots. We already wrote and recorded a full demo of "Reflection" (hear it on our Myspace page), one of our best recordings, and it was done in one take watching Alex's first video. The sound for this song is very smooth, streamed, organic, mirroring. It sounds like an experienced environment, how we subliminally perceive and participate in that natural setting, as any one hiking through it would.

But then, in anticipation of part two, the second song Refraction, anticipating the 2nd film's footage inside the water and refracted light, it ends with a sample taken from part one of Kit Clayton's album Lateral Forces. I ran this sample, which is already an experiment in static sound and electricality, through a series of filters to make it "refract" the sound of the keynote sample which composes the rest of the composition, and this effect will likewise be replicated and further refracted in the version of "Refraction" which I will be writing over this Christmas break.

The Reflection and the Refraction form and interweave the intersecting interstitching yet deconstructing diffracting electroacoustic environments, that of the natural shoreline setting, and that of the psychosomatic experience of that shoreline.

This, finally, extends to my new (re)vision of the film and documentary component of this project. When we played our first show in the Mirror room, Chris Gray projected his experimental film upon us and upon the mirrors of the room, immersing us in a visual sea of refracted light, refracted light which was being reflected off the walls of mirrors composing the performance space. Jaakko Vilpponen, in turn, filmed this environment of sound and light around us,



(Other videos of this show by Jaakko can be found here)

Chris reflected, Jaakko refracted; in interchanging their visuals both with our sound and with the performance space, the two together composed the total audio visual, electroacoustic environment to contain our art in, for the audience at the show and for the audience of the videos of that show. and for us performing then building on our sound off those recordings in our initial phase of rehearsals as a band. conscious made unconscious and unconsciousness making consciousness.

Déjà-vu, Déjà-auditu, refraction-reflection, refrection-reflaction

So, an idea for the film that could serve as footage both for the documentary and for the visual projections to (write or actually) score the songs would be this: Jaakko films the raw footage of our visits to these two shorelines: our visit to and reflection the preserved shoreline (that initial moment of déjà-vu) and then our visit to and refraction of the environmentally devastated shoreline. In our immediate experiences of these environments we are in direct reflection. As filmed, the first preserved shoreline is the reflection of a reflection: our original "nature" within nature, how we feel participating as part of that environment. Also as filmed, our experience of the second, observed shoreline constitutes a reflection on a refraction (the shoreline has been refracted--"broken" by industrial incursion--but we are still directly experiencing in it-----and as part of the (in)human nature which broke it, we are reflected in that refraction).

(Jaakko would record not us as a band observing at the shoreline, but through our eyes, his eyes & the camera lens as a kind of 6th pair of eyes & third eye for the band.) Jaakko's raw footage of the preserved shoreline would serve as the first part of the documentary and the projections for our live performance of Reflection.

Then, Chris, would collaborate with Jaakko to take the footage of the second observed, environmentally-devastated shoreline, and edit and manipulate it, refract it. This would then form the film that would compose second part of the documentary and the projections used during the live performance of "Refraction".

Déjà-vu enacts and arrests the aporia between these two spaces, by curving unconscious reflection into conscious refraction and by raising our consciousness (our reflection) of how humanity has unconsciously or unconscientiously refracted, broke down and damaged, that environment.

Now, after that, the question is how do we traverse that aporia, cross its boundaries, unite the natural shoreline with the liminal space of the self. Transcendence is of course part of this, but in what form, through what manner of engagement (oxymoronic of transcendence), this is still to be determined. But that is a matter to work out in "Coda", the third and final movement of this series. Much work to do by Green Sound next summer.....

Monday, November 30, 2009

Green Sound invited us! ... + a misc update: productive but tired

Project Soundwave accepted our proposal for their Green Sound Festival next summer! It won't be the exact show format presented in the proposal, but we will be playing at the Lab in SF together with a lineup of great experimental artists that Project Soundwave customarily features. Stay tuned from more details soon.

In addition to preparing new music and visuals for the festival, Shores have been working really hard as of late. We wrote yet another new song, working title "Comet Tail", and finalized most of the instrumentation for the song score for Jaakko's 16mm short. Our good friend Stephen Cavoretto from Dora Flood and Memories Mystic will be making a guest appearance on this song, playing trumpet to accompany Alex's trombone-doo (dij circular breathing through the trombone). Sean also has been practicing the saw more, which he is incorporating into both new songs. Meanwhile I've had my hands full learning my new gear, the APC 40, which is basically a mixing and control board for the Ableton live, which is really cool because it give me the ability to control and effect the tracks more real time. I've also been practicing mixing and EQ'ing. We've been recording all our practices this month as a way to explore the evolution of new material and develop more of a structure in how we perform their material. Mixing all the tracks afterwards has enabled me to listen to all the individual parts more closely and play them for the guys as we communicate about where we want to take the songs. All of this is translating into a more cohering aesthetic for our sound overall, which is great experience and satisfying artistically, though at the same time all the work is wearing me out! That's alright, sleep when dead as they say. A much needed vacation coming up in December before the real work begins next year, recording our album, preparing for the Project Sound>wave Green Sound Festival, and starting to play shows more regularly. fun fun...

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Film score and music video

Our good friend Jaakko Vilpponen, a student at the SF Academy of Art, is making a 16mm music video for Shores! He came up with a basic story and collaborated with me on sets and props, and Shores are writing a new song called "Conver" to perform to his storyboard.

We'll be using The Undertakers' performance space in the Richmond, recyling some of the sets from their recent Haunted House and building a couple new ones to boot. We're in the process of rehearsing the song, and will be recording it in a couple weeks. Filming is this weekend and the storyline is mesmerizing.

The basic idea is that the main character, played by me is a kind of musical monster alien who's been commissioned by an unnamed protector to rescue four office workers from their drab mundane lives and use music to convert them also into monsters. A lot of friends and fellow artists are collaborating on the filming, sets, and projections; below are some shots of a couple of the sets, from photos of the Haunted House. Stay tuned soon for more on this exciting project!








Thursday, October 29, 2009

Feary Tales Haunted House this Saturday



Our friends the Undertakers will be putting on their 8th annual Haunted House this Saturday, Halloween, 10/31 from 6 to 9 p.m. Their theme this year is "Feary Tales" and it looks to be a very fantastical and scary undertaking. and it's free even. Corner of 22nd Avenue and California, here's their page on Facebook.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Reflection


Finished the basic mix for "Refleciton" tonight. It's our first demo as a full band and can be heard on our myspace page. More demos coming very soon.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Demos

We recorded some demos tonight, versions of "Shores" and "The Deep", as well as a new song, "Reflection". These'll be up on our myspace page when we get them mixed this weekend.


Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Frisco Freakout: One day psychedelic music Festival

Here's a link to the website for the festival. Barn Owl at 8! Wooden Shjips at 6. Sun Araw at 7, and lots of other good experimental and psychedelic bands.

Monday, September 28, 2009

a momentary break: "Light-Caught"

working on completing the second movement of Waterless Shores, learning it will take more work to explain its key principles. Stay tuned for the two posts appearing this week, as they will extend the Shores philosophy further.

In the meantime, here's a video to relax with:

Video Artist: Wojciech Pus
Title: "Light-Caught"


Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Waterless Shores: Movement Two, Part Three

YouTube User: LibSocDev
Video Title: Feedback

Scene: When the sense perception has registered, when the subconscious has sublimated it, when experience renders its ripple effects through the body, when recognition makes us aware of the relation between our person and nature, the psychosomatic system experiences what this video artist calls "Feedback", interpreted here as the entire self and body complexes (as represented in the video) intimating the personal experience of the transcendental universality not just of physical nature, but of the psychical ideals with structure and convey it to us. Conceptual truths then assume a real living form in the body and mind, heart and spirit, washing over us in from the waters of the numinous principle of being to the shores of our individual beings and selves.


Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Waterless Shores: Movement Two, Part Two

YouTube User: kojico85
Video Title: synapses

Scene: A visualization of how emotions travel through the body and brain. Following the above sequence in Part One of this movement, the psychosomatic self experiences the environmental phenomenon, taking in its materials and perspectives, and responding to it.


Monday, September 21, 2009

Waterless Shores: Movement Two, Part One

Cognition/Recognition

Movement Two of our "Waterless Shores" series explores experiential shores, within the human psyche, mind and body.

Part one of this movement documents the cause and effect of brain wave shores, via two videos.

The first video, Plastikman's "Brain Wave" translates the patterns of brain waves via the image of two brain wave rivers, interpreted here variously as the bass and treble clefs of a musical staff, as the liminality of consciousness and experience in the human psyche, as the pathways of emotion and cognition in the neural network, or as the warp and woof of consiousness and unconsciousness.

Artist: Plastikman
Song: "Brain Waves" (Official video)

To experience the full effect of this video, turn out all the lights, and try to watch both brain waves at once.






The second video, Ivan Riche's "Wave Files", is interpreted as merging these two electrical and natural phenomena into one electroacoustic audio and visual metaphor. The filmmaker notes that one purpose of this piece is to translate patterns of waterways to brain waves. This is interpreted in Shores Philosophy as the felt resonance of an electroacoustic phenomenon, the coalescence of sensation and perception, the unconscious process of experiencing a sound or view coalescing with conscious recognition of the liminal pattern the two form when brought together.

YouTube User: Ivanriches
Video Title: "Wave Files"

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Warterless Shores Interlude: Frozen Waves

YouTube User: Kowch737
Video Title: "Amazing Striped Icebergs"

Scene: Antartic Icebergs. Slideshow of striped icebergs, and waves that crash through icebergs and then freeze mid-air.


Waterless Shores: Movement One, Part Four

YouTube User: POJCDK
Video: Mudslide

Scene: Badakshan province, district of Varduj; June 2007.


Friday, September 18, 2009

Waterless Shores: Movement One, Part Three

YouTube User: Timmyd7777
Video: Lava Flow at Sunrise

Scene: Filmed June 2009 at Mount Pele, near Kalani on the Southern Shores of Hawaii's big island. The lava forms a river that pours into a lava ocean, with crashing waves of fire....


Thursday, September 17, 2009

Waterless Shores: Movement One, Part Two

YouTube User: judah8750
Video: "Out of Orphirica"

Scene: Shot from around the San Juan Mountains near the town of Ophir in Southwest Colorado. Avalanche filmed on March 1, 2004.


Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Waterless Shores: Movement One, Part One

Part One in a series of shores without water.

Movement One surveys waterless shorelines in Nature, Movement Two will explore urban shores.

Waterways are not the only shores in our worlds and lives. Our Waterless Shores series explores how other natural and constructed shores compose liminal spaces in our consciousness and experience, connecting and demarcating these regions of our selves.

Artist: "The Flasbulb"
Song: "Kirlian Shores" (official video)

Scene: The mouth of San Francisco Bay at high fog tide, viewed from the Marin Headlands north of the City.....


Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Shores Artistic Resume

Shores are a new band which formed in May of this year. We've played one show so far, a full audio-visual production whose light show and documentation on film were part of the overall artistic concept. The show took place on June 20th at a performance space in the Richmond District called “The Mirror Room”, a stage inside a cage enclosed by mirrors and Mylar sheets. Experimental filmmaker and artist Chris Gray provided films that projected color and light onto the band as it performed, forming in their confluence with the performance space an interplay of light, shadow, and aurual and visual reflections and refractions. Band members Alex Darr and Jude Morris also built a slide show of artistic images and photographs of shorelines throughout the world, which was projected onto the floor in front of the band, to create the impression that the performance was effecting a journeying through the world’s liminal regions. Videos of this show were shot by documentarian Jaakko Vilpponnen, a film student at the SF Academy of Art, and Kirsten Hove, a local artist.

The inclusive purpose was to provide visual complements to the music as conceived in the Shores Philosophy statement: to create an environment that is interchangeably electric and acoustic, one which opens avenues for performer and audience alike to explore where their consciousness of self and experience of nature meet in a chiasmus of these electroacoustic phenomena.

Since that first show, Shores have been practicing rigorously, developing their songs more, conferring on their philosophy and aesthetics, and conceiving their vision for future performances. Shores view themselves as less of a “bar or club” band, and more of a performance environment one. To explore other possible performance contexts, they are currently applying to play at the annual Experimental music festival held at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, organizing a collaboration with other experimental filmmakers, musicians and artists to take place at the LiPo Lounge in SF late October, and planning a series of shows to take place in our most natural environments, shorelines around the Bay Area. We want to bring music and performance out into nature, and nature into the performance environment, as a way of creating interactive experiences for our members and audience that raise environmental consciousness and open doors, liminal relationships, between electronics and acoustics, nature and our selves.

Though two complete electronic tracks are available on our Myspace page, Shores have not yet produced any recordings of the full band. We plan on producing home recordings through November and December, and recording professional tracks at the Soundport Recordings Studio early next year.

Band Photos

(click on the individual links to make see full size)



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Project>Soundwave Proposal

For the 2010 Project>Soundwave Green Sound Festival, Shores would like to plan a performance that raises environmental consciousness both through the form of their music and the concept of aural and experiential interaction with nature. Our intention is to make the subconscious conscious, to foster awareness of the unique nexus natural settings create between consciousness and experience, especially when these are heightened and attuned through art, performance, and music.

In the first part of this project, the members of Shores and their artist collaborators make an excursion to two Bay Area shorelines, one which has been protected from environmental impact, versus another that has affected by pollution (e.g. the Suisun Bay Naval Boneyard, where decomposing naval vessels are threatening the local ecosystem). Shores and their artistic collaborators will film a short documentary about their experience of these environments, and the effects of pollution vs preservation upon the experience of the two. The purpose is not just to document the environments, but also to discuss how raising awareness can contribute to future prevention and preservation. For Shores, learning how to listen to nature is key to this awareness, and our intention is to use this experience to help hear each other and environmental music better, so that we can foster the same ability “To Listen” (the film’s title) in our music and for our audience.

In the second part of our project, we want to organize a performance on a shoreline in San Francisco that will begin with a screening of “To Listen”. After the audience has viewed the documentary short, Shores will perform a score which it is writing to film footage of shores at Sequoia Kings Canyon National park. This footage will be projected upon the band during the performance. The entire score will run around 25 minutes. Its three movements are titled “Reflection” (shot looking down on the water, reflecting the light above; note: these link to the videos, not the musical compositions, which are still being developed), “Refraction” (the same view, but shot inside the water refracted in the light), and “Coda” (shot looking over the water towards the shore). Shores conceives these three movements—experience, consciousness, and extension---as fundamental to the process of learning how to listen to Nature, how to open our electric selves and consciousness to the organic experience of an environment.

Shores believe that audience participation is essential to raising environmental consciousness. As an integrative, third element of our performance, one of our members will serve as a “conductor” for the audience during performance. The set will begin with the band performing alone, and then as it proceeds, the conductor will slowly distribute percussion and instruments to members of the audience, some of whom will have rehearsed the score with the band beforehand. The conductor will hand these out in waves, and guide each new member into the score, so that they become part of the sound, a “Shores Orchestra” as we call it. By the center of the set, our intention is to reach out to the entire audience and draw them into the performance, to make them participate in the act of listening to ourselves, nature, and the music. The band, in turn, will experience its sound and performance influenced by and in communication with the audience. As the set enters its coda, the conductor will re-gather the instruments he has passed out, so that the band can experience how its own sound has come to reflect the consciousness of the audience.

To power the show in an environmentally conscious way, and in keeping with the environmental responsibility inherent to a band directly inspired by, and attempting to reflect, the natural environment, our performance will be powered by batteries from cars and other vehicles left standing still on the day of the performance in order to share their electrical power. The batteries will then be recharged by our 1400w solar array before being returned. The automobile owners will be given the chance to experience a car-free day or two, and a direct positive return on the 'sacrifice' of not driving - in the form of our performance.

Shores Philosophy

Shores build rhythms and harmonies based upon forms and patterns in nature--- electrical and acoustic nature is our musical staff. Our music infuses environmental, electronic, and instrumental aesthetics and principles into the sound and feeling of liminal experience. Sound is more than sound, more than auditory sensation---it is the felt resonance of immanence. Feeling is a place where our body and mind meet, where consciousness and experience wash over each other, and Shores choreograph this interchange. One song adopts the rhythm of waves crashing on a shore, another explores heartbeats and blood streams, another the aesthetic of tree branches breaking in the forest, or another how light interacts with ripples on a shore. Using instruments and rhythms that reflect these sounds, building melodies that refract our essence in them.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Becoming green


Nothing Gold Stay
Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leafs a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. (Robert Frost)


Sean Alex and I are meeting to write our proposal for the Project Soundwave 2010 Green Sound Festival. Ultimately we're trying to identify how environmental consciousness and experience cause and effect our sound, and to conceive a performance that explores and highlights our relationship with nature, both as an element of our style, and as a principle of our philosophy. The proposal we're working on means to articulate this, and we hope to be sharing that with you soon. Thanks for following Shores Blog,
JM

Monday, August 24, 2009

Welcome to Shores Blog

Shores are an SF experimental group which blends experimental, instrumental, and electronic music as a means of exploring, expanding, and exhilarating consciousness.

We formed in May, 2009 with Jude and Will as the first two members and Alex and Nathan joining shortly thereafter. Our first show was June 20 at the Mirror Room in the Richmond District, and we are planning another show for mid September.

Just this week, Shores expanded to include a fifth member, percussionist Sean Degaetano. The full band is now:

Alex Darr (didjeridoos, cymbals, percussion)
Sean Degaetano (drums, percussion, saw, washboard etc.)
Nathan Ladd (guitar, vocals, effects)
Jude Morris (electronics, samples, turntables, gong, percussion, effects)
Will Pritikin (bass, vocals, percussion, effects)

Stay tuned for more information as Shores continues to develop....