Close Proximity and the Unhindered Care-all is likely to be considered a masterpiece of the classical ambient genre. Embodying all of the elements of ‘traditional’ ambient music, the album also in many ways encompasses all of the haunting beauty that we have come to expect from Celer, Will Thomas Long and the late Danielle Baquet Long. Tinged with the sadness of Dani’s passing, this album gives new meaning to the love shared and transmitted through their timeless collaboration.

From the music to the poetry to the artwork, Close Proximity and the Unhindered Care-all is one of the most complete works of art to be released, in the form of an album, in some time. Released on Nicholas Szczepanik’s SRA label, this is an excellent additional to their diverse and growing catalogue. Beautifully rendered photography by Johnny Utterback alongside the poetry of Dani, found within the inlay, solidifies the perfection of this new work. I still get emotional each time I read ‘Not Too Blue To Fly’ composed by Danielle and from which the title was extracted.

‘Don’t be worried,
only comforted, known to see,
who
we
are.

Close proximity,
an unhindered care through-all, near.’

To me, this poem adds a personal dimension to the album that is inseparable from the musical structures that unfold over the course of the album. It reminds us of the love from which this work bursts forth. It reminds us of ‘how important care is.’ I personally cannot think of Celer’s work as anything but silently spoken sonic poetry.

Musically, the album combines a more classical approach to ambience with the unforgettable minimalism of early Celer. Notably, unlike many of their other albums, throughout the music can be heard unprocessed field recordings which range from humorous to sublime. From a purely musical perspective I believe that this album will stand the test of time. Unlike much of Celer’s work, which often relies on short fragments or extremely long musical gestures, Close Proximity is in three long movements, each comprised of several short interconnecting movements. Structurally I consider this a stroke of genius as the musical interest is never lost or overstated while the sonic gestures are allowed to mature along side the seemingly disparate layer of field recordings.

On a personal note, what I love most about Close Proximity is the compositional voice of Will and Dani. I can literally hear their love for one another in this music, I can literally feel her presence in this work. If there could be an album that delivers the emotional power of a sonic era, this may be it.

book a concert for sleep in your part of the world!
concert for sleep contributors list

hey all, sorry that i haven’t posted much lately but i have been busy working on new albums and preparing for a recent round of concerts. its good to be back on the bloggosphere and i am really happy to share with you my recent experiences with chika, jeremy bible and jason henry at the ingenuity festival in cleveland ohio.

i was fortunate to have the opportunity to hang out with some wonderful people and to do some great shows as part of a week long experimedia sponsored tour including the ingenuity festival, a club show and a radio show. the week started out with an early morning flight to cleveland where i met up with chika, an amazing internationally recognized video artist as well as jeremy bible and jason henry the masterminds behind experimedia communications. the week culminated with an incredible sleep concert on saturday july 11th. below is a slide show of photos taken by chika.

the first night was really awesome beginning with a radio show with lisa miralia host of The Mysterious Black Box on WCSB 89.3fm Cleveland. lisa was a great host and everyone really appreciated the thoughtful homework that she had done before the show, its really rare for a radio host to know so much about their musical subject matter. also on the show were anduin and jasper tx. these amazing artists headlined the show that we played that night at “now thats class” in cleveland. thanks a lot to jeremy bible for setting up both the radio show as well as the show with anduin and jasper tx. it was an honor to play with those guys as i have deep respect for both of them as well as for their work. and it was also great to warm up with chika, who was kind enough to provide motion graphics for the entire four hour show.

on the second day of our trip i was saddened to find out that one of my closest friends and experimental music pioneer danielle baquette-long passed away on the day of the jasper tx show. dani and i have been friends since 2006 when she and will helped me to secure my firsts album. i was really lucky to have chika and jeremy bible around to help comfort me as dani was one of my dearest friends. her husband will was kind to wait a day to tell me so that i could fully enjoy the experience of the first show. i am trying to plan a memorial concert in her memory later this month.
my thoughts really go out to will now, their music under the name ‘celer’ was such an important influence in my own work and they have become such good friends. i mourn dani’s loss but also feel terrible for will as i imagine this difficult time he is going through.

here is a picture of her and i together last december in new orleans.

everyone who loved dani’s music will remember her for as long as they live, but more importantly people will remember dani for being a good friend and an amazing human being. she touched my life musically, spiritually and personally. honestly its hard to find the words to say how i feel about loosing her presence in my life. i was really lucky to have great friends around to get me through that really hard day. thanks chika and jeremy and godspeed will, our thoughts are with you at this time.

as the week progressed and we began to prepare for the sleep concert i became really close with both chika and jeremy bible. i am so fortunate to have collaborated with both of them. i was really stunned by the intricacies of chika’s video and i learned a lot by observing the really intricate mixing process that jeremy has been developing.

i am amazed each time that i do a sleep concert at how powerful of an experience it can be both for the participants and the performers. i want to give a big shout out to all the people who contributed audio for the sleep concert. a release will still be forth coming and we can’t wait to share our work with the public.

possibly the best time of the whole festival was the actual performance at the sleep concert. its really hard to describe the experience, but the most compelling part was working with three brilliant collaborators jason henry jeremy bible and chika. i formed a unique relationship with each of them over the course of the last few months, and it was really cathartic to finally get to perform with them. mainly it was great to learn so much from real masters of media.

below are some youtube videos of chika’s stunning motion graphics. check it out who knows, maybe youll hear a remix of your work!

ill be posting more soon about the logistics and my developing philosophy of sleep concerts. thanks again to all who contributed and to my homies chika, jeremy bible and jason henry

if you want to bring a sleep concert to your part of the world please check the following link

book a concert for sleep in your part of the world!

Nicholas Szczepanik Interview with Tanner Menard

For about a year now I have been getting to know one of the most talented and driven young men that I have ever dealt with, Nicholas Szczepanik . His new album co-released on Basses Frequences & his own label SRA is by far his best work to date and in my opinion sets the stage for what is to come from this perhaps visionary young sonic artist. With carefully selected photography from the artist and architect Avery McCarthy the ‘Chiasmus’ is a complete artistic package that combines stunning visual beauty with sonic and stylistic innovation.

One of the things that has struck me most about Nicholas in the year that I have known him is his vast vocabulary of musical knowledge. Whereas I come from a classical background, and often understand things in the pseudo-scientific language of music theory, Nicholas has an ear untouched by conventional learning and his voracious appetite for music of all varieties informs his compositional choices in powerful and often surprising ways. What strikes me most about the ‘Chiasmus’ is the fluidity with which he is able to synthesize a variety of styles. In much of the music of the ambient and minimal experimental genres, artists tend to take an approach of utter consistency. It is refreshing and perhaps noteworthy to hear Szczepanik’s forays into recombinant style and form.

Whereas the first movement entitled ‘Another End of New’ takes the listener through a surprising array of changes, the three latter movements take a more traditional drone approach. In our conversations on AIM, I sometimes call Nicholas the dronemeister. For such a young man, he has such a sophisticated sense of how to take a solitary sonority and transform it into a writhing, undulating ocean of melody and emotion. From what I gather, his material is often derived from rather arcane sources, old keyboards, small record players and old microphones combined with his use of various tools on the macintosh. Somehow, he is able to transform these in really amazing ways that defy the austerity of much of the drone music of today. In listening to the ‘Chiasmus’ one might assume many things about the future course of this precocious young composer and one might even take a hint or two about the future of ambient and experimental music. A future of openness and diversity.

If you have to make a choice today between dining out or purchasing the Chiasmus, I recommend putting your money into something that will give your ears and your heart lasting nourishment. Help support all the artists and label owners who contributed to this really amazing project. This is an album that won’t soon leave your playlist and may just influence the course of things to come.

Nicholas Szczepanik Interview with Tanner Menard

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sommeil artist profiles highlight the raw submissions used to create the sommeil sleep concert remix experiment, an installation which remixes robert rich’s sleep concert using sleep music collected from nearly 100 artists from all over the world.

Hailing from the rocky west coast of Northern California, 91Plus is 17 year old downtempo artist Will Hitz. Inspired by the beach scenery and dramatic coastline around his home, Will started composing in 2007 as his curiosity surrounding electronic music as a form of artistic and emotional expression grew. Soon, he began creating his own sound with dreamy, floating melodies, analog bass riffs, and nostalgic, lo-fi drums. His track “Haunted Pylons (Cerebral Cortex Mix)” was played during the sleep concert. It is a modified version of a song from his debut EP entitled “Sunsetter” on the Retronym netlabel. You can download it for free here. Expect more from this passionate young producer in years to come.
http://www.retronym.co.uk/rtn004/

Related Links:
segue - into the fall - review
sleep concert documented
cition - transcriptions of dreams - reviewed

a few months ago i was really pleased to eMeet a new young artist who is really engaging his creativity and doing a good job of promoting himself. promoting myself within electronic music was a challenge with a steep learning curve until just recently so it has been encouraging to meet so many artists who are finding new ways to get their work out to the world. last night brian green aka seeyouinsleep sent me a great blog entry that he had posted in regards to a day of creative collaboration. what i like about brian’s post is that he uses various forms of media to give some insight to his creative process. as art and technology mingle in art, i believe that documentation of creative process is important to the development of creative and open culture.

http://www.myspace.com/seeyouinsleep

check out what brian has to say about his new experiment:

Me and my friend Brandon decided to go to the city to do some recordings the other night, we went to the part area where they have this little waterfall and then we went to where the main road was downtown to set up and record for a bit.

The piece below was done by processing all the recordings throught various generative chains in ableton live blending them all together.

here is a soundcloud file of brians recording:

here is what i really like, brian complements the audio recording with video, an idea i plan on implementing also:

city5122009 from Brian Green on Vimeo.

and then he follows up with another video of that documents how he used the recordings later:

Experimental Improv Session 5/12/2009 from Brian Green on Vimeo.

all in all, i am looking forward to getting to know this new young artist in the form of an interview. keep an eye out for that in the next month or so. anyway, take and lite, be creative and be vibrational

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