The Third Pillar
Dear friends and listeners,
Following the truncated, partial premiere last Saturday as part of the 2012 Avant Music Festival, William Lang and I are very excited to present the Full World Premiere of The Third Pillar in Primal Imperfect Palindrome with The Souvenir of The Second Pillar, The Floating Cirrus over the Pumping Slush, and The Highest Moving Chordal Motif from Apparitions of The Four Pillars on Monday, February 27th, 2012, at 8PM at The Wild Project.
Anyone that was at the performance on the 18th, is invited back as our guests to this premiere, and I’m hoping that this last minute change in schedule will allow even more people to experience Will’s transcendent playing as it was intended.
Tickets to this special premiere are now available through Avant Media
In harmony,
Randy
Appparitions of The 2012 Avant Music Festival
We're gearing up for the 2012 Avant Music Festival in a big way. We've recently released a little preview video as a part of our Kickstarter campaign:
This whole campaign culminates in a one-night-only preview performance and thank-you party on Monday December 19th. I'll be performing a new solo vocal work: The First Pillar Appearing in Palindrome with The Harbinger of The Second Pillar under the 27/28 Triple Primal Region from Apparitions Of The Four Pillars that acts as an introduction into this year's realizations of Apparitions Of The Four Pillars. Please consider making a pledge on kickstarter and coming to hear this special performance. Plus there will be free food and drink and performances from The Pierrot Project and Eve Beglarian. Plus, if you donate $25 or more, you get a copy of the 2012 Avant Music Festival EP featuring my own Third Pillar recording from Voices + Sine Waves (previously only available on the CD version) as well as works by Eve Beglarian and Jenny Johnson.
In February, the festival will open (February 10th) with Circular Trance Surrounding The Second Pillar with The Highest Seventh Primal Cirrus, The Utmost Fundamental, and The Ekmeles Ending from Apparitions of The Four Pillars performed and commissioned by Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble.
Here is a clip from the November 2011 World Premiere at Music At First:
The festival will close (February 18th) with a new work written for trombonist William Lang: The Third Pillar in Primal Imperfect Palindrome with The Souvenir of The Second Pillar, The Floating Cirrus over the Pumping Slush, and The Highest Moving Chordal Motif from Apparitions Of The Four Pillars - This work takes the same basic idea as what I'll be performing on December 19th and transforms it into a one-man symphony of dense droning pure textures.
Full information on the 2012 Avant Music Festival, including ticketing, can be found here.
The Final Copies of Analog Apparitions
Analog Apparitions, my cassette for The Tapeworm featuring two 30 minute droning cassette explorations, has been officially sold out for some time now. However, the glorious cover image for Analog Apparitions created by Oscar Henriquez is available as part of The Bookwoorm's first publication The Art Of Worms.
I've just made the final seven copies of Analog Apparitions available as a special limited edition. Each has been signed and numbered, and they include a download card of The Third Pillar with its Lowest Primes and Memories of The Second Pillar from Apparitions of The Four Pillars III-iii-2010 20:02:56" - 20:20:17" (Brooklyn) previously only available on the limited edition CD Voices + Sine Waves.
These final copies are selling for $20, and four of them are only available through the MELA foundation webstore. The other three copies will be available at my upcoming shows on November 18th and December 19th.
Aqua Madora featured in Textura
This month's Textura magazine features a delightful review of Aqua Madora and an interview with yours truly.
Appropriate to the title's water allusion, the reverberations produced by the piano's sustain creates an impression of fluidity between the notes played, as if they possess a liquidy dimension that allows them to flow into one another. ... a ponderous and spacious meditation, the generous spaces between the notes enabling the sine tones to once again be heard.
I'm humbled.
To get one of these special limited edition CDs click here or here
Aqua Madora: Release Party and Screening April 3rd
To celebrate the release of my limited edition album, Aqua Madora (Released Feb. 22nd) and the March 22nd release of the super-limited hand-embellished version, Avant Media will be hosting a free record release party at Wild Project (195 East 3rd Street) on Sunday April 3rd, from 7-9pm.
We'll have some free food, and beer and wine can be purchased from the Wild Project bar. At 7:30 we will screen the full performance documentation of the V-ii-2008 performance as released on the album, recreating a little bit of what the performance is like - the scent of roses will waft in the air and the beautiful visuals created by Ana Baer-Carrillo and Dani Beauchamp will accompany the actual performance video.
Seating is limited, so please RSVP on the Facebook Event Page, or by sending an email to tickets [at] avantmedia.org.
Click Here to buy a copy of Aqua Madora
2011 Avant Music Festival
This is the first video clip from the performance of Apparitions of The Four Pillars with Their Lowest Additive Primes as limited to the 3rd, 7th, 9th, and 11th New Primes chosen Cyclically, The Toll of Premonition, The Memorial Connector over the Outlying Primal Abyss, and The Mid-Winter Ending during this year's Avant Music Festival. There is also a great set of photos up on Flickr taken by photographer Tear-n Tan.
Performance of Randy Gibson's "Apparitions of The Four Pillars with Their Lowest Additive Primes as limited to the 3rd, 7th, 9th, and 11th New Primes chosen Cyclically, The Toll of Premonition, The Memorial Connector over the Outlying Primal Abyss, and The Mid-Winter Ending"
February 11, 2011 - Avant Music Festival, New York City
Randy Gibson: Just Intonation Toy Organs
William Lang: Trombone
Drew Blumberg, Catherine McCurry: Violins
Mariel Roberts: Cello
Projection: Oscar Henriquez
Aqua Madora
I'm very happy to announce that, Thanks to Kickstarter and the wonderful people that donated there, my next limited edition object CD release, Aqua Madora will be out officially on February 22nd through Avant Media
Limited copies will be available during the 2011 Avant Music Festival: Feb. 11-19, in New York City.
Below, check out the lovely cover artwork created by Oscar Henriquez
What’s ahead for 2011
First up in 2011 are two big things.
On Monday January 10th, the Kickstarter Campaign to fund the release of Aqua Madora closes. This nearly fifty minute piano solo is one of my favorite works, and I'm really looking forward to finally making the recording available.
I hope you'll consider pledging to make this CD a reality
Then, also next week, tickets for the 2011 Avant Music Festival will go on sale. In addition to curating the festival with Megan Schubert, this year will see the premiere of a new version of my major work, Apparitions of The Four Pillars, the recent London performance of a section of which was described by Liminal's Scott McMillan as "a moment of relative calm, of stillness, and of pleasingly soporific and mind-emptying purity."
The full title for this new version is Apparitions of The Four Pillars with Their Lowest Additive Primes as limited to the 3rd, 7th, 9th, and 11th New Primes chosen Cyclically, The Toll of Premonition, The Memorial Connector over the Outlying Primal Abyss, and The Mid-Winter Ending - I'm being joined in the performances by Will Lang, Drew Blumberg, Catherine McCurry, and Mariel Roberts.
I also have new commissions in the works for Ekmeles, bassoonist Annie Lyle, and The Guidonian Hand, but more on those to come.
Here's to a happy and creative 2011
Aqua Madora on Kickstarter
I've recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to make a beautifully packaged CD of my piano piece Aqua Madora.
The really cool thing about Kickstarter, and the reason I wanted to go this route with this project, is that the funding only happens if we meet the goal. There's no risk: "Every Kickstarter project must be fully funded before its time expires or no money changes hands."
This is a great thing, because it means that the project itself can actually happen fully as envisioned. When we're talking about the type of packaging Oscar and I want to make happen for this release, this is doubly important. I believe fully in the physical format. The experience of making a Cassette for The Tapeworm has further opened my eyes to the possibility of physical formats. With the embellished packaging we're planning for Aqua Madora we intend to capture a slice of the ritualistic performance experience in a little take-home package.
I hope you'll consider pledging to help make this beautiful object a reality
- Randy
Reviews of Analog Apparitions
A couple of lovely recent reviews of my cassette, Analog Apparitions out now on The Tapeworm.
first up, from San Francisco indie record store, Aquarius Records:
One of three new releases on UK cassette label The Tapeworm, this one featuring two sprawling side long excursions into just intonation drone from Brooklyn composer Randy Gibson, a student of legendary minimalist composer La Monte Young. Gibson fuses the traditional concepts of prime harmonic just intonation with modern tape manipulation, the tones as important as the mechanisms producing them, the sounds lush and layered, heaving and undulating, overtones and subtle sonic colors, rife with subtle shifts, tape speed inconsistencies, peppered with bits of hum and hiss, crunch and creak, a sound more organic and human than clinical and composed, the sounds seeming to breathe and expand, some serious deep kosmische drift for sure.
The two sides here are created from 18 hours of recordings condensed into two half hour epic swaths of deeeeeep rage like dronemusic, the sound constantly evolving and mutating and subtly shifting, from ethereal hazy shimmer to thick reverberating metallic buzz, a gorgeously expansive dronescape created using just voice, cassette boomboxes and just intonation toy organs. Wow.
and from the UK's Boomkat:
Heavyweight harmonic drones from the always surprising Tapeworm imprint. Brooklyn-based composer, Randy Gibson, was a student of famed minimalist La Monte Young and his two compositions here are firmly rooted in the studied traditions of his tutor. Given the quite specific titles of 'The First Analog Pillar with its Simplest Primes and The Harbinger of The Second Pillar with The Low Modora Cornerstone and The Outlying Primal Cirrus from Apparitions of The Four Pillars', and 'The Third Analog Pillar with its Lowest Primes and The Ersatz Souvenir of The Second Pillar with The High Madora Cornerstone and The Outlying Primal Abyss from Appararition of The Four Pillars' you basically know this guy isn't just f**king about. Crafted from eighteen hours of recordings layered over two sides, these compositions are concerned with the just-intonation and "purity of sine waves in complex prime-harmonic relationships" which sounds incredibly intimidating, but is actually quite beautiful, if you've ever succumbed to the work of La Monte Young, or felt your chakras quivering while listening to the likes of Eleh. The experience is ritualistic and enveloping and shouldn't be undertaken while operating heavy machinery.
