Randy Gibson’s
Voices + Sine Waves

Limited Edition CD

Individually hand-numbered
and signed in an edition of 100.

Voices + Sine Waves is a collection of music by Randy Gibson composed between 1999 and 2010. These works represent the most primal and basic of materials; voices ethereal and guttural; sine waves pure and distorted. Most of these pieces have been scores for short films or dances, but exist on their own as recordings of a single performance. Exclusive to this CD release, and not available for download, is the rāga influenced 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) performed by Randy Gibson, Will Lang, and Drew Blumberg.

There will not be a second printing of this CD, and The Third Pillar will only be available on this recording. Don't miss the opportunity to own this remarkable collection of works.

Track Notes

1. Shiver
2. Two Sides (First Version)
3. Distant Melodies From A Cold Day Between 23 and 29
4. Julia
5. Two Sides (Second Version)
6. Mujeres de Juárez
7. The Third Pillar (Exclusive CD Only Track)

Shiver

III-xxviii-2008 18:39:37" - 18:48:20" (Brooklyn)
Performed by Randy Gibson

Shiver was created as a concept to explore high-prime harmonic relationships, inspired by those pioneered by my mentor La Monte Young, in a short setting. Consisting of a single seven-note chord spelled out only with sine waves, the music unfolds slowly as each pitch is heard in one of four octaves. With the octaves never overlapping for a single pitch, a slow rhythmic structure is achieved through pure process.

Shiver received its world premiere, with video by Oscar Henriquez and dance by Laine Rettmer, as part of the 2008 Avant Media production, Triplicate in New York City. It was shown during the 44th International New Music Courses in Darmstadt as an installation at the Kunsthalle Darmstadt as part of the Nachtclub mit Fenster curated by Manos Tsongaris. Shiver is best listened to over speakers, where the specific harmonies can combine in the air around the listener, and the shimmering rhythms can be heard and felt.

Two Sides (First Version)

X-x-2005 ca. 18:10 - ca. 18:20 (NYC)
Performed by Randy Gibson, Laine Rettmer, Adria Ryan

Two Sides was created for the Avant Media produced film by Ana Baer-Carrillo and Kim Olson (the title represents two sides of the same choreography as seen in summer and in winter) and received it world premiere, with the music performed live by Randy Gibson, Adria Ryan, and Laine Rettmer as part of the closing festival for the 2005 Boulder Fringe Festival on August 27, 2005. The poem used as the text material was written by Laine Rettmer specifically for this piece.

The two versions of Two Sides released on Voices + Sine Waves were recorded in a single session in October 2005, well after the World Premiere. Each version represents the same basic material; the underlying music (sine waves, beats) is exactly the same in each version, but the text delivery was completely improvised. Each take is as it was performed live during those sessions. Prior to the mastering, no edits have been made to either version. The sound you hear represents exactly how it sounded in the moment. Voices and Sine Waves blending and mixing in improvisation.

in between real and reflected
shivering grey
a tenuous connection
an emptiness

sidestepping solids like morality and truth
for a hair-trigger fine abandon
labelless
I'm leaving you - but I'll stay
maybe
the excitement is the space between the paradox

Distant Melodies From A Cold Day Between 23 and 29

Performed by Randy Gibson

Distant Melodies From A Cold Day Between 23 and 29 accompanies my short film, i left you on a cold day in december, which received its world premiere on April 6, 2007 at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art in Boulder, Colorado. The music is made up exclusively of sine waves: a sine wave drone (the 23rd and 29th harmonics of an imagined fundamental) and short melodic snippets of notes falling within that range.

More on i left you on a cold day in december at Avant Media

Julia

Performed by Randy Gibson, voice samples: Julia Phillips

Created on a commission from the choreographer Courtney Krantz, Julia was a realization of a simple request: “Create something that is very extreme, it’s very quiet, but also very loud.” Ultimately, the piece was far far far too intense for the intended dance (although it was used later to accompany a dance by Michelle Nance) and ended up being premiere on my first solo concert, Any Little Dog Says So, in Boulder, Colorado, March 6, 2001. Presented in complete darkness, with the instructions to the audio engineer to continue to turn the piece up throughout, at least three people left the theater during the relatively short duration of the piece. This is one of my first pieces, written in 1999/2000, but is still one of my favorites for its purity of statement and sheer intensity.

Two Sides (Second Version)

X-x-2005 ca. 18:24 - ca. 18:33 (NYC)
Performed by Randy Gibson, Laine Rettmer, Adria Ryan

Mujeres de Juárez

V-ix-2005 to V-xi-2005 ca. 22:30 - ca. 23:42 (NYC)
Performed by Randy Gibson and Laine Rettmer

Mujeres de Juárez was created for the short film by Ana Baer-Carrillo. The film is a powerful and poignant work exploring the unsolved murders of young women plaguing the Mexican border town of Juárez since the mid 1990s. The beautiful images inspired me to create what I consider one of my most beautiful pieces. Recorded over a single night with Laine Rettmer, Mujeres took a single process (recording in and looping snippets of music (something I began exploring in Anger, Room, Two Sides and now Doleo Æternus - it is one of my favorite processes)) and overlaid it with several layers of wordless singing.

After a few weeks of rehearsal, the actual recording unfolded very quickly. A fairly straightforward improvisatory process: I would sing a line, Laine would repeat it back and I would grab it on the computer and loop it. Through a random, but delightful, circumstance, one of us accidentally hit a lower note than planned and created a whole new, much more minor, harmony than we had been working with. A happy accident led to a much more interesting piece of music. After the initial recording, we overlaid three more lines to fill out the piece. Mujeres de Juárez is one of those pieces that I still listen to regularly and it represents my first true foray into raga-based work. The initial melodic line was taken from my studies of Raga Bilaval, which I was learning at the time with La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, and the entire piece was greatly inspired by the experience of singing raga and the method in which it is learned.

More on Mujeres de Juárez at Avant Media

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)
Performed by Randy Gibson, William Lang and Drew Blumberg

In the same way that many of my works written in the years following the creation of Doleo Æternus were based on those chords, the bulk of my current output is focused on aspects and elements of the tuning theories created for Apparitions of The Four Pillars.

This first new iteration, 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) created specially for this limited edition record, uses as its basis The Third Pillar, a stack of 9:8 intervals. Following the world premiere of Apparitions of The Four Pillars, The Third Pillar immediately struck us all as the most melodic and raga-like of the Pillars, and thus the most readily suitable for a short-form recording. The third take of the evening recording session, The Third Pillar..., is a single improvised performance by Randy Gibson on toy organ, William Lang on trombone, and Drew Blumberg on violin. The violin plays a single melody, varying rhythm, octave, and amplitude. The organs and trombone improvise freely using the pitches of The Third Pillar with select pitches from The Second Pillar and The First Pillar to create melodies and moments over layers of delay lines.

Capturing a single moment in time, 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) is the purest statement of my current æsthetic.

Credits

All music written by Randy Gibson, copyright Randy Gibson, 2000-2010. Published by Golightly Music ASCAP.

Text for Two Sides from the poem by Laine Rettmer.

Mastered by Mike Rugnetta and Bailey Math at Terminator Smile, Brooklyn.

Cover image and web design by Oscar Henriquez.

Purchase

Limited Edition of Voices + Sine Waves
is available for $10 plus shipping

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To purchase a digital download of the album (not including The Third Pillar) visit the main Voices + Sine Waves site.

Randy Gibson’sVoices + Sine Waves