Setting the scene with sound / a sneak peek
Hi friends!
It's a beautiful day in Chicago. I'm checking in to give you all a little sneak peek of Tuesday's album release, and to explain why this particular piece of music is very important to me.
This composition, titled Red Room, is the only solo percussion piece on the album. I originally created it for a show where artists with disabilities were asked to contribute work about how we generate and interpret information about the world around us. Specifically, the curator asked us to pick a place we visit with some regularity and create a emotional narrative about our sensory experience in that space.
Red Room is a sonic portrait of a hookah lounge I visit after special performances or just to unwind. It is a place I can visit to be around people without being bothered. Typically, a different language sprinkles out into the room from each table. Many different life rhythms coexist without clashing or overly entangling. There is an unspoken commitment to accept where someone else might be coming from and to respect the overall space we're sharing.
In this portrait, cymbals portray the gentle atmosphere and breezily steady rhythm of the lounge. Hard seedpods swell in -and-out and side-to-side to represent the smoke wafting throughout the room. Calmly performed yet rhythmicly jagged interjections from a talking drum, a clay udu drum, and a snare drum bounce back and forth over the bed of a circular conga beat, immitating the many different languages that swirl about the space to a socially soothing effect.
These ideas of creating a scene through contrasting textures and telling a shared story through rhythmic communication are central to The Harmony of Rhythm. This composition is the lifeblood that runs through the rest of the album.
I Hope you enjoy it, and look out for the full album this Tuesday!
Tommy