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Crossover artist Timothy Moberly and Vertebrate Records present Faux Normal, a collection of sixteen original instrumental works in the electronic classical vein. You will love it. Although each piece bears Moberly's distinctive compositional stamp, there is a particularly strong bloodline among many of the works tracing back to modal counterpoint and Stravinsky. In addition, you can hear influences including Celtic music, rock, minimalism, and the tango. As original and remarkable as the music is the full wrap-around cover design by Patrick McWhirt. Faux Normal contains stand-alone pieces and selections from larger works such as "Twelvemonth" and "System", as well as a complete multimovement study in cyclic brevity, the "Interludes". Please take a moment to listen to a few of the clips at left. Favorites include "Mercury", "November", and "The Valentine from Hell Fugue". "Fugal Palindrome" utilizes a fascinating formal structure combining imitative counterpoint, multilevel palindromes, and serial material, while "Venus" offers a light-hearted touch. "Overture" is something of a cumulative passacaglia with a starkly demarcated approach to phrasing. The sexual overtones of "Squidnot" are felt in the composer's live breathing and slide guitar buried in the mix. "York" is an atmospheric glimpse of the distant past, while "April" fires off the collection with a driving series of shifting contrapuntal textures. What does all this mean? Contrapuntal - having to do with counterpoint. Read on. Counterpoint - two or more independent melodies happening at the same time, and the way they fit together. Think the end bit of "Eleanor Rigby". Cyclic - A compositional device in which the same musical idea (like a tune) reappears in different movements, often in a changed form. Kind of like a combination of cloning and cosmetic surgery. Formal structure - the imaginary skeleton of a piece of music. Kind of like that thing living under your bed. Fugue - a process of composing music popular in the baroque era (and others) characterized by a "subject" occuring in a number of varied imitative contrapuntal situations (see below), separated by sequential and free counterpoint (as opposed to the costly kind). The subject journeys through several related key areas like a Joseph Campbell hero and comes out on top at the end. Among other things. Imitative counterpoint - Like "Row row row your boat", only more complicated and, let's face it, much better. Minimalism - Music composed of limited materials, providing a highly unified character. Think Philip Glass. Modal - having to do with modes, which are like scales, but which were the ancestors of the major and minor system of writing music that is so familiar today. Think monks singing Gregorian chant. Multilevel - here meaning happening in the music from the level of little melodic ideas to the level of the entire work. Kind of like something happening in your body from the cellular level to the entire organism. Although I don't know what that would be. You don't have to tell me. Palindrome - something the same forward as it is backward. Like "civic", only here it applies to musical ideas. Passacaglia - a type of "ground bass" composition popular in the baroque era (and others). The lowest voice or instrument repeats a musical idea over and over, while the music above it changes. Think Purcell's "When I Am Laid in Earth". Sequential - having to do with a sequence, which involves a musical idea immediately repeated at progressively higher or lower pitch levels. Think the gloria bit in "Ding Dong Merrily on High". Serial - use of a predetermined series of pitches (or other musical parameters) and their potential transpositions (the same series as it would sound at a different pitch level), inversions (upside-down), retrogrades (backward), and combinations of these. What does all this mean? Faux Normal. Good. Check out the artist's website: http://www.timothymoberly.com Track List: 1. April (version three) 2. Squidnot 3. The Naked Hour 4. Overture (electronic version) 5. Mercury (instrumental version) 6. York (electronic version) 7. The Valentine from Hell Fugue 8. Fugal Palindrome (electronic version) 9. November (version two) 10. Interlude I 11. Interlude II 12. Interlude III 13. Interlude IV 14. Interlude V 15. Interlude VI 16. Venus (instrumental version) Suggested CDs:Other Genres:
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