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Initial Conditions. Liner notes by R.D.Jansen Track 1. Tremblingbrave is homage to jazz legend Miles Davis. In 1960 with arranger Gil Evans he produced an award-winning album called "Sketches of Spain". If you haven't heard this classic, you must. The genius of using a brave instrument like the trumpet to express pain and anguish was perfected by Miles but he did not invent the idea. In a famous series of lectures at Harvard, Leonard Bernstein observed that the sound of slavery is embedded in all of American jazz and that pain, rather than happy-go-lucky fun, is the real essence of jazz. Berstein illustrated this point, not with Miles Davis' work but with examples recorded in the 1930's by an artist not normally associated with civil rights, Louis Armstrong. As with so many compositions in the world of electronic music, the immediate proximal cause of this particular composition was a gorgeous performance sound called "Cream", found on a Yamaha CS1x synthesizer. Track 2. Reggia started life as a light reggae piece but using horns made the theme very large and broad and it all got too majestic and evolved into something more like "Chariots of Fire". Just when I think I am so musically sophisticated, this sort of thing happens. Track 3. Icefield Drums is basically an arpeggio study. Most modern synthesizers have the ability to generate complicated, symmetric arpeggios from single played tones. Icefield Drums intentionally fragments and interrupts the too-perfect synthetic arpeggios, continually superimposing and contrasting their activity to floating, broad, sweeping melodic lines. Track 4. Eurosprite was inspired by the "meditation music" of Steven Halpern, a genre he almost single-handedly created. The "ambience" is stressed and the harmonies and melodic lines are hopeful and childlike. Track 5. WooChin begins with chime-like rhythms, a call to sacred rites perhaps, which is followed by individuals antiphonal calling. One can easily imagine a fantastic race of aliens on distant planet, keening beneath an orange sky at the full of four moons. Track 6. Arigato Obligato is another arpeggio study, again studying the many ways that arpeggios can be fragmented. In this case, dozens of different sound fonts and sampled sounds are interchanged in real-time while the pretty but stupid arpeggiator is being frustrated and manipulated. Is there a social message here? Track 7. From the Hip has sustained celestial lines floating over earthy, tabla-like pitter-patter. The musical impression is vaguely Indian, although it is highly stylized and with greater contrast between the musical parts. Track 8. Happiness Intrudes begins with a fireworks display that quickly develops into a serious post-partum depression. The narcissism is seductive until suddenly an idiotically happy, ramshackle marimba band appears out of nowhere to break the mood. Track 9. Soft Kitten is perhaps the most ethereal and introspective piece on the album. Sustained melodic lines, punctuated by tinkling brass, evolve into choir cascades, gather energy and then descend into the Interior, exploring and spelunking a series of grand caverns below. Track 10. Parathera uses a theramin played against Patten-echoing trumpets and conspicuously phased voices. The liquid sound of the theramin is superimposed on the two different-speed vibrati. Track 11. In Trembling Dark Miles is back, this time more terrified than in pain. Why is fear so hard to portray in music? How many songs or musical pieces make you feel fearful when you listen? Is this because fear is so ugly, so aversive? Or is it perhaps because music is essentially about body movement, and fear paralyzes a person? It is a hard emotion to sustain artificially, anyway. Fantasy fear tends to quickly resolve into some sort of triumph or tragedy. _______________________________________________________ Copyright 2001 by Robert D. Jansen, Ph.D. and EnTrance Productions. All rights reserved. Check out the artist's website: http://www.rdjansen.com Track List: 1. Tremblingbrave 2. Reggia 3. IcefieldDrums 4. Eurosprite 5. WooChin 6. Arigato Obligato 7. From The Hip 8. Happiness Intrudes 9. Soft Kitten 10. Parathera 11. Tremblingdark Other Genres:
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