Winter 2021 Newsletter
Dear Friends,
Winter is indeed a dark time. We reflect, look inward, hope for the return of light on so many levels, especially now.
As always if it doesn't please you to receive these emails then it doesn't please me. You are welcome to remove yourself at any time.
in this issue:
+EXTRACTION project / Words on the Edge
+Radio play
+Julia Wolfe’s “Steel Hammer”
+The India Tapes
+John Biewins podcast Scene on Radio
+Join me on Instagram and Bandcamp
EXTRACTION
“EXTRACTION: art on the edge of the abyss” is a global, multi-artist, multi-disciplinary, multi-site, long-term art project. I will be participating towards the end of this year with an installation in a gallery setting at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts.
I will be interviewing local folks about a proposed quarry close by my home. I will be incorporating these interviews and field recordings along with my own musical compositions and studio recordings to create a sound installation. Please stay tuned as I will send more news as the project draws closer.
Currently, I have provided a cello-and-vocals soundtrack for a promotional video about EXTRACTION’s poetry offering, WORDS on the Edge, a limited-edition broadside/print of twenty-six poems and lyrical texts addressing themes of nature and its irresponsible destruction. This book is being sold to raise funds for the over-arching project.
Learn more about the book and listen to the music here (scroll down to the second video)
Or view-and-listen to the video via YouTube, below.
RADIO SHOW
Recently, DJ Nick Roseblade who hosts “Signal to Noise” on Totally Radio played a few of my older cello/voice songs on his show. Thanks, Nick! What a great show you put together!
Listen:
JULIA WOLFE’S STEEL HAMMER
This piece is based on the ballad, “John Henry.” Is it a song cycle? Bits and pieces of a song cycle? I find it to be gorgeous however it may be defined. Featuring Trio Mediaeval from Norway along with the Bang on a Can Allstars. The instrumentation is unusual and precise, the performance impeccable, and features: wooden bones, mountain dulcimer, banjo, clapping, clogging, and more.
THE INDIA TAPES
After I graduated from CalArts I took a trip to India, I was there for 6 months and it was life-changing on many levels. My most prized item on that trip was my Sony Professional Walkman, which was the top-of-the-line at that time in field recording equipment. It was bulky and heavy yet not burdensome; it became my audio journal and faithful travel mate, and with it, I recorded everything from chai and vegetable sellers hawking their wares in swooping calls to the milking of a family cow (from which I ate the fresh yogurt) to the prayer wheels circling the home of the Dalai Lama; it was a rich sound world indeed.
Upon my return, I held a treasure trove of sonic experiences which I mixed and melded into numerous pieces. One of those pieces featured Tibetan prayer wheels. To hear what I was up to listen to “Aloiupsa,” based on a fictional shepherd conjured from an imaginary landscape dreamt up — as part of a short film I made with dear friend Catherine Hollander at CalArts:
The sound sources in order of appearance are:
Clanking weights
My voice
Tibetan Prayer wheels
Cello
Applause
“SEEING WHITE”
White friends, if you, like me, feel an impulse to learn more about what it is to be a “white person” in this country at this difficult and charged time, then I highly recommend the “Seeing White” series from John Biewen. It is intelligent, illuminating, and engaging, I learned so much. And if you want to continue onto another important topic he also has a series called “Men.”
BEING (ON) SOCIAL (MEDIA)
I am newly engaging in the world of social media. Please find/follow/join me?
Instagram: @merlincolemann
Bandcamp: merlincoleman.bandcamp.com