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GREYFADE 001LP
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$27.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 2/9/2024
Originally released in 2019. The debut recording from vocalist Theo Bleckmann and electronic musician and producer Joseph Branciforte. Vocal loops of hushed beauty framed by artificially synthesized tones, deep subharmonic oscillations, and gently layered sheets of noise, with a shared musical language drawing upon ambient, choral, microsound, and free improvisation. In the early days of spring 2018, Theo Bleckmann and Joseph Branciforte retreated for two days of uninterrupted sonic exploration. In some ways it was a meeting years in the making, in others a wholly spontaneous encounter. Without a note of music prepared or a word of discussion, the two arrived at Branciforte's Brooklyn studio, armed with an array of looping devices, guitar pedals, found objects, and sound-making machines. The results can be heard on LP1, a debut recording as finely distilled as it is wildly exploratory. Branciforte had long been a deep admirer of Bleckmann's work -- he grew up obsessively listening to records like Bleckmann's Origami and Ben Monder's Excavation, later working as producer and recording engineer on Monder's Hydra (2013), in which Bleckmann played a prominent role. It wasn't until 2017, however, that the two collided creatively: Bleckmann stumbled upon an online sound journal that Branciforte had been maintaining, which contained his ongoing studio experiments with Fender Rhodes and synthesizers, elaborately manipulated via pedals and modular processing. A musical friendship was born, and two successful duo performances followed later that year. The four tracks comprising LP1 represent a musical snapshot of those improvised sessions, ranging from the edgy and dark to the delicate and pastoral. Through the process of live asynchronous looping, the pair builds and dissolves complex sonic structures in real-time, achieving an impressively immersive sound without the use of studio overdubbing. Having amassed a substantial amount of raw material, catalogue numbers were assigned to the improvisations and their subsections, a system whose logic is reflected in the final track titles. While these pieces were born of improvisation, they display a patient and deeply compositional logic. LP1 manages to walk a fine line between discovery and restraint, emotion and form, identity and dissolution -- outlining an expanded vision of ambient music that embraces narrative and arc as much as landscape and line.
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LP
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GREYFADE 006LP
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$27.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 2/9/2024
The sophomore release from vocalist Theo Bleckmann and electronic musician and producer Joseph Branciforte, LP2 is a follow-up, companion piece, and elegant evolution of the shared musical language first developed on the duo's debut, 2019's LP1. Branciforte and Bleckmann return with a meticulously crafted album of even greater scope and complexity, further dissolving the boundaries between improvisation and composition, live performance and studio production, human and machine-generated sound. The first sound one hears when putting the needle down on LP2 -- a granular skein embroidered with the barest silhouette of a melody -- is a moment typical of the collaboration between Theo Bleckmann and Joseph Branciforte: one is never quite sure where the human ends and the operations of machines begin. The album, in its concentrated 42 minutes, proves that the palpable sonic chemistry heard on Bleckmann and Branciforte's debut was no fluke. The duo has built on LP1's successes -- alloying Bleckmann's otherworldly vocals with Branciforte's extended electronic palette and obsessively detailed production -- but they have also broken new ground in both textural invention and compositional scope. Whereas LP1 was recorded spontaneously -- with no premeditation and minimal post-production -- the sessions for LP2 proceeded somewhat differently. The pair also allowed themselves the use of studio overdubbing, occasionally adding additional instrumentation to their improvisations after the fact. One hears fleeting moments throughout the album when the dream logic of free improvisation and the premeditated nature of orchestration converge: a vibraphone doubling a meandering vocal line, or a stack of voices outlining an intricate chord progression. These moments reveal the duo's willingness to experiment with structure and form, while maintaining the spontaneity that made their first album so compelling. LP1 and LP2 also serve as fitting bookends to the Greyfade label's inaugural series of releases.
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GREYFADE 002LP
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$27.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 2/9/2024
Originally released in 2021. The first volume in an ongoing collaboration between composers Kenneth Kirschner and Joseph Branciforte, From the Machine explores the application of software-based compositional techniques -- including algorithmic processes, generative systems, and indeterminacy -- to the creation of new music for acoustic instruments. Featuring members of Flux Quartet and International Contemporary Ensemble. Although digital approaches to music-making are most closely associated with the use of electronically generated (or modified) sound, computer-based composition opens up a vast space of possibilities beyond timbre, into fundamental questions of basic musical structure. This collaborative project between composers Kenneth Kirschner and Joseph Branciforte sets out to explore some of these possibilities by adapting techniques from electronic composition -- including algorithmic processes, generative systems, and indeterminacy -- to the creation of new music for acoustic instruments. From the Machine, Vol. 1 documents two pieces that were composed using non-linear software techniques, translated into traditional musical notation, and performed by acoustic ensembles: Kenneth Kirschner's "April 20, 2015" for piano and two cellos and Joseph Branciforte's "0123" for low string quartet. Recorded by pianist Jade Conlee and cellists Mariel Roberts and Meaghan Burke, the acoustic adaptation of "April 20, 2015" brings a new level of nuance and a heightened sense of drama to a piece originally composed without the human performer in mind, while preserving the expanded sense of rhythmic, harmonic, and structural possibility that Kirschner unearthed in the digital realm. "0123" was recorded by a distinguished ensemble consisting of violinist Tom Chiu (Flux Quartet), violist Wendy Richman (International Contemporary Ensemble), cellist Christopher Gross (Talea Ensemble), and double-bassist Greg Chudzik (Talea Ensemble). An entryway into Kirschner and Branciforte's ongoing experiments with digitally mediated chamber composition, From the Machine, Vol. 1 also represents a point of departure for the Greyfade Label as a whole, which seeks to be a vital outpost for algorithmic and process-based music in the coming years. Whatever novel results lie ahead, Kirschner and Branciforte's first release provides a model for a music that is elaborately constructed, exactingly realized, and deeply personal all at once.
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GREYFADE 005LP
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$27.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 2/9/2024
Originally released in 2022. A beautifully meditative and architectural set of loops for solo piano, Filters is the solo debut of pianist and composer Phillip Golub (b. 1993). Approaching the concept of endless repetition through the lens of his delicate and expressive pianism, Golub's loops unite the austerity of the systems-based with the infinite variety and imagination of live performance. The process of manual repetition resembles for Golub a kind of ritual, rather than merely a technological process. It is the act of participation in an entity unfolding over time that interests him. He explored different durations and performance contexts, sometimes quietly performing a loop or two as guests arrived to a recital hall, other times programming afternoon-length performances in which each loop extended to durations of 45 minutes or more. He even experimented with orchestrating the loops for various mixed chamber ensembles. For the recording of his debut solo album, however, Golub wanted to distill the timeless quality of these pieces into a piano-only, LP-length experience. In summer 2019, while in Los Angeles for work on an opera with Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding, he scheduled time to record on a privately owned and beautifully maintained Steinway D. Golub then edited together his favorite sections of these extended performances to construct the final album versions. Structurally, each loop proceeds by ordering two internal sections into larger patterns. While the harmonic and formal dimensions of Filters are meticulously controlled, some aspects of the compositions are left intentionally open. There is no explicit rhythm specified in the composition, for instance; the approximate timing of each event is indicated with space-time notation. Filters is intentionally designed to work in many contexts. Although the structural integrity and endlessly variegated details of these loops reward focused listening, they never demand it. This is also just beautiful music to get lost in.
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