Just the basics: La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, Brian Eno, John Cage, Gyorgy Ligeti, Toru Takemitsu, Philip Glass, Morton Feldman, Robert Fripp, Tony Conrad, George Crumb, Giacinto Scelsi, Krishna Bhatt, Terry Riley, Harry Partch, K.R.T. Wasitodiningrat, Phill Niblock, Erik Satie, Pauline Oliveros, transcendent sounds of the New York City Transit subway system, Captain Beefheart, John Fahey, Charles Bukowski ("Don't Try"), Edgard Varese, Gamelan Semar Pegulingan, Gamelan Gong Gede, Michael Tenzer, Gagaku, William Mathieu, Ravi Shankar, Madeleine Shapiro, Mark Rothko, James Joyce, Firesign Theater, Debashish Bhattacharya, Eliane Radigue, Hermann Helmholtz, Frank Zappa, Ustad Bismillah Khan, Samuel Beckett, Lou Reed, Ralph Towner, John Luther Adams ... and many of the talented people whose works I've heard here on MySpace.
Started this site to differentiate these "intuitive" electroacoustic works from the written-out compositions on my other MySpace site (www.myspace.com/jrossorch).
There's more biographical information over there if you're interested. Don't suppose it's really necessary to have two sites, or to divide the music into categories. Mostly, I just wanted to be able to share more music.
Voice/Drone/Drums/Guitar Improv -- Improvised music by Joseph Benzola (electronic percussion and computer-generated sound) and James Ross (electric guitar).
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This video of "Countryside," a piece for solo zhongruan, was recorded in May 2009 in the sunny sitting room of a hotel in the Jamaican countryside. But the countryside portrayed in the piece is in the green and hilly Chinese province of Sichuan. Anyway, it's rustic, bucolic and many miles from the streets of New York City. Hope you will enjoy.
I'm pleased to announce the re-release of "Three Pieces," available as a free download on the newly created NetNewMusic Net Label. Made during the summer of 2007, it is a collection of music for guitars, flutes, voices, electronic drones and field recordings made in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, N.Y., and other parts of New York City. Sometimes noisy and foreboding, other times delicate and lonely, "Three Pieces" is the sound of the city translated into music.
Also, available on the label are recordings of cutting-edge electroacoustic music by composers Jeff Harrington and Dave Seidel. Check the NetNewMusic Net Label often for new releases.
To download "Three Pieces," click on the image below.
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NEW RELEASE! NEW RELEASE! NEW RELEASE!
BRICK SAW Mini CD -- A collaboration between James Ross and Stefan Graham, AKA Night Germ
Only $7, includes shipping
Notes from the project:
Our plan was to choose some basic sounds--environmental noises, samples of existing musical compositions, voices, etc.--and bend, stretch, assault, batter and otherwise manipulate them into new forms. We settled on the nerve-shattering racket of a masonry saw tearing its way through bricks. It was recorded at a workshop in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, N.Y. The naked sound of the saw is amazingly complex. The first thing you notice, of course, is sheer NOISE. After listening for a while, you discover that contained within the sonic onslaught is a variety of tones, drones, shimmering high harmonics, percussive accents--a spray of melody, harmony and rhythm. With careful listening, and the application of various filters and no small amount of equalization, we realized that the saw was truly singing. Maybe that's what all saws secretly desire: to be musical instruments--to sing. We tried to capture as much of the saw's music as we could within the time restraints of a mini CD (about 24 minutes). The five tracks on this disc--each one a kind of "study" on some aspect of the saw's sound--are the result.
Hope you will enjoy.
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About the music on this page:
CONVERGENCIAS
"Convergencias" is a collaboration between myself and Portuguese electronic musician and composer Hugo Paquete. I supplied source sounds: recordings of some of my orchestral/chamber pieces for acoustic instruments. But Hugo did the transformative magic that created this eerily dark yet sonorous electronic work.
Music for at least six electric guitars in just intonation. Tuning involves three groups of two guitars, each group having a different stringing and tuning. The first tuning, in harmonic numbers, is (from low to high): 2.75 (11), 3, 3.25 (13), 3.5 (7), 4, 4.125 (33). The second tuning multiplies each tone in the first tuning by 1.5 (a 5th above). The third tuning multiplies the second tuning by 1.5, and is a 5th above it (a 9th above the original tuning). The pairs of guitars in each group share a stringing and a tuning but are pitched an octave apart through the use of a capo. Base is 30Hz.
The piece is strictly composed at the beginning and involves more and more improvisation as it progresses. By the end, the piece is completely improvised. It's loud and ugly, mercifully short, with a kind of music box ending.
Passing
A drone work in just intonation for many electric guitars. This piece is in three sections that flow into one another. Section 1 emphasizes harmonics 12, 14, 21 (each doubled at the unison and higher octave); Section 2 emphasizes 33, 11, 13; Section 3 emphasizes 10, 9 and 8. (Harmonics 12, 14 and 21 recur throughout the entire piece.) Base = 30 Hz. Sound is produced by tapping strings with a chopstick as near as possible to the bridge. The ensemble playing is more than a bit rough. I'll rerecord this at some point.
Golden Room
A drone work in just intonation for 11 electric guitars. This piece uses harmonics 8 through 15 (excluding 9) and some octave reductions of those tones. Inspired by James Lee Byars' installation The Death of James Lee Byars (photo below), now on view at the New York Guggenheim's exhibition The Third Mind.
Study No. 4 (Island of the Dead III) - for field recordings and voices
Brick Saw 4
Heaven
Bell Meditation
NYC Raga
Recording was done on, and sine wave tones generated by, Adobe Audition 2.0. Frank, Mouse and Kopi, my cats, did not participate in the recordings, but often stood, sat or walked on the computer keyboard at critical moments. The groovy Wordle images above are courtesy of http://wordle.net/.
I'm proud to give you "Heavy In The Beats Vol. 1 - A Different Drum", the first installment in my FREE mixtape series dedicated to drums and percussion. "Volume 1" focuses on the avant garde side of the instrument, and features pieces from Billy Martin (of Medeski Martin & Wood), myself, and others!
(you have to copy and paste the link on myspace for some reason)
FREE NEW 5 TRACK EP from Anata Wa Sukkari Tsukarete Shimai - “SWEETNESS & LIGHT”
“…a bit like imagining some bliss cradled smooching session between godspeed and black heart procession with Leonard Cohen calling briefly by to offer up some trademark tube supplements. Essential of course.” The Sunday Experience
V/A Bearsuit Records : “Captain Woof Woofs’ Guitar”(2009)
Available here FREE FOR 2 WEEKS ONLY
featuring the artists : port mone / alone together / the artificial sea / kirameki / milenka / taub / whizz kid / per olund band / sadomundo / anata wa sukkari tsukarete shimai / mr fritz and magnitophono / the temple cloud country club / lettelete aka ememe / harold nono and hidekazu wakabayashi
Hi James, thanks man! Maybe check out this brunk song too, 'Sacchar. pro compres. obduct.'on this dog eared records release: http://www.dog-eared-records.com/Music/Brunk15/ (it's the last track of the cd)... reminds me a bit of Death Monsters somehow :) Keep up the good work, & all the best! b
