Killdeer

by Frank London, Kathleen Supove, Eyal Maoz, Nick Flynn, Guy Barash

Overview

The mixture of spoken word and music harks back to Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and beyond, into the world of melodrama, but this release by composer and sound artist Guy Barash and poet Nick Flynn, with acoustic trumpet, guitar, and piano, is something new. There is a question as to whether this music might be called jazz, for its basic activity is free improvisation, actually very free inasmuch as the musicians first met only a week before the recording and had little exposure to Flynn's poetry before the performance. However, there is not a level of rhythmic basis that one would normally associate with jazz. The nature of the performance event is unique. Barash, on electronics, structures the tone of each piece, and the results, in the words of the creators, "are spontaneous, individual yet familiar, jagged -- even violent -- yet intimate, improvised yet structured." Flynn's poems are conversational in tone, which works well; the performers listen closely enough to enter into a kind of conversation with the texts. They are also dark, and the overall mood is tense. This release can be recommended to listeners interested in new developments in improvised music. ~ James Manheim

Product Details

Release Date:	02/10/2023
Label:	NEW FOCUS
UPC:	0690277900976

Tracks

1. Killdeer~The Space Between Silence and Enough
2. Killdeer~Confessional
3. Killdeer~Tattoo
4. Killdeer~Jesus Knew
5. Killdeer~Saint Augustine
6. Killdeer~The King of Fire
7. Killdeer~Parrot / Killdeer / Poem to Be Whispered by the Bedside of a Sleeping Child
8. Killdeer~I Will Destroy You
9. Killdeer~Pied Piper

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Frank London   Primary Artist,Trumpet
Eyal Maoz   Primary Artist,Guitar
Nick Flynn   Primary Artist,Speech/Speaker/Speaking Part
Guy Barash   Primary Artist,Electronics
Kathleen Supove   Primary Artist,Piano

Technical Credits

Marc Wolf   Design
Scott Hull   Mastering
Seth Gilman   Liner Notes
Nico Pagni   Engineer
Gili Getz   Photography
Ammon Yuhas   Cover Art
Nick Flynn   Text
Guy Barash   Producer,Composer
Marc Urselli   Mixing