for cello quintet

The idea of simplicity is the most beautiful and most difficult concept to conceptualize in a work. This being because the idea of simplicity is one that is untainted by any unnatural touches. In honor of John Luther Adams, ‘Symphony of Light’ is an extension of a few simple conceptual ideas that i have discovered and slowly adapted in my newer works. This is what has always struck me about the perfect works of J.L.A. His works are simple in nature and concept but evolve into extremely complex bodies of sound. The genius of this concept is that we can let simplicity take its own life and create works and ideas that surpass our judgmental and conceited minds.

‘Symphony of Light’ is an electronic cyclic work made from a violin playing the G major scale with all notes at slightly different lengths. The concept of this work was to create a ‘looping’ electronic instrument for live performance in abelton live. Each note from the lowest G to the highest G were recorded with only two ideas in place. The violinist plays each note as a beautiful crescendo then decrescendo and as long as possible. This performance idea was somewhat adopted from the conceptual tempi and duration ideas of Morton Feldman’s ‘as quiet as possible’ and unconventional rhythms/notation. With this simple concept my electronic instrument creates its own tempo, harmonic development, and rhythmic pulse and the piece never sounds the same even though all the notes are being held in a loop.

Josh

When listening to this new work by Sasajima,
i was able to hear beauty within a matter of seconds.
‘Quadro’ is a seamless fabric of vibration that creates
a mood of wonder and also at the same moment serenity.

when i downloaded this work, i put it on repeat and listened
throughout the night. It was most definitely a surreal experience
in that i was transcended to a new yet familiar place of wonder
and nothingness. Quadro is one of those pieces that you can
just put on repeat have a cup of tea and listen without judgment.

These four tracks are not only interesting in its harmonic
anomaly-like character but is accompanied by incredibly
wonderful field recordings of very fine fidelity that create a
space that is familiar yet mysterious.

When i first heard of Sasajima’s work i was most definitely
floored by this artist’s genius and pure innate vision of sound.
Please check out this artist and download this great work at
www.mandorla.com.mx

‘AudioVisions’ is a work that came about on an
excursion to Pinetop Arizona. the field recordings
were made over the period of four days and was also
electronically realized in that time.

to be completely honest, there is not much to say in any
poetic sense about this work because i feel it is much to
complicated to describe. this work displays the motion
and emotion of the wind heard by near ponds and streams
at near sunset. the feeling of emergence, warmth, gaze, and
release are an ongoing theme throughout this entire work not
only from beginning to end but within each vision from the
microcosmic to the macrocosmic plane.

minimalistic in nature, AudioVisions is a first conscience soundscape
that is starting to truly realize the visual experience manifested in my
latest works.

‘Of Cycling Light’

this idea of light comes to mind with great significance. we are (in science) energy and energy is vibrating air (light) that floats around each-other joining and dispersing from masses of light bodies. if this is true then, light is sound, sound is light, and we are sound.

from this sound work, i am birthing my light upon the masses of light clouds and am more so projecting light into the body of light mass. like a fractal, we are ‘small’ parts of a ‘bigger’ part of a smaller part of a bigger part and so forth… all the way down to the electron(which is only a consistent theory) and its own solar system of light bodies which are ‘smaller’ or ‘larger’ than the metaphysical model itself.

the reason that we cannot fathom infinity is because it is not a straight path and also has infinite universes within its own mind, infinity has no shape and in fact is the most profound piece of art that we have ever and will ever see in our existence.

‘Of Cycling Light’ is simply a tribute to beauty of abstraction and in whole, light.

using all the fundamental elements of percussion: water, fire, earth, and air (which are all in themselves the majesty of light and tools of light expression) show us a story just by touching them with our wonder.

As far as the titles for these six individual works, they are surreal ‘spaces’ that i am brought to when listening to these works. They are in essence sound/space fantasies that come to me in dreams or just daily thought. So i encourage the listener to just listen and join my light spaces for a small journey if they wish in this simple and beautiful album. i can only wish for you to experience love and happiness in this special work of light.

-joshua carro

Joseph Molinario

The color is orange. Not like the actual color of a crayon or pastel but, the kind of orange that is produced when the sun reflects off of a wet driveway in the summer or of an old deteriorating film. And somehow, it is also the color of most of my memories as a young child. My 2nd memory as a child is in this sort of pastel memory of the wet carport where my first guru came to me in the form of a grandfather. He was washing the car in the driveway while at the same moment making sure that i didn’t run in the street due to my explorative nature. I may not have ran into the street but i was all over that fucking sidewalk running as fast as i could with some resistance from my diaper. i was 2 years old but had a perfect awareness as to what was going on and was conscious that i was thinking and i am blessed to be able to have the privilege of remembering my first guru’s entrance.

Joseph Molinario was born on September 15th 1934 and was one of two children. Growing up in an Italian American culture where Italian was spoken in the house, Joseph learned how to speak English in kindergarten. He used to tell me how he used to cry almost everyday and how afraid he was that he didn’t know what the hell everyone was talking about. “Can you imagine that?” he said.

i believe that this is the reason he became such a great teacher and had such an effect on my life because of his first hard lesson. He could teach you everything that he knew but he always started from the most fundamental and simple idea. He never made any assumption that you knew anything about what he was going to teach you so, you had to learn from the very beginning. His method was always simple in philosophical nature but was an extremely hard task to complete. This was not my first lesson though from this man.

i had in a way 2 private lessons a week (which is not very many) from this man and they were the most simple lessons ever taught. Learning to embrace awareness through experience and to love each other with complete patience and understanding.
Every Saturday morning since i was about 10 years old, i would wake up to sound of his car pulling up to my parents house. After a little more snoozing, i would wake up again to his laughter during coffee in the kitchen, then after more snoozing i would finally wake up to him at my bed side saying “joshuado? you want to help grandpa with the lawn today?” i stupidly said, “Um not today grandpa i’m tired”
He said okay then left. He kept at it for about another two weeks and i finally decided to help cause i felt bad that i was such a fuck and thought it was lame that he did all of the work himself.

Lesson One:

So every Saturday at around 7:30 am, i would wake up to his car pulling in the carport. i would meet him in the kitchen and we would hang and have coffee with my parents and just enjoy our time together. After coffee, we would head out and start the first of 4 lawns i would mow every weekend. It is easy to think i’m crazy by saying that cutting the lawn was also a lesson in meditation but, it was how i first learned to recognize the now and to think about my awareness. i used to hate it because it was so hot and i was in the beating sun for 4 hours or so in my juvenile clothing. After some time, this was how he taught me the importance of embracing these experiences because any experience in life carries a lesson but ultimately the importance is living in awareness of the experience.

Lesson Two:

Every Sunday in the afternoon, it was time to hang at my grandparents house. Without fail we walk in and you can smell love and experience through the filter of sauce, Italian meats, and alcohol. The sounds were very sharp and had brittle attacks with very dominant loud conversation in the lower frequencies. This was the sound of family and security. It was just like Saturday mornings minus the yard work and sweat.

Somehow we would always arrive an hour before it was time to eat so we would just hang and do whatever. Usually it was me interrogating the boyfriends of my aunts and creating a strange aura that i always embraced because i thought it was amusing. i’m not sure anyone else saw it this way but, those were my early experiments with social situations and observing cause and effect behavior. Joseph being a hard bodied muscular 60 year old masonry worker
would always sit at the “head” of the table but honestly he could have sat on the toilet and it would have been seen as the head of the table. Like my father, he was a natural leader but more importantly, a person who lead by example and was incorruptible by any means. i used to always be jealous of my aunts because after dinner they would always leave with their boyfriends and go have fun. This was ultimately their loss unfortunately because they were to selfish to see that there was a much more rich experience to be had at that table.

After dinner i would always sit next to my guru and just try to be like him or identify with his logic. He was so amazing to me and i just wanted to be like him. Unfortunately, i was not mature enough to understand that he was also trying to teach me to be myself. That set aside, he would let me have a little bit of wine and to me, this was the most exciting thing because it meant he trusted me and or saw me as someone who wasn’t a little child anymore. Again, my need for his acceptance was like my need for water and air. This meant the world to me.

One Sunday after dinner i said: “man when i’m older i am going to leave with my girlfriend like my aunts” he said: “don’t you ever say that because your family is here right now.”

Although he said this very kindly, i was ashamed of myself and had quickly realized his view of family importance and ultimately, love. After that day i quickly began to understand his mastery and understanding of what was important in our awareness. To be aware of life and to embrace (love) it.

Although i was learning how to maintain a yard, be an amateur carpenter, and a masonry worker, these were not the lessons he was teaching me. Those were all side affects of his mastery. I continued this work/learn from him until 1999 when he passed away in his sleep.

In fact i remember the last time i saw my gurus vehicle in which i kissed his cold hand. At that point he taught me a lesson in that very room at that very moment when i touched his hand. He “said” i am nothing but awareness that was once carried by a material illusion called my body. This was also the reason i decided not to view his body one last time with everyone else because i felt that my moment was there and that i ought to see him this last time an leave with his last important message. It was quite a privilege.

i remember when i was told that he had passed away and my first response was “but i loved him” as if it was the only thing that kept him alive but i soon realized that there was a whole new meaning to the word life. Life resonates in the infinite universe but, is recorded like a tape recorder in our memories hence the title: “Harmonic Resonance of a Quiet Dream of an Old Friend…” an electronic work that was written in 2009 in the very room that my guru slept for all of those years i was with him. i was channeling his resonance into the form of an audible vibration that was remembered in a dream the night before. One of the most powerful experiences ever by one’s lonesome.

“Harmonic Resonance…” is a piece that completely captures the way i hear an endless reverberated sound after an attack. The notes produced on the harp are all natural harmonics but, the attacks also activate a much longer resonance that allows all of the plucked notes to build the most beautiful chords ever given to me in my dreams where most of my works are secretly sung to my being.

to my first Guru,

Joseph Molinario- 1934 – infinity

-joshua carro

6:40 5/15/09

listen to and write a review of the album “Transcriptions

of Dreams” on their website. Please check out this great

page with all of the great electronic artists on their roster!

Also, if anyone can translate this review i would be very

interested in hearing what it says! Check out their site

below.

Tanner Menard was born on September 20th, 1978 –

the same month that Brian Eno published his essay

titled “Ambient Music”. At the age of 11, Menard

composed his first works for piano. For nearly 20

years he has composed and curated experimental

sound works and installations both for electronic

media and orchestral ensembles. In 2002, his world

was permanently altered by his experience working

with Naut Humon, the well known curator and then

label owner of Recombinant Media Labs in San Francisco.

There Menard discovered the aesthetic world of ambient,

experimental, and minimal electronica.

Tanner Menard’s music is released on Install Records,

Archaic Horizon Net Label, Friendly Virus Net Label,

Kafua Records and will soon be released on Experimedia.

His orchestral music has been published by Loose Filter

Music. Menard’s music has also appeared on the radio,

on tv, in plays, at art galleries, and in major concert halls

across the world. In 2005 Menard served as an artist in

residence at Arizona State University where he collaborated

with Jeph Jerman, Gary Hill, and Daniel Bernard Romain for

his installation, “Envyronie”. Menard is rapidly becoming

known for his work as an internet artist and publisher combining

blogging, music creation, conceptual art, installation, remix and

international collaboration.

‘Variations on a Texture’ is a work that was inspired by

one of my favorite traditional western composers Aaron

Copland. A Piano work that is also available for an

orchestral arrangement. 18 variations on a air like

texture with new innovative orchestration techniques,

cross rhythmic structures, palindromic serialization,

tonality, bi-tonality,ambient, dark, bright, startling, and

dramatic phrases. This score(orchestral/piano solo) is

available for free if requested but only on terms of a

performance date and or recording for new works.

listen for free at: http://cition.bandcamp.com/album/orchestral-works-on-piano

Email me at

cition@live.com

a small description of

a unreleased vision i

had before the end of

last winter.

…by the

dark colors and sounds of the wet

desert during the last part of winter

in which it is still cold but the new

fragrance of jasmine and orange

blossoms become evident through

the filtering smell of the cold and

dark rain… i awoke into a dream of the

wet desert where i was engulfed into the

mass of choral vibrations of the passionate

and impressionist land where i floated into

the wet slapping leaves and into the purple

night sky…come into my arms said the mother

land of the desert and feel my love to which

you can always visit when you are in times of

pain or delight, for i will tell you a story and

give you a place to live in The Heart of the Black Desert…