october full moon update

Finally about to get started in the recording studio woooo!!!  So I should have more news on that soon!  I want to see what we do in the studio and maybe put a larger live band together during that process, but I'm also going to start doing a few little gigs here and there.

The first will be a shared concert with other composers.  Next month I'm performing my song "Badful Badful (The Stolen Child)" in the Student and Alumni Composers Recital at Swarthmore College.  I am working out a new live drum part for this event and will be accompanied on percussion by the Lovely and Fabulous Barbara T, who also doubles as one of my dancers.  Most of this program will be classical and/or new music, including a piece by the satirical (and occasionally slapstick) composer P.D.Q. Bach/Peter Schickele.  There are also several other exciting composers on the program and I 'm really looking forward to hearing everyone's work!  This show is free and open to the public; click here for more details.

what the new stuff is like

...so it's time for a few hints.

Some of the new songs are about places that you might recognize.  At least two of them are partly inspired by people I have known.  I guess that really doesn't give too much away -- ok, I'll try harder!  There is a Celtic-flavored song that's somewhat mythological... an up-tempo pop-rock type song that has some sort of PeterGabrielesque drum sounds (at least right now)... a kind of country-ish or old-timey sounding song... a mid-tempo slightly exotic number that's kind of rock mixed with something swampy... an 18th century flavored ditty that I don't want to spoil by telling you any more about it yet... a swirly misty kind of cosmic song that some of you might recall from an earlier version heard at UNCG...  well, I think that's enough to go on for now.  Of course I'm putting a few strangeish sounds on them all here and there -- 'cause you know, that's how I roll.

When will you be able to hear a little of this?  Sometime soon I think... most likely, before we get to summer.

hello snow angels

2 more new songs cooking since the New Year, it will be a little while til they're ready though...  It seems to be an important part of my process to work on the musical arrangements and sound atmospheres at the same time that I'm writing the lyrics, melody etc.  So, it takes a bit longer!  Meanwhile more snow comes down...  I hope you're all being watched over by your snow angels tonight.

[yes! it can only be -- the Loch Washingtonsquare Monster!]

a peek into my vie bohème

Ah the artist's life... This studio (rent stabilized!) isn't where I live now, but it was my place for nearly 12 years and witnessed the creation of quite a few dances and sound scores, several frantic costume-sewing marathons, and of course... a few cast parties. Take the tour and see if you think you could fit your life into this little Manhattan box.

Birdsong Sketches (excerpt)

Excerpt from Birdsong Sketches; performed at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, April 2007. Choreography by Lacy James; music by Olivier Messiaen. The development of Birdsong Sketches was supported by The Swarthmore Project, a residency at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, and by a summer research grant from UNC-Greensboro.

seasons, seasoning

Finally getting to work in earnest on the new tracks these past few weeks!  It's been going well -- getting back into the groove!  One song that's been driving me crazy for more than a year has even come around and found itself.  The music was strong, but I just could not like my original lyrics for it -- and yet they kept sticking in my head.  I kept trying to fix them and failing, putting it aside and thinking it was just never going to work, yet somehow I knew that I could not throw this song away.  And now, finally, I went back to it yet again and it just seemed to sort itself out.  Just like gardening or cooking, each song might have its own germination timetable and its own recipe.  And yeah... pulling out a thesaurus does sometimes help too.

great new review of Lovefeast CD on The Ectophile's Guide

Wow, so exciting -- I just found a really great new review of Lovefeast!  It's on the website of The Ectophile's Guide to Good Music.  They focus mostly on female artists working in experimental pop/rock genres.  Their reviewers wrote some really lovely things, which you can read here.

It's so encouraging to hear that people are digging the tunes... especially when I'm (finally) making some more of them :)  Thanks so much, Ectophiles!