Threshold

Threshold is a collection of both new and revisited work that one way or another originated at least in part as the product of my collaborative encounters with choreographers, film makers and writers. If the music that comprises this CD seems like a wildly eclectic assortment of compositions masquerading as an album you are, at least, partially right. While perhaps loosely united under a broad instrumental music banner, aspects drawn from a wide palate of musical genres are often woven together here within the same piece and sometimes stand in sharp contrast in this CD's sequence of tracks. Welcome to my world- most certainly shaped by varied scoring demands but also, no doubt, shaped just as much by disparate influences like TV sitcoms, classical music studies, science fiction scenarios and inspiration drawn from wild spaces. This CD, in fact, presents three separate musical sets, three doorways, leading listeners through varied territories. Thus the first four pieces here, or behind door number one (because who can resist a cheesy game show reference?), journey through colorful worlds of feelings or fantasy weaving together ambient, world, electronic, minimalist elements, rock, jazz and more. The following Six Piano Pieces explore concepts of brevity, silence, sustain as well as angularity. Particularly given the electronic, single meter and tempo per track oriented, concept behind my most recent CD, PULSE (Laptop Dances 2.0) I was interested in shifting to a sparser, more intimate and varied set of works referencing classical and jazz influences, employing occasional lyricism, metric disruptions and sparse sustained moments. With it's telling title Brave New Age launches the third and final set's shift in tone. These pieces travel to strange, dark or, conversely, more comic realms where noise, garbled transmissions, machines and extra terrestrials prevail over human emotion.