The first track, titled Those Deeper Natures, began with a brief two syllable segment of a Buddhist chant that Sander recorded. It features an environmental recording he made inside the food court at a Japanese market in Costa Mesa, and also includes a rather beautiful drone section.

Carloff is an avid collector of old vinyl records. Somewhere, he found one that was recorded for Brigham Young University, for an English Lit class. This particular record is focused on the spiritual poetry of William Blake, specifically his poems of Innocence and Experience. Carloff created a rather complex and subtle set of edits of this material, which sort of became the frame around which Tiger Tiger grew.

Sander started working on ASA’s third and final studio track just as Robert was going back to school. He remembers Carloff’s instructions were, “DRUMS! I want drums!” Sander took the clicks and pops from his old record and created a rhythmic part in 7/8. He tried, for months, to line up drummers, but it seemed like every time he got close, something would interfere.

Eventually, Sander connected with Brian Campbell, who had studied Hindustani percussion for years, and played for festivals at local temples. He listened to the clicks and pops on ear buds, and Sander recorded multiple takes of him jamming to it. Brian also performed the vocal parts, which Sander chopped up and reassembled them as they are in the final track.

Almost immediately on the heels of that, a previously elusive jazz drummer, Alan Cook, said he was finally available, and Sander recorded multiple takes of him playing various things in his kit. None of these takes from Brian or Alan had any kind of timecode or reference to the click, or to each other. They were all ‘wild,’ and needed to be aligned by hand, which took a very long time.

Sander wanted a kind of culmination just before the big change, so he used a recording of a rather weird, pulsing, water feature in the sculpture garden of the Cerritos Civic Center. He then added heavy drum samples, and took a recording by trumpet player Dave Williams and completely deconstructed it, and reassembled it. He used another recording, of a different fountain, at the very end because the splishly splashy sound evoked the fluidity of Brian’s tabla performance. The Ruling Affection, with starts and stops, took probably a year to finish.

Here are some project screen shots of The Ruling Affection:

Circumambient Superficies – Live – 11-18-12

The Hidden Nexus – Live on KillRadio.org’s Open Windows – June 25th, 2012

You can also listen to our post-performance conversation.

We’ve continued to receive kind comments from people about this performance, which is always nice.

The idea we had was for the guest musicians to each have 20 minutes on stage with us, including a 10 minute overlap with another guest. We even made a schedule:

Intro 00-10 Sander/Carloff
10-20 + David B
20-30 + Kirk
30-40 – David B +Christie
40-50 -Kirk +Mike
50-60 -Christie +David W
60-70 – Mike +Jeremy
70-80 -David W
80-90 SRW & Carloff
90-120 Everybody!

(The ‘+’ indicates when an artist should begin, and the ‘-’ indicates when they should end.)

The schedule was never meant to be rigid, but more of a guide. Good thing, as we didn’t do a very good job of explaining it to our guest artists. Still, the performance did have a nice ebb and flo to it.

Although there were a few technical issues to contend with, I felt that the performance was, overall, quite good.

We recorded the two hour performance from the mixing board, and also made a room recording.

For those who feel daunted by navigating through a 2 hour performance recording, I’ve excerpted a 10 minute segment where Kirk Pickler plays a beautiful flute solo, one that features the lap steel stylings of Mike Weber, and another where Carl and I have an impromptu melodica duet, accompanied by David Witham on manipulated organ, and Christie Scott on vocals toward the end.

There are a total of seven 10-minute excerpts. You can find them all on the ‘Audio Tracks‘ page.

If you’re interested, I posted some anticipatory musings about the performance.

We extend our sincere thanks to our family and friends for their love and support, and to Ken Huntington for being open to hosting us.

To that, Carl added voice, Chinese Moon Lute, violin, and some processing.  Once back in my hands, I added several tracks using my Industral Guitar Indy Rail lap steel.  Lately I’ve been using an alternate tuning:  G2 G3 G3 G3 G4 G4.  That’s right:  Three octaves, all G!

We’re still expecting contributions from David Bunoan, David Witham, and Christie Scott.  Still, while we’re patiently waiting for them, I thought I’d share the work in progress:

On This Road

12/08/09 – We just got David Witham’s contribution back, and WOW!  I really love it.  I’ve been listening to it obsessively, and I have all kinds of ideas. I find it really inspiring.

It stands well on its own, but I can sometimes hear parts that could be added… Dunno.

12/13/09 – Things keep unfolding in surprising and wonderful ways. I was chatting with an old High School chum, Janis Tanaka, who is an excellent professional musician. She’s been Pink’s touring bassist for at least her last two albums, and has played in a bunch of bands over the years, including the rather infamous L7.

I was talking with her about her current creative efforts, and sharing some of my own. She asked, “When do you get together to record?” We don’t, I explained, and showed her the links to several source tracks, and some links to various works in progress. The next day, I found this in my email inbox. She’s recorded a synth bass part over David Witham’s track, and it is DOPE!

I love the internet!

Here is Upon the Lips of Angels.

I’ve uploaded a few photographs of the event to facebook.

The event was well attended, and people seemed to enjoy what we did.  (that’s always a nice bonus!)

We should have photos soon but, for now, here’s a recording of the show:

The Appearance of Innocence

Because we were using two (2) PA systems, one for Carl and one for me, with David split between them, I wasn’t able to get an accurate board recording.  Although you can hear some talking, and the occational passing vehicle, the recording is actually quite nice.

Thanks to everyone who came, and thanks to all who support us in other ways.  We really appreciate it.

The Inner Restraints Of Conscience

You can also see some photos.

Last night, Carl Off and I were joined by David Bunoan, a celebrated local guitarist, amp tech, and all-round good egg. He used some unique Moog-designed pedals, and a tricked-out iPod Touch, to create all kinds of tweets, warbles, and wails. It was great! Carl and I had our usual contingent of bells and whistles (literally).

The recording is about 25 minutes long, and goes through several distinct phases. It starts out quite quiet, and gets quite loud. As with all of our recordings, I recommend a listening with a good set of headphones.

The performance was entirely improvised, unplanned, and wonderfully intuitive.

Following our set, SMGSAP and Between Ravens and Crows performed great sets of their own.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s Epiphany’s Labor.