Four Pieces for Recorded Percussion (Il faut attendre) (2008)
Michael Pisaro, composition
Greg Stuart, percussion/sine tones
I.) Whirlpools, Tide-pools
II.) Chamber Music
1.) Zen Tinnitus
2.) String Membrane
3.) Midstream
4.) Tress exhale CO2 in the night
III.) A Cloud drifting over the Plain
IV.) The Bell-Maker
Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Greg Stuart in San Diego, CA and Columbia, SC (2008-2009, 2012, and 2020).
Image: Rocky Branch Creek, Columbia, SC, by Greg Stuart.
The Bell-Maker previously appeared on Fukushima! (Presqu'île Records – PSQ004-2, 2012).
::::
The performance procedure of each of these pieces is the recording of individual layers of a multi-part situation by a single player. The layers are coordinated not by playing back one layer while another is being recorded (i.e., one does not listen to previously recorded tracks while recording a new one), but by aligning the tracks afterwards. This work understands the recording and mixing procedure itself as being partially under the domain of the score.
The score provides rhythmic indications in counts—that is, the number of units counted internally by the performer. The duration of the count is within an approximate range of .7 to 1.3 seconds (between 85 and 46 beats per minute) and is determined intuitively by the performer at the time of recording without looking at a watch. The recording reveals the kinds of minute, unintentional, organic shifts in pulse that appear as a result of the process.
These realizations by Greg Stuart (for whom the pieces were written), breathe. To me it is as if we are hearing an often surreal landscape, filtered by the perception and the slight cognitive irregularities of a sensitive mind and body – like a steady camera with the stabilization turned off.
The prolific drummer and producer, a veteran of the Philadelphia and Antwerp club scenes, proves his rhythmic mastery once again. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 21, 2024