Label: Other Minds

米Other Mindsの発掘作家!!米電子音楽/実験界を代表する重鎮女性コンポーザーPauline Oliverosが提唱したディープ・リスニングの研究、またコーネリアス・カーデュー合唱団にも所属し長年作曲と演奏活動を行ってきた孤高の人物Tom Bickley。試聴の通り清々しいフィールドレコーディングを主としたまさにディープ・リスニングな内容となっており、故郷であるテキサス州ヒューストン郊外の湿地、日本では京都駅、現在の自宅で聴こえる建設現場の音を使い、加工した環境音とミックス。所謂アンビエントなものとは一線を隠す静的なサウンドスケープ構造が非常に美しい一枚。







Other Minds is proud to present Jepson Prairie, a new album of recent work by Bay Area composer Tom Bickley. Jepson Prairiecontinues Other Minds’s tradition of presenting work by under-recorded yet notable composers. Bickley has long been a presence in American New Music as evidenced by his long-standing Deep Listening work and affiliation with the Cornelius Cardew Choir, among others. Despite his many years of composing and performing, Jepson Prairie is Bickley’s debut commercial release as a solo composer.

Many of the pieces that comprise Jepson Prairie use field recordings as their foundation—deep listening is essential to finding a way into the interior of this music. Soundscapes from sources as varied as restored wetlands outside of Bickley’s hometown of Houston, Texas, a train station in Kyoto, Japan, and construction sounds from the composer’s current home of Berkeley, California make appearances over the course of the disc. Bickley arranges delicate instrumental accompaniment to his (sometimes) processed field recordings, drawing out details from the natural soundscape that could easily go overlooked if not for the composer’s subtle interventions.

As a composer, Bickley seeks to “listen to the world, always hoping to hear more and more fully,” a pursuit made evident by Jepson Prairie. Bickley uses expanded time frames and slowly morphing gestures to draw the listener’s ears into minute tones and timbres. The composer’s interest in plainchant, gagaku, and shōmyo (a style of Japanese Buddhist chant) reveals itself in the work’s bare formal structures and near-static harmonic movement.