3.31.2010

A Long Time Coming

The limited free-run of G. Zarapanecko’s Glitterdammerung was reasonably successful. It was free for 12 days, and got maybe 30 downloads total, plus random links on French and Finnish music blogs (though I haven’t a clue if there was anything resembling feedback about the album.) I’m hoping to do a physical tape release soon, with details forthcoming. I’ve also begun early recordings of a new, noisier G. Zarapanecko release, getting back into exploration of synth programming as well as electroacoustic processing. We’ll see where this ends up, many, many months from now, I’m sure. Now the trouble will be finding some poor, interested suckers who’ll actually pay for the digital release now…just another example of me shooting myself in the foot with promotional ideas...

I nervously sent out copies of the first An Historic demo, “My Czerny,” to zines like Razorcake and Give Me Back a while ago, hoping not to get one of those bullshit reviews where the reviewer doesn’t even spin the disc, or stops it after the first song, etc. To my surprise, not only did I not get one of those reviews, but I also received something resembling praise at points – I won’t bother trying to summarize, so here:

AN HISTORIC:
My Czerny: CD-R
This thing had “Beware! Most likely contains ambient and indiscernible home recordings!” written all over it, mostly due to the ambiguousness of the packaging and the lack of much information besides song titles. Instead what we get are some “actually pretty pleasant and tuneful home recordings,” mostly of the, uh, squeezebox/accordion variety, I believe. About half of the handful of tunes here are single-instrument pieces, while the rest feature additional instruments and overall excellent vocal work. Got no idea what it is they’re actually singing about it, but they’ve convinced me, whatever it is. Most likely not gonna make any Razorcake reader’s top ten lists, but was an atmospheric enough run on a night when the rain’s coming down and the wind’s howling around the house. –Keith Rosson (An Historic)


I’ve been busy for awhile recording new An Historic material. My plans to get something finished by an upcoming show fell through, or so it seems, but the project is around the 75% mark, which is relatively exciting. The material here is from Ephemeral Stampede, all home-recorded demos of an album I had written almost two years ago and planned to record in a real studio before everything fell apart financially. This might be the last we hear of this material, or I might some day, much later, re-record these tunes in such a way that more closely resembles my original arrangements. But for now I’m relatively satisfied with everything so far, and just two tunes and a handful of random tracks to finish up. Meanwhile I’ve just about finished writing the material for another An Historic release that will be recorded hopefully in May if all goes well – I’ve been practicing and performing most of these songs solo and I’m going to keep them closer to the solo-arrangements on the recordings, which is a different approach then I’ve taken with An Historic material in the past, mostly because the fidelity of my equipment makes solo recordings sound pretty awful.

An Historic performs April 3rd at the Unitarian Universalist society sometime between 6:30 and 8:00 for a benefit dinner for the Connecticut F.A.D.G.E Fest . (Feminism, Autonomy and Diversity of Gender Expression). April 9th is a performance at the Fucking Discovery Zone with Story, Cud East, Squinch Owl, Tyler Bussey and New Year’s Revolution – 7:00 PM and donations for touring bands. Finally, April 10th is the first Juggler’s Meadow Festival of 2010, with tons of bands and lots of other various stuff going on too – zine stores, free market, workshops, food, etc. Details on that last one TBA.

After some finagling and jumping through hoops, Passing a Penny, the song cycle based on Rob Talbot’s poetry, is definitely still on. More details to come as we approach the May 8th performance.

Finally, after a brief hibernation after our concert at the Stone, Broadcloth will be bouncing back soon. Again, details still forthcoming.

3.20.2010

Glitterdämmerung - Available Now and Free for the next 7 days

Upon the transition of time today, the sky is alight with the first trickles of the metacontext, which will ramp up steadily over the course of the next 22 months.

Glitterdämmerung, the new EP of electro-acoustic ambient music by G. Zarapanecko, is among the earliest missives of this new aeon perceptible by human hearing. All sounds wrestled digitally from the aethyr and manipulated into something resembling "composition," "improvisation," and "melody." Shape suggests narrative suggests structure, but suggestions can be ignored.

Glitterdämmerung is now available at this web portal and will be a free download for the next 12 days. Your exposure is recommended prior to the full flood of glitter at twilight on the eve of 21 December 2012.

Creative Commons License
Glitterdammerung by G. Zarapanecko is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at gzarapanecko.bandcamp.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.myspace.com/adammatlock.

3.04.2010

!!!

It's a bizarre feeling to have my hands in so many projects, each engaging me in a completely different way. Playing in other people's bands is fun figuring out how to engage with other material, usually in a very different style than material I write myself.

Playing with Broadcloth Sunday at the Stone was really a treat for us as players. We had a small space with decent acoustics, and an occasional radiator hiss to punctuate some of our more composed moments. It's still kind of a blur to me but I felt exceptionally present at the time. Thanks again to everyone who we blackmailed into coming - Kinan, a student of Nathan's, was kind enough to record video of the concert (he also recorded our set at Audubon Strings on January 30th, on Youtube and many of my pages), and that will be up shortly. Expect something like a coherent release from Broadcloth in the very near future, too.

Then Monday and Tuesday saw me playing solo sets. Monday was at Cafe 9 as part of the Beatnik 2000 series. What I saw of the bill was interesting and eclectic, with spoken word and some other music. I had to leave early because I had work in the morning and a big day lined up on Tuesday; the first show I ever booked with Fairy Boy and the Official Suckers and Mogli who were touring from Halifax, NS. This was a show that I had been having weird prophetic dreams about in the two weeks. I won't attempt to explain them but they were different from my normal anxiety dreams about upcoming concerts, which usually involve me struggling continuously to get to a concert on time through nightmarish turns of events (kind of like the plot of Umjammer Lammy, the absurdist psychedelic music game on the Playstation.) Feral Flowers and The Book Slave and I rounded out the show, and it was a solid, nearly two-hour marathon of great music. I was pretty captivated by everything, and there was a great turnout, and on top of that all of the potluck food was delicious. On top of that, Fairy Boy, Mogli and the other Suckers Rosie and Thom were all sweethearts, and I had a blast hanging out with them. In a fashion quite true to myself, Jeff/Feral Flowers and I are going up tomorrow to see them play again in Leverett, MA at the Juggler's Meadow. I've got first hand info that it will be an awesome show, also featuring Providence, RI and Amherst, MA-based Mallory.

After that, I'll have an appearance as a performing guest on "The Jef Sessions," Jef Wilson's radio show on WYBC 1340 AM in New Haven, or online at The Yale Radio website, between 1-2PM on Saturday. Carl Testa will be appearing for the first hour.

It's been a busy week for me, and after Saturday I don't have anything lined up for awhile The next thing on my plate is another acoustic show I've booked at the Fucking Discovery Zone, with touring acts Story. and Cud E. who are fellow Nova Scotians playing acoustic solo folk punk. I will play along with other CT acts New Year's Revolution, Tyler/Old Hannah, and Wood Spider. A large and varied acoustic show, with flyers forthcoming. This will also be the second show I've ever played where I've not been the only accordion player - Mogli was the first, and Story. will be the second, and both make fabulous use of their instruments, just in case you should happen to be an accordion nerd like me.