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DAVID SHEA, "TRYPTICH"
New York-based composer David Shea is an exemplar of the old clichethat necessity is the mother of invention.
The former pupil of MortonFeldman started merging sounds in a sampler as a means to an end. Hewanted to continue composing but had insufficient funds to hireperformers to play his ideas. This later evolved into the sampling ofmusicians playing hybrids suggested by Shea, which he thenrecontextualised via the hard drive. Since 1992 he's released a regularslew of CD's documenting his mixed up soundworld where a house anthemmight speed head on into a hardcore double kick drum Cantonese militarymarch as keys fly off the piano. Not surprisingly he's turned up onJohn Zorn compositions such as the dark masterpiece 'Elegy' but perhapsmore surprisingly he's also collaborated with Robert Hampson. Shea'sopus "The Tower of Mirrors" would probably be a better place to startif you haven't heard him before, but "Tryptich" offers three snapshotsof tracks he performed live throughout 2000 and shows how his tracksmutate and compress over time. He's been working on a much longersoundtrack to the Hindu epic the Ramayana, but 'Sita's Walk of Fire'documents otherwordly atmospheres before Sita walks through a wall offire after escaping the demon Ravana, and the carnivalesque whirlingcelebration and dancing afterwards. It mashes up sampled Easterninstumentation with nineties hyperdance moves into a heady swirl ofcolour. Although it's a different piece of music the horse dreamfantasy film soundtrack 'One Trick Pony' seems like what might havehappened if "The Tower of Mirrors" had been compressed to ten minuteduration, as Shea relies on similar tricks to suggest dream states - alaugh cutting the scene dead, eerie gongs and chimes and propulsivebeats. There's an Antipodean doing-ping rhythm that keeps everythingmoving and sounds like he might even be able to afford the musicianlyservices of Rolf Harris these days. His soundtrack to ancient Romantwisted tales 'Satyricon' is necessarily fuller as he's squeezed itshour into a third of its former duration, and it also seems slightlysped up. Some of what it gains in density it loses in development, butif you can say the same thing with less words, why not? The closingpercussive dash is even more cinematically frenetic and climactic thanit was before, especially after he's cut its 'Waves' aftermath toalmost nothing. -
The former pupil of MortonFeldman started merging sounds in a sampler as a means to an end. Hewanted to continue composing but had insufficient funds to hireperformers to play his ideas. This later evolved into the sampling ofmusicians playing hybrids suggested by Shea, which he thenrecontextualised via the hard drive. Since 1992 he's released a regularslew of CD's documenting his mixed up soundworld where a house anthemmight speed head on into a hardcore double kick drum Cantonese militarymarch as keys fly off the piano. Not surprisingly he's turned up onJohn Zorn compositions such as the dark masterpiece 'Elegy' but perhapsmore surprisingly he's also collaborated with Robert Hampson. Shea'sopus "The Tower of Mirrors" would probably be a better place to startif you haven't heard him before, but "Tryptich" offers three snapshotsof tracks he performed live throughout 2000 and shows how his tracksmutate and compress over time. He's been working on a much longersoundtrack to the Hindu epic the Ramayana, but 'Sita's Walk of Fire'documents otherwordly atmospheres before Sita walks through a wall offire after escaping the demon Ravana, and the carnivalesque whirlingcelebration and dancing afterwards. It mashes up sampled Easterninstumentation with nineties hyperdance moves into a heady swirl ofcolour. Although it's a different piece of music the horse dreamfantasy film soundtrack 'One Trick Pony' seems like what might havehappened if "The Tower of Mirrors" had been compressed to ten minuteduration, as Shea relies on similar tricks to suggest dream states - alaugh cutting the scene dead, eerie gongs and chimes and propulsivebeats. There's an Antipodean doing-ping rhythm that keeps everythingmoving and sounds like he might even be able to afford the musicianlyservices of Rolf Harris these days. His soundtrack to ancient Romantwisted tales 'Satyricon' is necessarily fuller as he's squeezed itshour into a third of its former duration, and it also seems slightlysped up. Some of what it gains in density it loses in development, butif you can say the same thing with less words, why not? The closingpercussive dash is even more cinematically frenetic and climactic thanit was before, especially after he's cut its 'Waves' aftermath toalmost nothing. - samples:
