“It had that perfect commercial combination: startling originality and easy classification.” — Sarah Bakewell, referring to the first published version of Montaigne’s Essays in her book How To Live, or, A Life of Montaigne.
I’ve been thinking a lot about style and arrangement lately. In fact the closer I get to wrapping up the composition phase of this album, the more important it seems.
I’ve gone about this album in an unconventional way. First of all, it’s an album…
Apropos of my last post, here’s what Ursula Le Guin wrote this morning in “The stars of modern SF pick the best science fiction” at The Guardian (thanks to mysterious Facebook algorithms and Oliver Arditi for the link).
Genre is a rich dialect, in which you can say certain things in a particularly satisfying way, but if it gives up connection with the general literary language it becomes a jargon, meaningful only to an ingroup. Useful
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As I mention up there in the header, I’m working on my fourth album. It’s going to be very different from my first three — I thought I’d tell you a little about what I’m planning.
My first three albums were mostly experimental guitar music. A lot of improvisation. The compositions themselves were — in many cases — built from recorded improvisations looped and layered on top of each other. There were a few left turns: the classical solo…
