Volume I: Playgrounds
Reflections on Dream Skills
In April 2019, while on our April break from school (I am a public school teacher), I began my first real attempt at making solo music. I had played in the large noise rock bands my entire life, and for 10 years or so had been playing electronic bedroom type jams with like minded musicians, but never really concentrated on solo output.
Two days into recording, on Easter Sunday 2019, I was walking in with my daughter in Astoria Park, NYC, when I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a woman in the East River, who had placed herself in the turbulent river on purpose. It immediately became clear that the woman has thrown herself in the river in order to kill herself, because she was lying helplessly as the strong currents carried her off to the sea. I reacted, in the best way I could possibly think of, and started wading in, terrified of the currents, some of the most Dangerous in N. America, but driven by the fact that I didn't want my daughter to see a woman die like this. I eventually reached her, treading water for a short moment, which felt like an eternity, and brought her back to the shore, pretty much motionless. I placed the woman on her side, and hit her back with my open hand to force the water out of her mouth, throat and lungs. She eventually started coughing. I know that the woman's life was saved that day, but not sure what happened to her afterwards as the police couldn’t release any information.
Needless to say, the experience affected my life, and ultimately the solo work. Many of the concepts I am imaging while creating this music focus on how precarious our world is, how beautiful our experiences can be, yet, just how destructive our realities can become in an instant. In the last year I have managed to release what I class as 2 e.ps, and 1 album, using collections of sounds and vibrations which explore repetition and patterns produced by simple, though extremely effective analog and digital machines. I am attempting to harness the techniques of analog triggering and sequencing of natural sounds which have been digitized into WAV samples, all with the help of a simple eurorack set up, coupled with analog synths.
I began working on the latest collection of music in December 2019, yet many of the songs were written upon reflection of my time spent in Tokyo in February 2020. I was in Japan in the midst of the Coronovirus pandemic engulfing the world, with terrible outbreaks in Italy, and S. Korea. Arriving home in NYC, I knew it was matter of time until our great city became infected as well. I am currently teaching NYC students remotely, and we are largely encouraged to remain indoors. The song Islands is an attempt to convey my own personal desire to create a somewhat therapeutic, meditative and positive state of mind through the repetition of machines triggering the natural recorded, digitized sounds of a Fender Rhodes. While we all can perhaps realize that we are living in an extremely unpredictable time, when negative, selfish, and destructive emotions are not too far from the surface, the song is an exploration into fragility and vulnerability, yet the listener should ultimately be provided with a sense of strength and hope.
Sincerely,
DGM - Dream Skills.
Chumpi Stones, recorded with Moog Model D and MAQ 16 Sequencer.
