PROGRAM LISTING

As Above (2005) Music by Michael Gandolfi - Video by Ean White

I. Touch
II. Electric

There is no pause between movements

PROGRAM NOTES

     As Above is a music and video collaboration. Ean White first presented me with raw footage for each of the videos in his diptych to which I responded with musical sketches that in turn influenced his notion of the development of his work. Ultimately, after subsequent correspondence, we each modified our work to best serve the overall joining of music with video.
     Fundamentally, the first video is ‘natural’ and the second is ‘urban,’ which clearly influenced the quality of music that I wrote for each video. On a deeper level, the music for the first video, which I subtitled Touch, incorporates fractal processes in which a simple shape, the first three degrees of a major (and minor) scale, is expressed in increasingly complex temporal relationships. Following a brief transition, the second movement, Electric, unfolds as a series of passages comprised of several vernacular languages (rock progressions, blues, Caribbean inflected rhythms). I was interested in creating a mildly surreal flavor through the juxtaposition of these familiar languages. Although on the surface this movement is in stark contrast to the first, there is a common rhythmical thread of six pulses against five, or six followed by five, that is consistently expressed across both movements and serves to connect rhythmical elements in each video that I felt were similarly related.
     Ean White’s preference is for a live performance of the video allowing the ensemble to be free from the constraints of a ‘fixed track.’ I share in that preference.

Michael Gandolfi

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