In a week’s time, a new CD of my electronic music will be released, titled Dither • Pother • Roil. It contains three distinct but related pieces, which began life in a series of improvisations made in early 2008. Somewhat inexplicably, i promptly lost the recordings & forgot all about them until the start of this year; between February & October i then extensively reworked & developed them into their final, very elaborate forms, which together last around 49 minutes. Here’s a smidgeon from the blurb-spiel:
There are ways in which this trio of works relates to & draws upon both the techniques & sentiments of my earlier electronic music. There are echoes of the shifting abstractions of the Simulated Music cycle, as well as the large-scale sculptural elementalism heard in the Ceiling stared at me but i beheld only the Stars & ‘Icon’, the central panel in Triptych, May/July 2009. But above all, Dither, Pother & Roil explore (for me) new methods & an expanded mode of expression.
Dither was finished first, & is concerned primarily with material that writhes & roars at its own prevarication. Here’s an excerpt from part II:
Pother continues the thread established in Dither, becoming increasingly fraught & portentous. This is an excerpt from the end of part I:
Roil was the last to be completed, & is the longest & most complex of the three. A multi-layered noisescape, Roil is by far the most unrestrained piece i have ever composed, whipping up elements of Dither & Pother into a clamorous torrent of frenzied outrage. Here’s an excerpt from the end of part IV:
The accompanying artwork explores details from a recent painting by the young American artist Claire Uhle. Titled ‘Well, everything’s moving so slow in this life time.’, the painting goes a long way to capturing everything that Dither, Pother & Roil are seeking to convey (click for high-res).
The CD comes out on 20 November in a numbered limited edition of 50 copies. For more information & to order a copy, click here. A digital download version will also be available.
In other news, my previous CD Night Liminal is now available as a digital download as well. There are also a few CDs left; details about both can be found here & here.
Today is the anniversary of the death of my father, Richard Peter Weston Cummings. Over the years, i’ve composed several pieces that explore the range of feelings & memories associated with his passing, the most recent of which was my electronic work Triptych, May/July 2009, released on CD a few years ago. The piece was in part created using a photograph of my father (used on the CD artwork), which was manipulated & converted into sound in various ways to create the basic material from which the three movements were made. Musician & composer 
