November 28, 2013: Current collaborations

Artist Jil Guyon

I just completed a score for a video called "Widow" created and starring Jil Guyon, whose work includes visual as well as performance art. Jil and I worked very closely to shape the music to compliment stark and mysterious performance captured in the video, and her suggestions and direction throughout proved to be invaluable to me as a composer.

The music includes several realtime performances on Kaoss pad, gongs, djembe, and drum kit all played by SPIKE the percussionist, and vocals by Lainie Diamond, who channeled a performance that draws equally on her classical technique and a more theatrical, blues-inflected kind of delivery one hears from the mouths of singers like PJ Harvey. The final score is an organic and very detailed hybrid of industrial and ambient music, with extended periods of tension, slowly developed crescendos, and sudden explosions of sound. I'm very proud of this one.

"Widow" will be screened in January at Lincoln Center's 2014 "Dance On Camera" film festival. More information about that screening will post as the date approaches.

One note: I think it's kind of amazing how social media is allowing artists across the globe to collaborate in ways that were just not possible in the age before the Internet.