Captain Nemo and the Zodiac Sandcrabs
Recordings:
Migrating to a new site. Find MP3 files here: http://ereiam.com/foundation/arts/music/songlist.htm
Pirate Boogie 4.08.21 Probably my simplest song to date. Inspired by Master and Commander soundtrack. A good introduction to my syncopation, fractalling fibonacci recursion, and textural technique.
Email to Mark Maxwell, night of Easter Sunday (4/12/2004 2am), host of Rise, a Jazz show on KPFK, after listening to Henry Grimes live in the studio.
This is uncanny. I heard Henry Grimes on your show last
night. At times my playing of my acoustic-electric bass-violin almost absolutely
identical sounding. Usually, I sound like two of him at once, the right hand
tappistry work at twice the tempo. I do things like use Ravi Shankar or the
Velvet Underground as a bass line, and go off in Grimes style with a bit more
Stravinsky and Robert Fripp composition from there. My gift was in itself uncanny.
I acquired it over the span of five minutes as an Easter prayer three years
ago. Until then, I was only playing a harmonica well.
It was encouraging to see Grime’s credentials, because I often have a
hard time convincing people that what I play is even music. To be honest, I’d
rather sound much sweeter and sunnier than Grimes, but my fingers move around
faster than I can observe or think about, and that’s what they want to
play. I’m thinking to play Grimes to my friends, and ask what they think
of my latest works, then inform them that this is what an accomplished master
sounds like, not someone who can’t play.
I haven’t figured out what to do with my music yet. I usually just play
at home alone, but would love to do concerts. I’m still working on making
a demo CD, and have made a portable effects studio / PA which I have brought
down to Venice Beach a couple of times, working up my nerve. Perhaps after I
post some mp3’s, you might want to invite me to play.
My range is intense. I do hindu kaleidoscopic slide pickin chords down near the bridge while hammer-bending near the nut, and two-handed piano tappistry at the frets between. As a band name, I was thinking Captain Nemo and the Zodiac Sandcrabs. My songs include: Clock Springs, Tree Kangaroo Shopping Spree at Borodur Beach, Nebula Aquarium, and Consumption of Glittery Blue.
I heard another group on KPFK which sounded somewhat like me, the Kennedy Experience, and though they are probably a bit energetic for Rise, I hope to hear them again. I heard one jazz group which I found exhilaratingly challenging. I had to fall into a meditation before the music even jelled; it was as if it was woven from self-referential grüngestalts written backwards, yet I was able to put it all together intuitively in the same fashion as a person with upside-down goggles will see that as upright within a couple weeks, and see normality as all upside-down when the goggles are removed.
Keep up the good work, thanks,
Kristal Rose Phoenix McKinstry
I've been working on lyrics to 'Why vampires don't surf',
but my music doesn't lend itself to regular meters. As a a limerick is to 4
conforming lines, my music fractals out like a tree while the twigs keep pulling
back in parts from the branches, and the overlapping twigs become branches themself.
Have you heard any Robert Fripp? His composition is based on a tape loop. With
each loop, a new wildly textured note joins the melody, totally changing the
meaning of the existing melody notes, while notes at the beginning fade out
on successive passes. It's 2D, linear. My stuff is fractalled, layered, 4D,
and I'm layering in new melodies the way he layers in new notes. The last time
I did this, a couple nights ago, I went to bed and my eyes were strobing like
one of those EEG tests.