Jeremy Harris is a modern explorer of music’s original purpose: as a medium between inner and outer spaces. Recorded during the Autumnal and Vernal Equinoxes, Ages (Harris’ debut release with Gnome Life) expresses the many cycles lived by a total environment, and a single man.
This is tonally vast, tidally rhythmic, and texturally scintillating territory — synchronized drones, improvisational melodic phrases, tape loops of acoustic instruments, and highly processed field recordings. Harris’ primary tools are an array of classic analog synthesizers (Minimoog Model D, Vox Continental, Korg MS-10, Juno 60, Moog Prodigy, and Korg Polysix).
The first side of the album is one long form meditation on Harris’ enchanted home-place of West Marin, California, a twenty-three minute opus dubbed “Double Fidelity”. By laying an atmospheric collage of nature sounds and vibraphones over his multi-synth setup, allowing these elements to converge at a central mixer and pass through a series of reverbs and delays, Harris constructs a musical environment that evokes the primordial elements of his home. The title of the piece refers to his belief that “the physical world is of an infinite resolution”.
Side two expands into more personal terrain. Three connected compositions, each titled “Release Technique” (I, II, III), arose amidst the unavoidable changes of life – moving from a beloved home, a relationship’s end. These compositions are as therapeutic as they are exploratory: sonic offerings to help us accept loss and change. As Harris says, “The music I like, regardless of genre, produces an alchemical effect on me. It doesn’t necessarily need to be gentle, reverent, or explicitly spiritual. But when I hear it, anxieties wither, understanding appears, and I become a useful member of the Universe.”
credits
released October 7, 2016
JEREMY HARRIS - AGES
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(A)
DOUBLE FIDELITY - An Autumnal Equinox Recording
Performed and produced in solitude during late summer 2013 at Thom Monahan's studio in Los Angeles, California and at home in Inverness, California.
Minimoog Model D
Vox Continental
Korg MS-10
Juno 60
Tape Loops*
Treatments
*Various samples from The Tale of Hillbelly, a short film by Encyclopedia Pictura, original score by Jeremy Harris. Vibraphone performed by Andrew Maguire.
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(B)
RELEASE TECHNIQUE - Vernal Equinox Music
Performed and produced in solitude during spring 2014 at home in Inverness, California, using Moog Prodigy improvisations recorded in Bolinas, California one day in fall 2012.
I
Nylon Guitar
Moog Prodigy
Treatments
II
Moog Prodigy
Korg Polysix
Treatments
III
Moog Prodigy
Korg Polysix
Clarinet
Treatments
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These recordings originally appeared as installments of Quest Coast Quarterly, an occasional music series based in Inverness, California.
Gnome Life Records is a vinyl and cassette label based on the unceded ancestral homelands of the Esselen in present day Big
Sur, California. Established in 2005, Gnome Life produces a wide variety of musical and poetic releases expressing wild and mystical perspectives....more
Entrance is a beautiful opener. Nana literally has a sitar solo at the end which is insane... Nothing more needs to be said. Majupose has a sick bassline and it's in 7/4 which is cool, and Dripping Sun is a sonic experience that speeds up and down through multiple time signatures. This album is definitely the chillest thing they've released so far. Also the first vinyl I've bought on Bandcamp :)
CRAZY PSYCHEDELIC ALBUM!!! naakz
The thought of "Valley Flutes" and the fluffy cover had me fearing yet another New Age schlock tape to toss on the pile. Was quite happy to be wrong after giving both long-form compositions a listen. Feels more like old-school ambience with slight nods to the avant garde and psychedelia of the era. Easily my 2nd favorite come down tape from CTatsu after Prayer's "Second Species". jasonk
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