Came across this post on Disquiet.com, Marc Weidenbaum’s highly recommended Web site, and your truly left a comment there, underscoring one of Marc’s points. I’m posting this here, because Marc touches on something that’s very near and dear to my heart, and subsequently worth referencing here on the site – site specific sound, or the sound of a particular place and the impressions it leaves with you as a listener having the experience. For me, this is, absolutely, the critical intersection of ideas for me as a composer: I’m trying to capture an emotional impression, sonically… Marc’s post is a good read, and there’s a lot of great music downloads posted there, as well. Enjoy.

Gales of November has forked.

I’ve never really had a project do this before. I’ve had things evolve and change, even be abandoned, but something interesting has happened with this one.

As I’ve written here, here and here, I started working on a new ambient project in the vein of The Phantom Light and Huronic Minor.

That project sort of got side tracked when I started developing a narrative for that, which I wrote about here and here.

Well, I’ve sort of found myself pursuing both directions. I finished one level of production for about 85 minutes of music this weekend, which will need to be cut down. I’ve also been writing and recording a song structure on the same theme. I thought of taking a Radiohead approach and merging songs and ambience. I may still do that, but I don’ t hear the songs merging with the already recorded material, which means I’m looking at another 50 minutes, at least, so far, of music that doesn’t have a home. Will it be a two-disc set? Two sides of the same coin, kind of thing, or will it be two different recordings. I’m also kicking around the idea of assembling a band for the purpose of documenting these songs in a band format, but progress on that front has been slow.

In any case, I just wanted to give an update as to where things are.

I posted on Facebook about how I found this Mathias Eick recording called The Door last week. This a fantastic recording that has kind of an odd variety of instruments being used, but what I really love is the sort of jammy feel of the electric bass guitar and the drums mixed in with trumpet… Eick’s trumpet sound is so smooth, actually lithe is a word that comes to mind, that more aptly describes his sound. The timbre of the instrument almost seems a little rough, kind of like Don Cherry or Rob Mazurek, but yet soulful and emotive.

The Door also has an impressionistic vibe that I’ve found inspiring in the way I treat guitar on some of the tracks that I’ve been working on of late. I’m working more and more to take what I consider an ECM Recordings-vibe with regard to actually composing on an instrument, say vs. a synth, and mixing it with a sort of slow contemplative vibe. I hope to publish some roughs of these experiments here on the site once I get them mixed down…

Stillness.
Free associating,
words and phrases,
as I listen:

Peace,
Timelessness,
Deep listening,
Contemplative music.

To give yourself to the sound
is to free yourself.

This is a good way to spend the eve of the day of my birth.

(Brian Eno’s Apollo here)

I’m thinking a lot about possibility lately. I’m thinking about those things that we can do if we decide just to do it. I’m thinking about what it means to go after something that you want, and what it means to just let it go and not bother. It’s challenging to let things go, especially when you’ve put a lot of work, time and thought into something. At what point do you pack it in, and say you know what maybe this just isn’t meant to be.

I have a friend and for years and years he was an adjunct educator. He tried, and tried. He worked so hard, and one upset after another he stuck it out. I used to say ‘man, pack it in, give up on this… maybe it’s not meant to be.’ and he was human, he was frustrated, but he had vision, and he could see it, or if he couldn’t see it at least he could see what he wasn’t supposed to be doing and so he persevered on his path.

Eventually, he landed in a solid place, a solid job with great experiences, and a ton of opportunities. I was so proud for him and all of the work that he put in. I wished that I had his vision, his perseverance and his will to stick it out because he knew what was right. I didn’t then, but I do now.

This is something that’s so important to the journey. Sure, sometimes the journey is more important than the destination, as was the vision statement of my Alma Mater, Goddard College, but at the same time sometimes you need to get somewhere so you don’t feel like you’re wandering around in the cold. Call it faith, vision, hope, certainty, whatever, you can’t know that you’ve made it until you have, and usually whatever it was that helped you make it, whatever drives you, has you focused on something even further out there when reach that place that you had been trying to get to.

This is where my mind is at as I work on this new recording. I started on my musical path writing songs, and over the years, I’ve written man. However, after I started working on the ambient/space music I started to focus less on the songs, singing and songwriting. For the most part, over the last decade that’s stuck. I haven’t deviated much from the electronic, ambient/space music perspective.

Mostly I haven’t moved from that genre much because I haven’t wanted to disappoint fans, or at the same time start all over again in a new genre. On top of that, as much I’ve sung, performed and spoken in front of people, singing publicly still mortifies me just like it’s the first time, which constantly has me starting and stopping my sort of “ambient folk” projects, because the live singing piece is such a huge component… this was the case with the band Olagra and the recording Olagra.

However, as I’ve moved forward with the poetry, the singing, songwriting, and now this recording of this new project the ambient folk thing is coming back around again. I’m re-recording some of the songs off the Olagra release. I had planned on doing the vocals in a sort of spoken word manor, but the more I listen to them the more I feel it will be necessary to sing, or at least some combination.

It’s early in the recording and creative process, but the new tracks definitely have a Windy and Carl, or Kranky singer/songwriter style to them. Kind of guitar drenched in reverb, and the vocals kind of going the way of spoken word meets Leonard Cohen or Gordon Lightfoot. Again, it’s early in the process, so it can go anywhere from here.

Woke up this morning with these lines in my head:

If you don’t like where you’re at, wait five minutes, like Michigan weather, it will change.

Odd. More odd that I feel inclined to share, in any event… moving on…

As some of you no doubt noticed by my tweets I spent the last week in Chicago, and came back Friday. As I rode the train I had a lot of time to think, and contemplate music. I listened to Steve Roach’s Dreamtime Return, Daniel Lanois’ Belladonna, a little Pat Metheny, and a little of Arvo Part’s Tabula Rasa, as I did so, I couldn’t help but think about music, my musical trajectory, and what’s next for me, musically.

As I’ve been casting off my fear of being branded a poet over the last couple months it’s really unleashed my creativity. I’ve been writing a lot, and been very inspired to do a podcast, or something regular that blends the spoken word, poetry piece with the musical piece. This is something that I’ve never done in any of my recorded work, but I’ve done a little bit in some of the bands I’ve been in.

It was with those concepts, Pat Metheny and Daniel Lanois fresh in my mind that I went into recording Saturday. The recording has been good so far, and I don’t know what will come out of the other end, but like with Olagra, both the band, and the recording, I continue trying to bridge the gap betwen my lyrical/poetry piece and my musical piece.

While I’ve loved the textural and sonic exploration of the ambient work, I’ve felt that it lacks an emotional link at times; a connection that I find very much in the work of Daniel Lanois, and Harold Budd, and that I’d like to be able to weave into my own work. This is something that I’ve been working on since 2003, and I’ve been able to achieve it in bands, but not my solo recorded work. So there’s also a bit of frustration that this emotive quality has remained so allusive in my solo work.

I’m off to a good start, and I hope to share some rough mixes here on the site before too long. I’ll keep you updated.

In other news, Huronic Minor live has been downloaded hundreds of times since Thursday night, so please keep downloading and sharing.

I’ve uploaded a live reinterpretation of Huronic Minor to my site, http://www.mattborghi.com that’s free to download. I haven’t worked much with this recording in the almost ten years since I recorded it, but my friend, saxophonist Michael Teager, and myself gave it a go at a gig we did back in September at SCENE Metrospace in East Lansing.

The character of the piece has changed quite a bit, as I glossed some of the ambient audience noise out, as this was recorded with a binaural mic in the open air.

While the character of the piece has changed, the pieces still has it’s dark reminscents and cold longing, the same character that I tried to introduce to the recording so many years ago. Over the years many of you have commented on the recording, it’s evocative quality, and impressionistic tones… I’d love to hear what folks think of this as it moves into its tenth year. Hope you enjoy it, and I’d love to hear your feedback.

You can download the full-length recording of Huronic Minor here. Please pass this on and feel free use for radio/internet airplay.