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Thread: Paul Dolden

  1. #1
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    Paul Dolden

    Paul is an electro/acoustic artist that has some releases on the great label Emprientes Digitalis. His MO is massing and layering many instruments on top of each other to create a huge monolith of sound. Best with headphones but the Youtube video below will give you an idea of what he sounds like. I recently revisited the four albums I own from the guy and was pleasantly plastered against my headboard for their entirety!



    best
    Michael
    If it ain't acousmatique-It's crap

  2. #2
    I have only one track from Paul on some EM compilation and that is Veils. Still, I would say that I would go to excellent Fayman/Fripp collaboration or, say, some Grassow extravaganza like The Fountain Of Remembrance for similar experience. In the musique concrete field, Robert Normandeau is one of the artists that impress me.
    Last edited by Azol; 11-10-2013 at 01:12 AM.
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    Thanks for responding! Veils is probably the most sedate piece he has done, but it still manages to sound cavernous. Have you heard the whole thing? It's in 3 parts and in total lasts about 28 minutes.

    I think I did a pretty shitty job describing this guys music, quite frankly I've never heard anything so full and dense sounding, ever! Others say it better than me...

    " His electroacoustic pieces are in fact meticulously notated, massively multi-tracked compositions of acoustic instruments, with parts numbering in the hundreds — creating the paradox of acoustic compositions impossible to perform live. " Jermey Owen Turner

    ...and Dolden himself...

    "If I were to place the “Dolden orchestra” of 400 performers in one room, it could get as loud as 200 dBa and you would be instantly deaf. However, I produce recordings in which each person is recorded one at a time. When assembled together, I play it back at normal listening levels. Because of the density and post-production techniques, the music may seem louder than it actually is. The ability to make a recording appear louder than the actual decibel level is the Holy Grail of every commercial music engineer. For example, the kick drum in popular-music recordings sounds like the huge orchestral bass drum, and yet somehow maintains the fast articulation of a normal kick drum. Another sonic illusion is in the recordings of guitar amps that sound twenty feet tall, yet behave like a plucked mandolin. Cutting through both these sounds is the softly whispered lead vocal line, “I love your post-production techniques.”"

    This massive layering of sound is especially cool when he does it with voices...it sounds like the apocalypse, seriously!

    I've never heard the Fayman/Fripp collaboration or Grassow, but I need to check them out. As for Normandeau, absolutely!! He's amazing I think I know where I'm going next...thanks for bringing him up!

    best
    Michael
    If it ain't acousmatique-It's crap

  4. #4
    The Fayman/Fripp collaboration is the album A Temple In The Clouds, not electroacoustic (and I fear you might try to judge it by the rule of your signature line )
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z344JWGain4

    Mathias Grassow is an ambient drone master (he did many other things besides that) and he got surprisingly dense and hypnotizing sound for his Fountain Of Remembrance album.
    I cannot find any good samples of that besides the link below (around 30 seconds), but make absolute sure to LOWER the volume in your headphones before starting previewing the 1st track!!!
    http://www.mclub.com.ua/vcat.phtml?a...s&album=251116
    After some 5+ minutes it comes almost to a standstill with complicated unmoving dissonating layers of sound for the rest of the 19-minute 1st track and you may feel like being encased in an ice block, immobile but ready to be bent broken... something like that. Completely mindblowing experience.

    Thanks for the info on Paul's technique that he employs creating these tracks - I was never aware of that! Probably should pull out the CD to listen to it again (it was http://www.discogs.com/Various-A-Sto...release/329608 by the way). You may want to check the CD1 or get the full compilation, the whole series presents some great tracks!

    P.S. Indeed, the version of Veils that comes with it is merely a 5-minute excerpt. But, on the other hand, 28 minutes of that would be pretty trying on one's ears and neighbours might call for the police
    Last edited by Azol; 11-11-2013 at 08:42 AM.
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    Hi

    That sig line was a joke because someone on this very site used it, but substituted the word "prog" instead :P

    Thanks for links for Grassow and the Fripp collab...and I got caught out by NOT lowering my volume...scared the bejeebus out of me! I'm listening to the Fripp soundscape now, looking forward to seeing how it develops.

    If the neighbors want to call the police...I call that a victory.

    best
    Michael
    If it ain't acousmatique-It's crap

  6. #6
    Thanks for posting Paul Doldens music. I've never heard of him, but now after listening to this you tube vid I have to check out more of his stuff.

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    Paul dropped another new release on Bandcamp today, this is a 20 minute epic for drum kit and pre recorded audio. After one listen I found it way to dense to unpack right now but I CAN safely say...I dig!!! Big time!!

    All the usual pieces are there...I think Paul plays the drums himself and it's some damn good playing but the pre recorded layered material is what people who have heard him can pretty much come to expect. Massive wall o' sound multi tracked brass, guitars, seems like alot of electronics, lots of what sounds like Balinese type mallet percussion, and of course all done using non-octave tuning systems.

    It's pretty intense.

    (for some reason I can't get this track to appear in a playable format but you can get to it on Bandcamp here:

    https://pauldolden.bandcamp.com/trac...g-synapse-2011


    best
    Michael

    late edit: The cost of download is 1 dolla Canadian or about 82 cents U.S. What's your excuse now!!!!
    Last edited by neuroticdog; 05-03-2021 at 04:53 PM.
    If it ain't acousmatique-It's crap

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    ^^^^^ I dig!!!
    "please do not understand me too quickly"-andre gide

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    Damn! My work computer won't play stuff anymore on Bandcamp for some reason. I'll have to check it out later...

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    Quote Originally Posted by neuroticdog View Post
    Paul dropped another new release on Bandcamp today, this is a 20 minute epic for drum kit and pre recorded audio. After one listen I found it way to dense to unpack right now but I CAN safely say...I dig!!! Big time!!
    That is some difficult listening right there. By the end I wasn't sure what the point was or why I had listened to it; just felt fatigued. But I'll try it a few more times.... sometimes difficult music like this does click in the end.

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    Quote Originally Posted by arturs View Post
    That is some difficult listening right there. By the end I wasn't sure what the point was or why I had listened to it; just felt fatigued. But I'll try it a few more times.... sometimes difficult music like this does click in the end.
    Thanks for giving it a shot Arturs although I have to admit I don't really know what you mean when you question "it's point" or "why I had listened to it".

    I have no idea what it's point is either, or if anything doesn't or everything does have a point...or even needs to have a point. But a "Nihilists are us" conversation this isn't so...i'll drop the point.

    I kind of get what you mean by leaving you fatigued but, at least for me...that can happen with any kind of music at any time. In fact, sometimes feeling drained after listening to something is a good feeling.

    I've only heard this piece once and for me...the first thing I thought of was that the avant-prog world would probably enjoy it. Especially people into the ultra complex, busy type arrangements. Personally, I have to work a little bit to get acclimated to the unusual tunings he uses. It's usually the first thing I notice about his music and I can get how that may be off putting to some, it was definitely hard to grok at first.

    But the more I listened to his stuff, the tunings bothered me less. I just saw it as something that was there and part of his thing. Personally, I'm really amazed at two things in his music...his talents as a player, he's a multi instrumentalists but his main axe is cello, but I've heard him on drums and guitar too and he sounds great on all of them. Secondly, I think he really knows his technology. He's been doing this thing he does (multi-tracking instruments and sounds) for over 30 years now and he's really developed into something quite special and, pretty original. Not only is he a great arranger but...he just makes his music sound HUGE, I mean REALLY HUGE...not sure if I've heard that in too many other places.

    Anyway, I appreciate you giving it a shot and I totally get it's not for everyone, being very much an acquired taste. But, if you do give it a few more listens, i'd be curious to know if your thoughts changed at all.

    best
    Michael
    If it ain't acousmatique-It's crap

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    Oooo, that piece with the drums/percussion was indeed "difficult listening". I played drums and percussion in my high school band and in several rock bands for about ten years total, but once I switched to doing electronic music in the late 70's, I developed sort of an aversion to drum solos and drum-heavy music in general. Good thing I quit playing drums, or I'd be deaf now, because I always played LOUD. Anyway, very impressive stuff, but I ended up listening to a minute of it, then fast-forwarding a couple of minutes, then listening to some more, then skipping ahead again and again. As I've said before, I look for acousmatic music with very unusual sounds. I'm not into pieces that mix electronics and instruments (which is a huge part of electroacoustic/acousmatic music), unless they've been treated and modified to the point of being unrecognizable.

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    Quote Originally Posted by soundsweird View Post
    Oooo, that piece with the drums/percussion was indeed "difficult listening". I played drums and percussion in my high school band and in several rock bands for about ten years total, but once I switched to doing electronic music in the late 70's, I developed sort of an aversion to drum solos and drum-heavy music in general. Good thing I quit playing drums, or I'd be deaf now, because I always played LOUD. Anyway, very impressive stuff, but I ended up listening to a minute of it, then fast-forwarding a couple of minutes, then listening to some more, then skipping ahead again and again. As I've said before, I look for acousmatic music with very unusual sounds. I'm not into pieces that mix electronics and instruments (which is a huge part of electroacoustic/acousmatic music), unless they've been treated and modified to the point of being unrecognizable.
    I would definitely say this piece is not exactly acousmatic. I think he's in his own world here. He discovered this niche with the multi tracking of instruments and sounds years ago and has run wild with it. Sorry to hear you're not into electronics mixed with instruments. Gilles Gobeil did an album with an Ondes Martenot player that mixed his acousmatic sounds with the Martenot and it's stunning, most likely be my next review for AMN.
    If it ain't acousmatique-It's crap

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    Looking forward to it. I do like the sound of the Ondes Martenot in every piece I've heard, so I guess I'll (partially) take back what I said about musical instruments mixed with electronics. Heard some great electric guitar/electronics pieces as well. And I love Gobeil!

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    Here is my recent write-up on a few stray Dolden releases on BC


    AMN Reviews: A Paul Dolden Update: The Dance of the Firing Synapse, Marsyas’ Melodies, Who has the Strangest Melodies (2021; Bandcamp)

    Paul has been releasing a steady stream of one-off pieces that have not made an album appearance. They’ve all been extremely strong, and this makes me wonder how large his pipeline of un-released material is. Based on the super high quality of these works, I am going to play catch-up and put down some thoughts on the three most recent releases (that when taken together would make a nice album of unreleased gems). If you have even a passing interest of all things Dolden, I can wholeheartedly recommend visiting his Bandcamp page where you can find these, and many more of his incredibly epic and heroic multi-track sound extravaganzas. Additionally, I have published a couple of write-ups on earlier records on this very site. Feel free to check in on those for a review, you can find them here and here.

    https://pauldolden.bandcamp.com/trac...g-synapse-2011

    “The Dance of the Firing Synapse” clocks in at 20 minutes and is prime Dolden, i.e. aggressive, relentlessly LOUD and in. yo. FACE!!! It has all the hallmarks of his sound, things like Balinese sounding percussion, ridiculously hard to count rhythms, face melting passages of countlessly layered, metal-tinged guitars (or maybe those are something else, hard to tell), very complex drum pyrotechnics, moments of sick note Saxophones and the odd choral accents. All these things come together in a tightly produced, microtonal package that is just a constant stream of detail after detail. In a word, astounding! After many listens, new things manifest themselves that I can swear I’ve never heard before. I’m aware of a few comments from people saying the piece provokes headaches, or it precipitates sensory overload resulting in fatigue etc. While I’ll never challenge these views, instead I’ll just smile to myself and think Dolden may have reached a stage of “mission accomplished”. He achieved that coveted point on the bell curve where the synapses just say, “fuck it, I’m done”. Bravo!

    https://pauldolden.bandcamp.com/trac...13-paul-dolden

    https://pauldolden.bandcamp.com/trac...-melodies-live

    The other two releases (“Marsyas’ Melodies” and “Who Has the Strangest Melodies?”) has Dolden continuing to move forward with a more “modern classical” approach. There is less noise blasts and less massed layers of sound assaults. This is not to say that those qualities (and they are indeed qualities) are not present, just utilized in a more subtle manner within the context of the piece, instead of THE piece itself.

    “Marsyas’ Melodies” starts quietly and slowly builds into a series of climaxes. Each build and release have its own distinctive personality due to the varied instruments used and, per the liner notes, ancient Arab and Greek tuning systems are employed. About midway through the piece, there is a short but quite beautiful cello solo which opens the door for more build-ups (this time louder with more multi tracked acoustic instruments including what sounds like a full choir and oddly tuned percussion…a Dolden hallmark). Even though the structure of this work sounds simple, the combinations of sound sources paired with his typical attention to the “little details” like separation between sounds and total mastery of dynamics makes this piece one of my favorites.

    “Who Has the Strangest Melodies” shares many of the same compositional qualities but this time, I hear a little bit of a Charles Ives vibe. Brass instruments seem to be the prevalent focus on this piece and the structure seems more complex than “Marsyas’ Melodies”. Once again, the melodies are micro-tonal which of course throws the listener off balance until the mind “accepts” it but, unlike the former, there is a heavy rhythmic presence played mostly on the trap kit. Adding to the disorientation, the rhythms are certainly not your standard 4/4 and…if I’m understanding things properly, the overlaid melodies are speed corrected to fit the off-kilter rhythms.

    I should know by now that the unusual is the usual when it comes to Dolden music. These three pieces, if you were to take them as an album-length whole provide an excellent real-time sound portrait of where the composer seems to be presently. Not only are his works getting more detailed and refined musically as time goes by, but technologically speaking…the current state of his sound recording methodology is stretched to the extremes which yields a stunning aural experience, especially through headphones. As I alluded to at the beginning of this write-up, every new release that drops are an event that is certainly not taken lightly by this listener and, if the firehose is active, I’ll be there.

    best
    Michael

    edit-unfortunately I can't get the BC links to work, if interested you should definitely check them out on his BC page linked above

    edit 2-included BC links
    Last edited by neuroticdog; 08-24-2021 at 06:25 PM.
    If it ain't acousmatique-It's crap

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    Sorry about the messy post above...I just cleaned it up a bit with links instead of BC embeds ^^^

    best
    Michael
    If it ain't acousmatique-It's crap

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    Hey all,

    Dolden is releasing something truly massive, tentative date 12/1/2021. I guess I'll have some words to say on it

    while I have a lot of this already, there is a bunch I dont have that has never been released. I already have an advanced copy and will be...uh...immersing myself for....I guess, a while.



    The Golden Dolden Box Set.



    Forty years of full time work writing and producing new music reduced to a box set:

    My entire life’s work reduced to 28 gigs containing:



    1) 44 works totaling 10 hours of music at 44.1khz/24bit.

    Seven of these works were done since 2016, and have only been heard by my dog!



    Nineteen of these works are duplicated by also having a copy of the Hi Resolution version, (24bit, 96kHz).



    2) 34 scores



    3) 33 educational talks totaling 6 hours, which contain music examples.



    4) 4 essays on the music totaling 8,300 words and Program notes for the works totaling

    6400 words.



    The box set comes in two different formats with different prices:



    1) A downloadable version (11 gigs) in which all the audio files have been converted to FLAC.

    Called= Golden Dolden Box Set download version (FLAC)

    $75 Canadian (Cdn). Or more.



    2) The full product contains audio files rather than compressed FLAC, and a professional video of a chamber orchestra performing one of my works. This full product comes, in the mail, on a USB key and weighs in at 28.33 gigs.

    Personal note and my autograph included! Elvis and Taylor Swift countersign!!!!

    Called= Golden Dolden Box Set

    $90(Cdn) in Canada, $99(Cdn) in America, $105(Cdn) other destinations. Or more.

    best
    Michael
    If it ain't acousmatique-It's crap

  18. #18
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    Sorry, not intentionally bumping this thread but I put out bad info on the announcement above. He ditched the FLAC versions for the downloadable product and replaced with straight 16bit WAV files, so slightly bigger download but not by much. Also, there is more color on the full USB stick product:

    1) 44 works totaling 10 hours of music at 24bit/44.1khz.
    Seven of these works were done since 2016, and have only been heard by my dog!
    Nineteen of these works are duplicated by also having a copy of the Hi Resolution version, (24bit, 96kHz).
    2) 34 scores
    3) 33 educational talks totaling 6 hours, which contain music examples.
    4) 4 essays on the music totaling 8,300 words and Program notes for the works totaling 6400 words.

    The box set comes in two different formats with different prices:

    1) A downloadable version (11.4 gigs) in which all the audio files have been converted to 16bit/44.kHz.
    Called= Golden Dolden Box Set download version
    $80 Canadian (Cdn). Or more.

    2) The full product contains audio files at 24bit, and 19 works have two levels of resolution: 24bit/44.1kHz and at 24bit/96khz. The full product also includes a professional video of a chamber orchestra performing one of my works. This full product comes, in the mail, on a USB key and weighs in at 28.33 gigs.
    Personal note and my autograph included! Elvis and Taylor Swift countersign!!!!
    Called= Golden Dolden Box Set
    $90(Cdn) mailed to Canada, $99(Cdn) mailed to America, $105(Cdn) other destinations. Or more.
    If it ain't acousmatique-It's crap

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    AMN Reviews: Paul Dolden – The Golden Dolden Box Set; Part 1 (2022; Bandcamp)

    Let’s get the necessities front and center first: To quote Paul: “Forty years of full-time work writing and producing new music reduced to a box set:
    My entire life’s work reduced to 28 gigs containing:

    1) 44 works totaling 10 hours of music at 44.1 khz/24bit. Seven of these works were done since 2016 and have only been heard by my dog!
    Nineteen of these works are duplicated by also having a copy of the Hi Resolution version, (96 khz/24bit).

    2) 34 scores

    3) 33 educational talks totaling 6 hours, which contain music examples.

    4) 4 essays on the music totaling 8,300 words and Program notes for the works totaling 6400 words.


    So that’s what you get, and it’s available here. Additionally, you can read the three write-ups I’ve done about him on the AMN site here. The thing I’ve been struggling with is how to approach writing about it?

    I found my answer after reading his essay titled “Artistic Practice: Changes in Musical Content.” Here Dolden has conveniently segregated his career into four distinct periods. I’m going to use these periods as my guide to relay my thoughts about specific compositions created on this timeline. I am not going to talk about every piece he wrote, instead I’ll pick 1 or 2 from each period and spout off about those. I’m also not going to dive into the various essays, recorded lectures, scores and various program notes included in this package. All of this is super interesting, especially if you are a completist, a university level music student or someone who really wants to do a deep dive but, for the purpose of this write-up it’s just going to be all music, all the time (as heard through my own personal uncultured ear).

    I have some general thoughts about Dolden music and why I believe it’s on the bleeding edge of “sonic art” currently. Here are three meta themes I find particularly appealing from a 100,000-foot viewpoint. (I’ll elaborate on these throughout.):

    1-The Phenomenological factor i.e., these sounds take me places…again, and again, and again…and again!
    2- From a non-musician’s standpoint, the compositions, arrangements and execution (playing) never cease to enthrall me.
    3-Sound and recording techniques for live solo and ensemble groupings, mixed works and fixed medium (taped) compositions are second to none. (If you’ve ever wondered what 800 tracks layered on top of each other sounds like, Dolden music has the answer, and it’s every bit as galaxy crushing as you would imagine!)

    The first time I heard his music (roughly 20 years ago), I asked myself, what manner of beast is this? I thought at the time, this is surely some, if not THE most viscerally intense, body pulverizing music out in the wild. This was when I was binging on music from the empreintes DIGITALes label. Around then I had just “discovered” Francis Dhomont and since he had several releases out on that label, I figured I should explore it further. So, I started with L’ivresse de la Vitesse (both discs), Seuil de silences and the very different Délires de plaisirs, all of these bought on spec.

    Talk about getting lucky! Except for Délires de plaisirs (which I’ve only very recently come to enjoy and represents a sea change in what he calls his “artistic concerns”, I’ll talk more about what drove me here), this music was almost too much for my mind to grok, let alone my personal safety (see above comment about body pulverizing). But I needed more, and I needed more now! Unfortunately, there was close to a 10 year wait till Who Has The Biggest Sound came out on the Starkland label.

    Throughout the years, there has been long periods of not listening at all to his music. But, I always come back, with new ears, new info and heightened appreciation. It wasn’t till recently that I started writing for AMN and decided to take it upon myself to evangelize Dolden music. It has been criminally unknown to a wider audience outside of the academic circles that gravitate like flies to the Acousmatic space (don’t get me started) and deserves (and I use the word “deserves” in the strongest possible way) to be heard.

    In this light, I’ve decided to only do what I can…and write about it. I really appreciate Mike at AMN providing this forum and hopefully there will be a few readers that stick with me in what I project to be a 6-part series published at non regular intervals. Stay tuned!

    Best
    Michael
    If it ain't acousmatique-It's crap

  20. #20
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    AMN Reviews: Paul Dolden – The Golden Dolden Box Set; Part 2 (2022; Bandcamp)

    In part 1 of this series, I mentioned that Paul Dolden splits his career into four distinct periods. The Golden Dolden Box set is laid out in reverse chronological order so it’s easy to see his evolution in terms of changing “artistic concerns” on the composer’s part. Additionally, his included essay “Artistic Practice: Changes in Musical Content” clearly maps out this timeline. If you want to start at the beginning, (his Modernist period), you will begin at the end and work your way backwards.

    His Modernist Works (1984-1992) is defined by his use of sonic textures as opposed to traditional melodies and harmonies. I personally wasn’t introduced to his music till he was well into his third period (The Twilight Cycle), but it was these Modernist Works that completely red-pilled me down the rabbit hole and these were the ones I heard first.

    The early works are noted for their intense and extreme “wall of sound” characteristics coupled with his amazing ability to record said “wall” in a manner that allows for… actually, demands repeat listens. This is because his idiosyncratic studio techniques were so developed, even back then that the listener was presented with virtually unlimited hearing prospects. Let me try and explain using one of his earliest compositions as an example.


    https://pauldolden.bandcamp.com/trac...emastered-2012


    While process shouldn’t matter when listening to music, in the case of Dolden’s work it does play an important role in understanding, and thus appreciating his music. The piece “Veils” is a great illustration of overlaying sound textures resulting in a multi-faceted listening experience. Recently, I experienced a bit of an epiphany when Dolden mentioned that all sounds, stretching his entire career are generated from acoustic instruments, played by carbon-based, organic lifeforms i.e., people. (Like Queen sez on the back of their early albums, “NO SYNTHISIZERS”.) The last part of that sentence is important because he makes the distinction that human produced sounds are like snowflakes. Depending on environmental and physical circumstances, no two notes will have the same spectral detail. In other words, living sound as opposed to sounds produced via electronic synthesis which, in theory and practice can be, and often are homogenized, and I might add, commoditized. Bots on a conveyor belt.

    This fact alone changed my whole perspective when listening to his music. On “Veils”, what I originally thought were electronically synthesized drones and blasts, were an army of strings, brass, voice, piano, marimba, glass, etc. all meticulously close mic’d and recorded in a very dry acoustic space. Because of the layering of sounds (up to 240 tracks piled on top of each other), the sounds coming out of your preferred listening device are intentionally “veiled” as to what is producing them. Additionally, the non-trad tunings and the close mic’d recordings succeed in furthering this “camouflage” effect.

    If this wasn’t enough…the real magic begins to happen when the listener is able to hear, literally isolate the various minutia…tiny details that would normally be missed in a live performance (a fascinating exercise, and not as hard for the listener as it sounds). Additionally, if the listener so chooses, the piece can also be experienced as one massive, monolithic edifice of sound. A truly new beast, created from the myriad of Lego’s that comprise it. We are talking The Borg incarnate here! This gives the work a generative quality that allows for a vast multitude of unique re-visits. The snowflake analogy does indeed hit home, the listener can see the veil as a whole or, see the tiny strands of sonic fabric that make it up. Choose your poison, either way it succeeds on every intentional level, and is a precursor to even higher, more gargantuan alien-built structures that are to come, especially with the “Walls cycle”.


    https://pauldolden.bandcamp.com/trac...emastered-2012


    I’ll conclude this part with some short comments about another piece during this period, “In the Natural Doorway I Crouch”. Per the program notes, the work is inspired by the interaction between plucked metal strings and wind instruments. These sounds, like “Veils” described above are also veiled on this composition. The listener is most likely NOT hearing what they think they are hearing but, unlike my digression into “process” as above, the final musical result is nothing short of stunning.

    Also, like “Veils”, this is pure Cinéma pour l’oreille (Cinema for the Ear), but while “Veils” is aggressive and brutal in places, “In the Natural Doorway I Crouch” has a low-key creep factor vibe. Through highly creative sound organization and mixing, the work creates a “just under the surface” but persistently menacing queerness, an occultism that doesn’t quite reveal itself but, indeed…makes itself known. The body chills and sense of vague paranoia the last time I heard this is sorta like…a dead giveaway. (But you know I loved it!)

    I’ve only barely touched the surface on this period in Dolden’s career and I would highly encourage anyone whose interest I may have piqued to check out the entire box. This part was rather lengthy, and I apologize for that but, many of the concepts touched on have been carried on, refined and modified through his entire catalog so I wanted to mention them early. I’ll most likely be referring to them as the series continues. Stay tuned for Part 3, his “Post-Modernist Works”.

    best
    Michael
    Last edited by neuroticdog; 01-25-2022 at 03:52 PM.
    If it ain't acousmatique-It's crap

  21. #21
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    AMN Reviews: Paul Dolden – The Golden Dolden Box Set; Part 3 (2022; Bandcamp)

    Part 1
    Part 2

    This write-up will focus on Paul Dolden’s “post-modern” works or, what he calls “The Resonance Cycle” (1992-1997).
    Embracing, or maybe I should say succumbing to the idea that creating a “new thing” in music is impossible because “we are all conditioned by historical and cultural discourses”, Dolden began to develop a post-modern view of things with the following musical characteristics:

    1-No musical hierarchies. No idea, concept, rule or style takes precedence over another.
    2-No teleological direction. Order, structure and reason do not hold sway. No overarching purpose or agenda.
    3-A direct correlation to #1, what he calls a “celebration of surfaces”. The “anything goes” attitude in terms of combining various musical styles for no other reason than, they sound good together. A true melting pot of styles.

    So, without dwelling on it, this is Dolden’s “fuck the man” (in the high tower at Juilliard) period. His piece “L’ivresse de la Vitesse” (Intoxication by Speed) started it all and acts as the template for five other mixed works with different soloists that “resonated” off it.


    https://pauldolden.bandcamp.com/trac...emastered-2012


    “Intoxication by Speed”, so named…

    “Is an allusion towards my current artistic intentions, which involve the speeding up of an excess of musical ideas so that the composition and its materials exhaust themselves in the shortest time possible.”

    By “excess”, he means hundreds of musical events that are organized by numerous musical systems unfolding concurrently or, the way I read it…organization by whatever dark arts he was schooled at starting at a young age. The result is beyond frenetic!

    Regarding these musical events and systems, Dolden continues using the maximalist recording techniques I touched on in Part 2, along with structures based on traditional harmonic theory. (Time to give those microtones a rest I guess.) Some of this “mother composition” contains recognizable signposts within its composable building blocks which are re-used in very different ways in the five “Resonance” pieces it spawned. Dolden is building his art using previous ideas into something new. I love that!

    “Intoxication by Speed” begins with the frenzied and feverish power of a Babylonian marketplace at high noon. Before you know it, a chorus…no, more like a human zoo gets in your face, wailing exaltations in staggered formation accompanied by a thick, dense slug of massed tones that are the aural equivalent of a 95% dark chocolate brick. Cutting through this beautiful quagmire of sound is a close mic’d stringed instrument that joins and eventually talks back to the chaos like a pissed off Fury. Welcome to Dolden World ladies and gentlemen…and don’t forget your complimentary flack vests, you’re gonna need em!

    “Intoxication by Speed” opens a new chapter in this saga. Standard hallmarks remain like the layered instrument sets, lots of close mic’d metal percussion and the off-the-charts intensity of it all but, in true post-modern fashion the composer adds some of that “everything but the kitchen sink” element to the mix. That means, more overtly obvious sections within the overall architecture, more focus on single tracked solo instruments (don’t worry, the insane layer cake of instruments are still in play) and some standard trap drums driven rhythms (along with other more indigenous, exotic percussive) that you can actually (read-comfortably) tap your foot to.

    All of what’s described above are the composable parts and pieces that Dolden picks and chooses from to form the basis of the five “Resonance” pieces.

    https://pauldolden.bandcamp.com/trac...emastered-2012

    The “Resonance” cycle are all mixed works (tape with live soloist(s)) with the taped parts gleaned from individual tracks of “Intoxication by Speed”. On these compositions, Dolden is providing (via the tape element) the gateway to “place the soloist in different sounding musical worlds”.

    “Gravity’s Stillness-Resonance #6” is one such example. Featuring guest soloist Julie-Anne Derome on violin, Dolden’s re-made/re-modeled tape portion that is acting as a constant flow of ever-changing data gives her more “static” sound a chance to interact in unique ways. Dolden explains, using a soloist in relation to an orchestra as an example:

    “…the soloist is static in my "concertos", it can only supply the sound world of its instrument...but everything is changing around him or her. My tape portions can go from chamber to double orchestra and beyond...”

    And further:

    “…a single mic on the soloist while a tape part is changing what we are hearing and coloring the soloist in ways that is not possible with a "static" accompaniment in terms of color and density and projection...”

    In many ways, this piece is a departure from everything that preceded it. The most obvious for me is the lack of anything microtonal. Listening to this piece is, well…it’s the Dolden version of “easy listening”. I didn’t have to re-wire my brain to adjust to the weird intervals. I’m not saying this is good or bad, just different. Everything from the drums keeping a standard “beat” (for the most part) to the backing orchestral tracks sounding downright Copland-like (if Copland was stacking 800 tracks) was very much unlike Dolden’s previous script.

    This piece (and all the others during this period) still retains many of his trademarks. “Thick as molasses” string and voice chording’s, beautifully rendered and massive sounding bell-like percussion and the patented close mic’d style of recording that adds that extra layer of detail all converge in a whirlwind of sound. It opens with a very gentle, hell…Windham Hill vibe with Derome soloing over an idyllic orchestral track but, with a dramatic percussion flourish it quickly morphs into the intense beast you would expect from him. Violent staccato-like rhythms, foundationally dense strings and voice and Derome, cutting through all of it with her “on fire” violin. No…this is not your Dad’s Shadowfax!

    In hindsight, this period marks a definite sea change in Dolden’s artistic concerns. This will be obvious as we move into his “Twilight Cycle” which will be covered in Part 4. See you then.

    best
    Michael
    Last edited by neuroticdog; 01-28-2022 at 12:02 PM.
    If it ain't acousmatique-It's crap

  22. #22
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    AMN Reviews: Paul Dolden – The Golden Dolden Box Set; Part 4 (2022; Bandcamp)

    View Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of our coverage of this set.

    Entering the new millennium, Paul Dolden continues some of his experiments that began with his Post-Modern period, albeit with very different results. This write-up will cover his “Romantic-Twilight Cycle” (1997-2003).

    https://pauldolden.bandcamp.com/trac...emastered-2010

    Leaving all microtonality behind, Dolden’s “Entropic Twilight” suite finds him looking for creative ways to use “our horrible” 12 tone tuning system. He latched on to the idea of tuning lots of metal pieces to the standard 12 tones and then using their percussive qualities to carry some of the melody within the composition. Apparently, this was enough to satisfy his creative thirst:

    “This new orchestration helped bend my ear enough, and I felt I was doing something fresh with the old familiar 12ET. It also allowed for easy interface with live musicians who only spoke in those 12 steps.”

    The “Entropic Twilight” suite found on this box is quite a bit shorter (clocking in at 37 minutes) then the original version (at 49 minutes) which you can find on the empreintes DIGITALes release Délires de plaisirs (2005). This new version was also re-mastered by Dolden and the sound quality (even for my cloth ears) is noticeably better.

    It may seem to some that six years is a long time to “only” compose one 49-minute piece of music. To that, I’d say with my recent “further education” into his music…I have a more accurate handle on the amount of time that goes into creating these uber epics. These pieces are exceedingly complex (even I, a non-musician can see that). It surely takes time to transform them from a germ of an idea to a fully fleshed out work of art. I can only imagine the magnitude of time it must take for the playing, recording, arranging and mixing. The organizational effort involved must be massive.

    I mentioned back in Part 1 that this period was a really hard nut for me to crack. In my initial Dolden discovery phase, I received L’ivresse de la Vitesse (both discs), Seuil de silences and Délires de plaisirs all at the same time. The first two albums showcased his ultra-intense, wall-of-sound textural artistry that basically left me raving and drooling in catatonia after each listen.

    And then…there was Délires de plaisirs…um, what’s this now? Wow…that sounds like a DX7, really? Are those voices…like auto tuned? This is putting me to sleep! These were just some of my first impressions 20-25 years ago…and I was crushed, devastated even. Radio friendly Dolden…cmon man! (Ok, that last sentence was an exaggeration.)

    This story does have a happy ending. Over the years, with each re-visit to this piece, I started to find details that clicked for me. Overly saccharine choral arrangements started to acquire an eerie weirdness. What I thought were thin sounding synth pads revealed themselves as not synths at all but tracks upon tracks of the tintinnabulation of tuned metal objects. The blatant aura of sentimentality gradually turned into this very strange headspace of kitsch, yet cool. I’ve come to realize that I don’t think I’ve heard anything like this before.

    I’ll admit that my change of heart for this period occurred as I became more educated about what exactly goes into a Dolden piece of music. I hate to go back to his process but, the more I learned about that aspect, the more I realized I was (and maybe still am) the victim of a lot of misconceptions about his creative practices. Why should this matter? Well, with this new knowledge, my critical listening of his music “big banged” in a whole new way. I now have new ideas of what to listen FOR and a myriad of options of HOW to approach any given piece.

    Let me stress (once again) that learning about his process is ABSOLUTELY NOT necessary to enjoy his music. The primal, gut-level sounds that he produces are there, and they are brilliant…and will always be there. I’m just talking about my personal journey.

    So, what about the music that makes up this “Twilight Cycle”? The piece is split up into three parts, a shorter, quieter middle section bookended by two longer movements with lots of recurring motifs and themes, some of which are hidden within the mass of sonic detail swimming around the soundscape.

    And that detail is legion! Easter eggs are everywhere, and the thrill of discovery is one helluva satisfying, not to mention fun roller coaster to ride. For example, just last night I listened to this work (one of many times in the last month) and something bizarre presented itself. Realizing that my attempt at describing what Dolden is doing is most likely wrong, let me give it a shot anyway. There are moments where he seems to be electronically tweaking his layered sound samples by taking one chord or event, slicing it out of its previous context, severely gating it, and re-assembling it in a Berlin School-styled kaleidoscopic sequence. This was a very Bernard Parmegiani crossed with Klaus Schultz moment for me. I found it strange, and amazing (let alone extremely cool), but I never picked up on it before. Well, maybe because it’s literally surrounded by other sound candy that can (and should) have their own stories.

    And then there is (I’ll safely caveat) “what sounds like” some thick, crunch-alishous, metal infected guitars driving a recurring melody line that would be the envy of any superhero flying to the rescue. This sequence was downright fist pumping and, if I had any hair…it would be flung from side to side as my head was doing the “Bill and Ted” bobbing thing during “Bohemian Rhapsody”!

    One more…you know those “overly saccharine” choral arrangements I mentioned. I’ll go on record right now and say they are some of the most positively infectious earworms ever! They are all over the place in this piece, some are female, some are male, some sound like a children’s choir but they all carry the same, weird mega-emo quality to them. I can’t quite pin it down, but the melodies evoke at any given time, feelings of personal victory against overwhelming odds, a positive re-invention or re-birth of the self and/or the glimpse of the proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel”. Dolden says:

    “My intention was to write works that were joyful and optimistic and was a response to the philosophical perception that the postmodern world was drained of substance and meaning.”


    He was spot on. What started as my “least favorite” work from him has rapidly moved up the ladder to inhabit the top 10. (Don’t ask me to name them, they are constantly changing.) This will take us to Part 5 where I’ll be looking at his most recent works. This is period where he examines the dual concepts of Nature and Historical Imagination. See you soon.

    best
    Michael
    Last edited by neuroticdog; 02-02-2022 at 11:11 PM.
    If it ain't acousmatique-It's crap

  23. #23
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    AMN Reviews: Paul Dolden – The Golden Dolden Box Set; Part 5 (2022; Bandcamp)

    View Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of our coverage of this set.

    Paul Dolden’s fourth period falls under the “Nature and Historical Imagination” (2004-present) umbrella. This period has brought some significant changes to Dolden’s music. Most notably, his return to working with microtonality.

    “After the Twilight cycle I realized I needed new input into both my style and content. New technologies had been developed which made it easy for me to do microtonal music again. Studio performers could play in our regular 12ET, or their native intonation, and I would re-tune their performances using these new technologies.”

    That last sentence intrigues me because, once again…the more I learn about his process the more meaningful the music becomes for me. As usual, I’m going to have to caveat the hell out of this next observation because I could be dead wrong but, almost everything I hear on Histoires d’histoire (empreintes DIGITALes-2017) which is in his “Historical Imagination” period seems to be steeped in exotic, non-western tunings.

    That observation, on its own is not the point of me mentioning it though. What’s unusual is, these non-western tunings seem to be further augmented by the tuning adjustments done after the fact in the studio. So, we have a double whammy happening here:

    1-The exotic tunings. Ok…not something I listen to everyday, but not really something I haven’t been exposed to. Certainly not unpleasant to listen to, quite the opposite really.
    2-The exotic tunings re-pitched. This is where it gets downright unique. It’s very interesting to hear these tunings to begin with but, after they are tweaked…well that entails a full perception reset. Alert the thought police…immediately!

    Dolden explains the compositions in this period:

    “These play freely with our historical imagination, specifically, our ability to imagine other times and cultures. At the same time, this imagining is always conditioned by our own time.”

    Riffing on this a little more, regarding point #2 and the re-pitching of these non-Western scales…I see this as a further gateway to imagination since he seems to be fabricating non-existent cultures and non-existent systems of music. There are some fascinating implications here as the mind continues to rove his world. Michael Moorcock, the multiverse, the Many Worlds Theory…all of them aint got nuthin on Dolden!

    This is a long segue into talking about his “Historical Imagination” works. This period is well represented on the Golden Dolden Box Set with the entire Histoires d’histoire album (of which I did a full write-up here and a single piece from the album here) as well as ten other works that fall into this chapter of the story. Not only is the music inspired by historical cultures, but he also explores some of the cultural myths of the time.

    I’m deviating slightly on a chronological basis since his “Nature” period came before the “Historical Imagination” compositions. I’ll double back to cover “Nature” in Part 6 when I wrap this whole thing up.

    https://pauldolden.bandcamp.com/track/dancing-plague

    “Dancing Plague” (2021), his most recent piece fits into this period. In Medieval Europe there was a strange phenomenon where large groups of people spontaneously broke into seemingly uncontrollable body movements resembling dance. This occurred shortly after the Black Death in the 1300’s and, to this day historians are not sure what the cause was. Various theories range from eating a psychoactive fungus called Ergot, to mass psychotic breaks, to demonic possession. Dolden’s piece provides a brilliantly depraved aural portrait of these bizarre happenings.

    “Dancing Plague” is based on a rhythmic foundation. The drums (and other pitched percussion) are ubiquitous, frenetic and completely appropriate in this historical imagination of which I can only believe must have been off the charts unhinged if you were living it! But it’s what’s happening on top of/between/within/around/underneath this latticework of rhythm that begs to be examined.

    Co-starring in this play is the human voice, and it’s used in a myriad of ways. The heinous (and I use that word in the most lovingly way possible) caterwauling is front and center, and whether those Medieval townsfolk and peasants were getting down with their bad plague infected selves or just exorcising their demons du jour, we’ll never know, but damm…some of this is beautifully disturbing.

    Peeling the onion back a little further there are other voices underneath our primary actors. With these, you must dig a little to appreciate what’s going on because they are lurking just below the manic whoopin and hollerin. These voices (If indeed that’s what they are, you never know with Dolden, do you?) are…humming. It’s like, the City Fathers got together and decided they needed a background chorus to add that little touch of “Baron Von Sinister” to keep this Feudal party going. It’s melodic, but certainly not in any tuning system I’ve ever heard. It’s also…happy, but happy like Evil Clown happy. Happy like Droogs on parade before they kick your teeth in happy. Happy like Mr. Blond doing a number on your ear whilst dancing to Stealers Wheel happy…you get the picture.

    Dolden may have moved on from his tsunami of sound but that doesn’t mean his current music lost any of its visceral mental and physical brawn. “Dancing Plague” ably demonstrates that the intensity is undeniably, still there!

    https://pauldolden.bandcamp.com/trac...ng-the-sublime

    The piece “Memorizing the Sublime” (2018-2019) examines two possible ways that music can lead the listener to a higher plateau of self-awareness. Not only can the intangibility of music excite the listener into such states, (this has been happening since time immemorial) but engaging our analytical mind with the music achieves similar results. Dolden puts it this way:

    “We can also engage music with our analytical brains memorizing patterns and creating associations that conjure a sense of understanding leading to a new consciousness, which is the essence of the Sublime experience.”

    Well, I can relate to that having been neck deep in Dolden music for several months now. Learning > Listening > Learning again > Listening again is a formula that enabled me to experience his music on a different, more lucid (notice I didn’t say “higher”) level than when I started listening to him over two decades ago. But that’s just me, everyone is different in trailblazing their own paths of discovery.

    The piece itself is more varied in terms of dynamics than “Dancing Plague”. It ebbs and flows in a somewhat predictable manner as it begins with massed chorus’s and heavy viscous dollops of tuned percussion of the gong-like variety. A good sub-woofer will enhance the power of this work considerably. I was personally drawn to the gorgeous, sustained drone of these metal objects, they gave the piece a very ritualistic, far eastern sacred temple feel.

    Somewhere around the halfway mark of this 15-minute work a full-blown percussion “orchestra” takes the stage…and we are back to the “packed to the gills” soundstage so prevalent in his music. Zooming in, I resort to one of my favorite past times…isolating instruments. (Please feel free to let the whole sound world wash over you as one giant wave of energy…that works too.) Dolden performs his usual magic at the mixing board where it’s possible to hear EVERYTHING in this crazed jigsaw puzzle of spectromorphology. I should be used to it by now, but it still blows my tiny humanoid mind to experience this. Is this what Elon Musk is planning to do to us with his neural links? Works for me!

    There are many other pieces during his “Historical Imagination” period I could, and probably should talk about but, time and space is limited. (Wow, I just realized how ironic that last sentence sounded when referring to Dolden music.) Stay tuned for Part 6, where we talk about his “Nature” pieces and end this story with some final thoughts.

    best
    Michael
    If it ain't acousmatique-It's crap

  24. #24
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    AMN Reviews: Paul Dolden – The Golden Dolden Box Set; Part 6 (2022; Bandcamp)

    View Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 of our coverage of this set.

    Welcome to Part 6 of this beast which will cover Paul Dolden’s “Nature” period (2004-to present). If you’ve been reading this series and have gotten this far, CONGRATS! If you were previously unfamiliar with his music, I sincerely hope I sparked some impetus to check him out and, if you were familiar, hopefully I provided a “value add” by including more insights into his amazing sound world. This will be the final installment.





    This period has two mid-length mixed pieces for various soloists and tape (available only on The Golden Dolden Box Set) and one very large-scale (mostly) fixed medium work which is split up into 15 bite sized segments clocking in at 52 minutes. This large-scale work, called “Who Has the Biggest Sound?” is what’s posted above and is on the self-titled album released by Starkland (2014). It will be the primary subject of this write-up.

    “My interest in nature sounds was in using it as a heuristic model for new musical behaviors. I needed new gestures that I would not think of if left to my own devices. I found these new behaviors or gestures in insect sounds we tend to ignore and find a nuisance. In this respect, insects and new music have a lot in common!”

    Other than a couple short sections during this sprawling work, Dolden’s “new musical behaviors” were not immediately apparent to me. I’ve had this album since its release in 2014 and I never made a connection that Nature and/or natural sounds were the prime mover of this material. The original album liner notes made references to his inspirations but, at least at the time of release, I was more distracted (in a good way) at this new sound that he developed. This was nothing like Délires de plaisirs and, if anything it harkened back to the angry, brutal tsunami of sound found in his earlier releases. The title itself, “Who Has the Biggest Sound” (bolding mine) served as a pretty obvious clue that there were no “overly saccharine choral arrangements” (quoting myself from Part 4).

    But that wasn’t quite right either. It wasn’t all that angry or brutal and, the tsunami might be just a big wave, albeit a REALLY big wave…the kind surfers crave. It turns out that Dolden’s connection with Nature on this album had more to do with rhythms and grooves that were informed by the natural world. In this case, the sound of Crickets (with a Dog army cameo).

    There is a whole lot of satirical humor on this record. Wow, that’s a change…up till now, one would never equate humor with Dolden’s music. In an earlier write-up I used the phrase “kitsch…but cool” which I think describes this work very well.

    The humor element is mostly delivered by the spoken word narration between some of the pieces. The first time I heard it I thought it was a distraction but, as usual, continued engagements with it became more meaningful. Currently, I now find this narration hysterically funny but, even more importantly…I now understand the narrator’s point. Who Has the Biggest Sound? It’s Nature…stupid!

    So, Crickets, Dogs, Cicadas…they all inform the tempo and grooves of this huge piece. The speeding up, the slowing down, it’s that Cricket voice in the composer’s head telling him what to do.

    You may be wondering at this point what “kind” of music Jiminy Cricket is controlling through his Pinocchio puppet with the Dolden face. Well, let’s start off by saying it really, truly does have a BIG ASS SOUND! The virtual choir, studio augmented up to the size of…I don’t know, several hundred voices sounding very much like Carl Orff on crystal meth lands a roundhouse kick to your torso early on. All kinds of utterly bizarre studio fuckery ensues and the result is one giant hallucinogenic crock pot of dazzling weirdness.

    “Who Has the Biggest Sound” demands a careful, alert, hyper-vigilant listen. The overall sound is pure Dolden, i.e., heavy on sonic detail with an intensely strong rhythmic presence acting as foundation as well as driving force.

    It’s not 100% fixed medium either, Dolden’s “Intoxicated by Speed” and “under heavy influence of the velocity of cricket chirping” guitar soloing pops up occasionally. Percussion has a huge presence which by now is a given in Dolden’s music…but this time it’s in the service of the groove as the Crickets scream “Everybody Dance Now”! Deconstructed sound events are re-assembled into dazzling displays of Fantasia-like wonderment. Natural sounds are stretched, molded and spat out into the gen-pop of musical insanity while the insectoid-headed, rockin combo of the Tremolo Trailblazers bring it all home around the campfire with “The Saddle Song”. The Freeway Jam session, the final denouement ends the piece with an air of mystery as Nature herself seems to dissipate into the doppler affected night.

    “Who Has the Biggest Sound” is a piece that just oozes character. As idiosyncratic as his music gets, this work probably leads the pack in that regard. It’s one massive skyscraper of peculiar idea’s rendered down to the most miniscule detail…all driven by the unstoppable force of Nature.

    It also may be his most “data intensive” work ever and serves as a big BOLD mic drop to end this exploration of Dolden music. So, coming out the other end, I can liken this entire journey to what it MUST be like living inside a 4-dimensional Tesseract. In other words, "talking about his music is like dancing about architecture". It needs to be experienced on a visceral level and even then, words break down and what’s left is a steaming pile of raw, smoldering synapses. (Please sir, may I have some more raw, smoldering synapses?)

    On a personal level, writing this series taught me a few things about his music and how to listen. First and foremost, with understanding comes appreciation. I’ll leave the word “understanding” vague in this case because it doesn’t matter what level you understand something, what does matter is that the listener forms an initial bond or understanding with the artist…it could be something triggered by the smallest detail, but it needs to be initiated by the listener. Once that happens, the feedback loop can start which could, and should lead to a higher level of appreciation. In writing this series, I feel I attained a much higher level of appreciation of his work than say, a few years ago. Was the work worth it? For me, absolutely!

    The deep listens that I’ve done of his music over the past few months have also, to some degree influenced how I take other music in. Specifically, ideas about acoustic sounds and natural sounds vs. synthetic, man-made sounds. I have noticed an increase in sensitivity with the way human emotions and feelings become translated into music. This is especially true when I throw on a jazz record.

    I’d like to conclude here by thanking Paul Dolden for graciously answering whatever questions I threw at him in preparation for writing some of this material. More importantly though, for creating this body of work that has not only proven to be the gift that keeps on giving but has also exposed new avenues to approaching, listening and enjoying music.

    Finally, I’m ecstatic to report that Paul is continuing to compose new adventures in sound:

    “I still compose every day; it is a form of mediation for me and a way of creating meaning in my life. That people are still listening is enough for me to continue. I still find musical ideas, and combinations. Whenever I think I have reached the end, I listen to someone's music, and it sparks off my own musical journey. I have two works on the go now. Both studio works. Each day they bring me joy as I go further in mastering the ideas behind the music and the music itself both in terms of line/rhythm/structure and sound quality.”

    Best news I’ve heard in a while…Bring it on!

    best
    Michael
    Last edited by neuroticdog; 02-14-2022 at 06:36 PM.
    If it ain't acousmatique-It's crap

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