The Rashomon show went well. Thanks to everyone who came out. Here are a few photos from my camera. I hope to get my hands on some video documentation soon.
I'm very excited to be a part of this upcoming music/dance performance:
The Rashomon Effect
Join Perpetual Mvmt<>Snd for the fifth installment of The Rashomon Effect, an ongoing performance series featuring an improvised score based on the storytelling method employed in Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film Rashomôn.
The term "Rashomon effect" refers to the effect of subjectivity on recollection, by which observers of an event are able to produce substantially different but equally plausible accounts of it.
Saturday, April 26 at 8PM
Mascher Space Coop
155 Cecil B. Moore Avenue (Map)
(Mascher Street and Cecil B. Moore Ave.)
Philadelphia, PA
$5
Movement: Allison Lorenzen, Jil Stifel, Emily Sweeney, Zornitsa Stoyanova, Daniele Strawmyre
Sound: Bilwa, Mikronesia, Rick Henderson, William Fields
Projections by Blaine Siegel
The Ruby-Leif continues to have some momentum. According to archive.org, we're currently at 772 downloads, and last.fm shows 2,959 listens for "William Fields" in general. In this vast internet world, it's fun to have some statistics to gauge the spread of the music.
Two new reviews came in recently as well. One is in German, which a colleague verbally translated for me, and she assures me it was very positive. The other one was very short and to the point, but also quite nice.
I'm continuing to work on some new material. Most are still sketches, but a few have potential for development into longer works. Stay tuned.
Another great review of The Ruby-Leif, from a local magazine "Out and About":
Arden’s William Fields takes to the ocean on new EP
On his new EP, The Ruby-Leif, Arden electronic composer William Fields lays out an experience containing the unpredictability, calm, danger, and comfort of an ocean. Each song is an individual experience within a larger one. The release opens with the sparkling “Sunwire,” which brings to mind a sunrise. As the song evolves, the beat strengthens and steadies, exploding into beaming echoes of sound and calming down again into a steady piano. Throughout his song-pieces, Fields knows how to keep listeners hooked by waiting for the shift and the change: He knows when to reel you in with the strength and complexity of his music but also when to let you drift along with its simplicities. The interlude “Umber” floats along before being grabbed by “Cairn,” which has a tone of uncertainty and danger most artists tend to avoid, let alone experiment with. Fields takes this feeling and wraps it around a steady grounding beat, never fully releasing it, and ends in static. The big finale, “The Ruby-Leif,” opens with spouts of sound that branch into a singular voice dancing over playful rhythm and melody. The song takes breaths, steadies, slows, stops the beat, brings it back, changes, crackles, and throws itself back into the dance again. And we’re more than willing to hang on for the ride.
Another review of The Ruby-Leif has come in from Tobias Fischer at Tokafi. This is my favorite bit:
"The Ruby-Leif is subtlely majestic electronica performed by a virtual jazz combo – Warp should take notice."
The first review of The Ruby-Leif has come in from Audiversity. Here are a few excerpts:
"The handful of songs present on this EP rely on a quiet storm of liquid bass grooves and synths with just a hint of reverb for maximum laid-back pleasure."
"Fields puts on a really smooth show, and it's evident not one full listen through that he's done this before."
"Fields has succeeded in releasing a free album that's worth more than that in both quality control and replay value."
I am happy to announce the release of my latest work The Ruby-Leif, a 5 track mini-album on the Kikapu net label. It's free to download, released under a creative commons license.
The Ruby-Leif is a return to my earlier Asoka/Branches style of beat-driven melodic electronic music, which is really my true love. Thanks to Brad at Kikapu for putting this out. Thanks to you for listening. I hope you enjoy it.
Timbre is now available on the new Amazon.com mp3 music store!
The release on the netlabel One seems to have fallen through. I'm now looking for a new home for it. Stay tuned.
New release coming soon, on the net label One!
I just finished reading an excellent book called This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys listening to, or creating music. It's probably the best book on music I have read.
Next up on the nightstand is Noise by Bart Kosko. Should be a nice counterpoint to the above.
I just heard that my latest album Timbre was nominated for best recording in Out & About Magazine's O&A Music Awards. It's a reader's choice awards type thing, so pop on over and vote if you feel so moved. Thanks!
Margaret Elizabeth Clarke-Fields was born on Saturday, February 24th at 6:45 am. At birth she was 6 lbs, 11 oz, and 18 inches tall.
We are all at home doing well, and filled with gratitude for being blessed with such a beautiful and healthy child.
It's been awhile. I've been busy on numerous fronts. The first and most important is that my wife and I are expecting a child in early March. I am very thankful that so far everything has gone smoothly and everyone is healthy.
The second is that I am learning to play the piano. We inherited an upright piano a couple of years ago, which I have been practicing on. It will be a long slow road, but I am very excited for the potential it brings. I feel like the mouse and keyboard is a very low-bandwidth conduit for getting the musical ideas out of my brain. Plus, it is just a joy to physically, directly, acoustically produce music with my body.
So, don't expect any new releases or performances any time soon. It's time for some woodshedding.
A nice review from e|i magazine's Darren Bergstein, part of a GoS label profile:
"Laptopper William Fields has only two prior releases to his credit, but third time must be a charm, because Timbre is a markedly assured piece of work, reflective of the glitch but not enslaved to it. Point of fact: Fields is not only obsessed with timbre (and texture) but revels in it, exploring a wide world of sounds as his fingers do the walkin' across the keyboard (or the mousepad, as it were). Fields considers himself a composer, and this is what separates him from a myriad of individuals getting up close and personal with their software. Sounds appear to be consciously placed rather than slathered on haphazardly; they fibrillate, glide, pulse delicately or suddenly buzz brightly, a horde of sonic fireflies peppering the night air. "Brechia (Erosion)" is particularly engrossing and recalls at moments some of Taylor Deupree's "abrasive" works, though the tonal colors illuminating the pop-py fields suggest melodic tendencies that too often fail to arise in the genre. Contrasts abound throughout, categorical divides are bridged, clichés abandoned—take note of the sparkling chime-like notes that imbue "Seaglass," which are just plain beautiful, echoing out from burrs of runout groove noise, or the lush machine hums of "Hivernal" as they surge amongst the sampled fauna of an autumnal forest. Timbre is a worthwhile follow-up to his previous Branches, and in execution parts of it is leagues ahead of some better-known colleagues' work; I look forward to further Fields recordings with much interest."