In a River the Color of Lead

In a River the Color of Lead was released by NOREMIXES in March 2015. It was pressed to vinyl thanks to the support of a successful Kickstarter campaign

Press release from the label about the record:

In a River the Color of Lead follows Mikronesia’s, Quiescent, which was a sprawling eight hour suite of music that patterned itself after the four sleep cycles and was meant to be experienced as a companion to a full night’s sleep or in smaller doses during meditation or yoga. Using that as a reference point, In a River the Color of Lead feels like the colorful awakening from Quiescent’s sleep state. The first piece, ‘Unfolder’ is a nearly twenty minute journey with waves of piano, organ and synthesizers which organically create intricate, cascading melodies. In Mikronesia’s words, “(by the end) the listener is completely engulfed in a river of thick sound.”

The following three works showcase a much more introspective and delicate compositional style, with Mikronesia using acoustic piano processed via iPad and computer. There is a stillness to these pieces which compliments the density of ‘Unfolder’, and by the time ‘Sotapanna’ concludes, there’s a real sense of closure for In a River the Color of Lead, decidedly Mikronesia’s most personal music expression to date.

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Improvised performance using piano and the iPad application Samplr. Merging technologies from different centuries, composer and sound artist Mikronesia creates a real-time soundscape of sampled and live piano tones.

Camera and lighting: Dan Tabor
Performance and Editing: Mikronesia

More about the App: samplr.net

Host

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Sound artist Mikronesia has embarked on his stillest and most minimal album to date. Host is a two part tale of journeying. The first track contains field recordings taken from a winter camping trip at World’’s End State Park. Part one (“Snow Wind Cast Into The Fire Well”) explores the art of texture, using minimal chord changes and melody but presenting them in contrast to the textured field recordings. The second part uses pure sine waves to explore the overtone series of the note “C”. “Pure” uses clean sound to create a state of timeless stillness, slowly tearing apart the very fabric of tone.

Available from bandcamp

Assembling Minutiae

For the Philadelphia Fringe Festival in 2008. I composed a piece of music called “Pure” for a new dance / film piece by my colleagues Perpetual Mvmt<>Snd. The music I came up with was a slowly building wash of sine waves that uses frequencies found in the note middle C on the piano. The hypnotic sequence builds slowly and almost inaudibly as the lowest frequencies are introduced.

The live dance performance (by Emily Sweeney) was presented at NEXUS/Foundation for Today’s Art at the Crane Arts building. The set was designed by interdisciplinary artist bilwa. The minimal white washed film was created by Blaine Seigel and had movement by Emily Sweeney, Rebecca Patek and Jil Stifel.

Below is an excerpt from the film.

Assembling Minutiae (Excerpt) from Michael McDermott on Vimeo.

vxvii

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This is one of my person favorite recordings I’ve ever done. It was one of the first things I recorded in our new studio in the house we bought in 2006. The album was described by label kaki as “experimental, shuffling ambient and glitching sound scapes”. It was released on the kikapu net label in 2008, which has since closed up shop. It was downloaded nearly 20,000 times since it’s release. It’s now available on bandcamp as a “pay what you wish” release.

Written and produced by Mikronesia

Available from bandcamp

Tissue Paper Ghosts

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Tissue Paper Ghosts was my first official Mikronesia album released on Gear of Sand in February of 2006. The album is a loose concept album based on the psychic remains of a car crash. It was a real time capsule for where I was sonically at that time. It contains lots of DSP and computer based glitch processing of synthesizers, voices and percussion. The late musician, artist and spiritual traveler Flakes added some vocals to the track “Long Walk Up 611”. The album was very well received in the press and several choreographers have used tracks from TPG for their scores. Here’s a press release from Gear of Sand.

Tissue Paper Ghosts is a work of breathtaking ethereal ambient glitch. Mikronesia’s sound has flashes of Monolake and others in the world of clicks and cuts and trance-like minimal techno, but as a professionally trained musician with a keen sense of melody and rhythm he is able to really catapult his musical vision into a very special zone of listening. Originally released on Gears of Sand (GOS13).

Music and production: Mikronesia
Ghost vocals on “Long Walk Up 611”: Flakes
Mastered by Ben Fluery-Steiner

Available from bandcamp