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CD
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RM 4125CD
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David Shea's The Thousand Buddha Caves explores his deep and continuous interest in the nexus of eastern and western musical forms. The recording charts his life-long fascination with the caves and their connection to sound, ritual and Buddhist teachings. The record transposes those interests and is an evocation to the mythologies spinning forth from the caves.
A note from David: "My path to the caves began when I was about 14, with my passion for reading Taoist, Buddhist and Zen texts, my love of Hong Kong films, Bruce Lee's influence, martial arts more broadly and meditation practice which has continued since that time. In 1980 the series of films The Silk Road produced as a collaboration between NHK television in Japan and CCTV in China explored areas of the 'Silk Road' in great detail and knocked me sideways. It laid the foundation for a life of exploring what these trading routes were and what the reality of the people living along it, travelers on it and the culture, music, art, history and rituals they created. My works Hsi -Yu Chi, The Tower of Mirrors, Satyricon and Rituals were all recordings based on adaptations of the myths, historical adaptations and connections to the many trading routes throughout the ancient world and its connection and relevance to current technological culture, through the process of building a new work on the structure of an existing novel, film adaptations or sets of ritual practices. The more I explored the specific history of the trading route from ancient Xian to Rome, the clearer it became that the Silk Road itself was a myth, a simplified 19th century explanation for a vast and very complex network of information, religious teachings, economic trade, spices and silks etc. that involved thousands of tribes, nation states, indigenous cultures, belief systems and spanned what only much later historically do we now speak of as the divide between east and west. The mountain of archaeological finds and research over the last two centuries is just beginning to be unraveled and the complexity of the purposes of the trade routes is exposing many new connections between the ancient realities of Africa, Asia, India, Europe and the Pacific region. The trading was contact and interest in difference, what does your culture have that we need, an economy of difference with less need to synthesize the traditions than to find practical connections to the value each culture may or may not have for another culture..."
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2LP
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SR 094LP
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25 years ago, David Shea released a crafty piece of complex philosophical and narrative audio collage: The Tower of Mirrors. Composed and produced in New York City, during September-October 1995, it includes 24 tracks, and features guests such as David Morley on analog synthesizer programming, Dave Douglas on trumpet, Zeena Parkins on piano and prepared piano, and Jim Pugliese on percussions. This is what David Shea had to say about it in 1995: "In 1994, I wrote a work based on the Hsi-Yu Chi novel for a large ensemble and sampler which used the 100 chapters as a map for creating an independent musical work. The Tower of Mirrors is a work that began as a collection of pieces for sampler solo and for sampler and solo instrumentalist. A series of 'mirrors' for solos and duos based on parts of the novel. Also, a collection of tributes to composers in ambient dance music, exotica, easy listening film music and experimental music formed separate points of entry. In particular, many of the great arrangers and composers of the period from 1955-64 who were the pioneers of stereo recording such as: Esquivel, Marty Gold, The Three Suns, André Popp..." 2019, looking into the (in)side mirror, David Shea says more about this particular experiment: "I'm reflecting today on the period of my life where I was immersed in the Chinese mythological Taoist/Buddhist stories of the Monkey King - Sun Wu Kung - titled, in English, The Journey to the West. I was also lost in sea of Hong Kong films and living in New York working in many of John Zorn's projects (Elegy being one of many high points) . . . Tower of Mirrors became a defining cross into to the last 20 years of my life. I felt thrown into the ethersphere during the years of 94-95 myself and I could not be more grateful to have created during and survived that time. I collaborated with so many during my travels and the credits are full of the people I was so lucky to have crossed paths with. I began a different path soon after this, with my interest in exploring Italian and Irish roots and reflecting on my teenage years of studying Taoism, Chan Buddhism, meditation, and martial arts and what followed was a long period of influence from Giacinto Scelsci and Luc Ferrari to traditional Chinese and Buddhist music..." The Tower of Mirrors was the third album of David Shea released by Sub Rosa.
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CD
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RM 476CD
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David Shea presents Piano 1. From David Shea: "The piano has been an instrument that has woven its way in and out of my life since I was a child. I grew up listening to great classical and jazz players, prepared piano and electronic experiments, extended techniques and later the incredible works of Boulez, Stockhausen, Cage, Ligeti, Ferrari, Feldman, Xenakis and Scelsi. I had written for and worked with many great pianists and created ensemble works with piano and electronics where I was given the freedom to write complex pieces for gifted musicians and technical masters. Although I would often compose on piano and use simpler piano works in my own solo concerts I had never dedicated myself to a path of the endless intense practice of a single instrument that these pianists had. I always wanted to stay on the level of composing for the whole of a work and not potentially get lost in the maze of technical issues that these musicians excelled at. And then one day Lawrence English suggested that I put out a CD of piano works. I had recorded, on many of my other CDs, extended piano pieces with good pianists so I thought 'piano solo pieces, all acoustic'. A real challenge when so much has been written for such an iconic instrument, one so loaded with historical weight. What I didn't realize at the time was that Lawrence was asking me to be the pianist. This is not only something I never considered but although I've always played and performed on keyboards in my solo and ensemble works, I never took on the huge task of being able to play the technically challenging (at least by my standards) the type of scores I had written for others. So I spent the next year unraveling my past approach to composing for piano and explored my own physical technique. No preparations, no samples, no extended electronics or reliance on my past sample acoustic techniques. The result of this year of practice, writing, listening, exploring and recording is this CD. Whether or not it is significant that a work is purely acoustic, prepared or electro-acoustically treated, fully composed or improvised, extended or played traditionally, etc., were not the central issues for me, it was this time spent with the piano, the ritual of playing and this re-working of my own physical and conscious process that forms the core of these pieces."
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CD
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RM 461CD
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USA-born, now Australian-based composer David Shea is perhaps best recognized for his connections to John Zorn and the NYC downtown scene. In 2014, he returns with a new edition of outer-wave electro-acoustic deconstructions. Semiotic acoustic renderings, like dreams you lose before waking. From David Shea: "These pieces have been recorded over the last five years; combining ensembles of acoustic and electronic instruments, samples, and field recordings made in Australia and composed during my time living in Melbourne. In this period I have immersed myself in traditional ritual music centered on Buddhist and Taoist traditions as well as the work of Luc Ferrari and Giacinto Scelsi. The Rituals here are influenced by ceremonial rituals as well as internal and personal ones and pieces, which have combined the oldest and newest technologies. The character of the ritual puts the experience of listening at the center of the works, immersion in the experience of the sound as the focus. As the field of Cymatics has shown us in recent times, sound vibrations have effects on physical matter in specific ways, related to the frequencies, harmonics, time, relationship with space and the listener, something traditional healers, and those working with sound and music, have been aware of for a very long time. The ears are only one part of this extended network of hearing and the body and its senses are in constant communication with internal and external realities and beliefs. Scelsci explored this deeply in his music exposing how much life exists in a single sound and how many layers are involved in any relationship with that sound. Ferrari's work has always shown me that the connection between a composer of music, a recorder of sound and the use of the studio or electronics as physical instruments, is a process of exploring both musical structure and the full immersion in the experience of vibration (sound, light, movement) constantly around us. The Ritual forms that I explore here are a relationship between these influences, both real and imagined, with a combination of traditional instruments, samplers and electronic instruments. This weaving of these materials into patterns of layered histories, traditions, styles, techniques and the inseparable internal experience of composing them led to the hybrid of forms which each piece explores." Features contributions from Oren Ambarchi, Joe Talia, Scanner, Lawrence English, and Girish Makwana.
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CD
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SR 224CD
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New York to Australia expat/turntablist/sampler wizard/composer David Shea returns to Sub Rosa with his seventh release for the label, Book of Scenes. Throughout his career, David Shea has collaborated on projects with the likes of such experimental/new music luminaries as John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Zeena Parkins, Jim Pugliese, Ikue Mori and Anthony Coleman. Through his work one might find equally steady fascinations for audio-collage, contemporary music, easy-listening, jazz, soundtrack, traditional music, and classical music, used in complex amalgamations of genres and cultural references. He employs compositional methods from contemporary classical composers and early electronic experimentalists such as Iannis Xenakis, Giacinto Scelsi, Gyorgi Ligeti, Morton Feldman, as well as many film composers such as Bernard Herrmann and Henry Mancini. This new release consists of specific atmospheric tracks; a kind of open book, an open music film... a true composed work of high-level classical sampler music! The Book of Scenes is a collection of pieces for viola and piano. Each piece is a single scene, scored on a single page, placing the players and the instruments in different situations and relationships to each other. Incorporated within this framework, the players experiment with sampled recordings of themselves as well as the electronic environment they perform in. The work can be played in any order and the sequence is chosen beforehand by the players. The scenes explore solo and duo playing, with musical roles placed inside of shifting contexts, many related to visual references, films and iconic memories. This record presents Book I -- the first 29 pieces performed live with some scenes constructed electronically from samples and memories of other scenes. Many of the sections are visual in nature, for example -- the alto player bows his instrument while the pianist places his hands on the viola neck and chooses the notes to be played, followed by the alto player placing his hands inside the piano to mute the pianist's notes as well as a scene where the players are blindfolded. These scenes have been replaced by electronic manipulations of the live performance. The result is a flow of relationships and scored or scripted scenes living between the orchestration of the acoustic instruments and the electronic characters they engage with.
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CD
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QS 112CD
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"David Shea released several masterpieces for Sub Rosa within a few years. I, The Prisoner, Tower of Mirrors, Satyricon, Eastern Western Collected Works which gave an idea of what this unique 'samplermaster' is capable of. Through his work one might find at the same time ability and fascination for audio-collage, contemporary music, easy-listening, jazz, soundtrack, traditional music and so much more. This new album is the first to be released on Sub Rosa's twin label Quatermass. These three new pieces are taken from the performances of recent solo work developed since the creation of the first solo CD I. The pieces were composed and performed on the sampler as solo live performances, which has been the focus of work made in 2000. Triptych's focus is on scored material for live musicians recorded, composed and performed on the sampler with combinations of electronic and collage sources in the form of a sampled large ensemble. The works as a whole represents a shift towards an exploration of an orchestration between live instruments, sampled live musicians, collaged recordings and sampler playing techniques in the form of solo composition and performance."
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CD
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SR 134CD
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"The pieces on this recording have been written and recomposed on the sampler during the late 1997 period. The pieces reflect a group of works which use focused materials and combine a more physical and personal approach to the sampler combined with connections to acoustic classical traditions, both eastern and western."
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