Joshua Carro - A Cyclic Symphony

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4...according to our Phil on Thu 09 Sep, 2010.

Somehow is a new label and they're doing wee runs of ambient/floaty/droney works in editions of 50 in slightly oversized CD packs. Here's the 1st of their choice morsels by a chap called Joseph Carro who is a sound artist from Phoenix, Arizona. 'A Cyclic Symphony' is split up into 6 parts and the whole album is full of those lush drones and tones that many of you fantasise about. Essentially it's drone music but there's quite a bit going on here as the music ebbs and flows quite a lot. It reminds me of some of the earlier Stars of The Lid stuff. Fans of Under The Spire, Home Normal, Hibernate etc should be excited by this.

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Joshua Michael Carro is a sound artist from Phoeonix, Arizona. Josh's expression in the ideal's of music belongs to his endless fascination with movements of air of inner self.

Joshua Carro's first outing on somehow-recordings takes us on a journey from 'cycle1 through cycle 6' Josh's ability to furnish fine abstract sound, that fills space is in it's self, remarkable. Aptly supported by Lauren Rausch on violin, this outing is a splendid brooding and sumptuous listening experience that last's for so much longer than anyone could wish for....

In The artists words:

The idea of simplicity is the most beautiful and most difficult concept to conceptualize in a work. This being because the idea of simplicity is one that is untainted by any unnatural touches. In honor of John Luther Adams, ‘Symphony of Light’ is an extension of a few simple conceptual ideas that i have discovered and slowly adapted in my newer works. This is what has always struck me about the perfect works of J.L.A. His works are simple in nature and concept but evolve into extremely complex bodies of sound. The genius of this concept is that we can let simplicity take its own life and create works and ideas that surpass our judgmental and conceited minds.

‘Symphony of Light’ is an electronic cyclic work made from a violin playing the G major scale with all notes at slightly different lengths. The concept of this work was to create a ‘looping’ electronic instrument for live performance in abelton live. Each note from the lowest G to the highest G were recorded with only two ideas in place. The violinist plays each note as a beautiful crescendo then decrescendo and as long as possible. This performance idea was somewhat adopted from the conceptual tempi and duration ideas of Morton Feldman’s ‘as quiet as possible’ and unconventional rhythms/notation. With this simple concept my electronic instrument creates its own tempo, harmonic development, and rhythmic pulse and the piece never sounds the same even though all the notes are being held in a loop.

Josh

tim said:

cheers phil, nice little review here, artist happy, we happy.....

So, what do you think? Best reviewer each month gets £10 off their next order!