About The Musicians
Don Campau
Don Campau is an experimental DIY artist from the San Francisco Bay area. He has been recording and distributing his own music since 1970 - his debut LP "The Roots Of Madness" from 1970 is considered a pioneering effort in the American experimental underground. During the late 1970s and into the 1980s, Don became one of the major figures (along with artists like R. Stevie Moore) in what is now referred to as the "Cassette Culture" scene. Cassette tape networking became a way for the International underground music scene to trade tapes among artists, publish zines about the music, and otherwise flourish outside the commercial music industry. Don helped bring wider recognition to this phenomenon for over 20 years via his long running Bay area radio show "No Pigeonholes" on KKUP FM. Don's music ranges from experimental pop and rock to electronic soundscapes and free noise
"A master of the miniature electro-acoustic song-poem, a
form he has more or less invented and crystallised himself, his work displays a sardonic wit combined
with a healthy misanthropy in micro-collages of voice, instruments, samples, and electronics.”
It takes a while to enter Pete Um's world: his songs are brief, dense and ramshackle; he revels in a reviewer's dismissal of his live act as "grindingly awkward shithop", and wears his self-doubt on his sleeve
Lo-fi contrarian and tireless enemy of mundanity
There’s a current of humourous playfulness to the music, and Um isn’t really a man who could be accused of taking himself too seriously, but that’s tempered by a quite wistful, nostalgic psych-pop feel, with the lyrics often being somewhat introspective and self-deprecating. It’s a weird patchwork of sampley trip-hop, vintage computer sounds and thoughtful lyrics, but this seems more laboured-over than his previous works and to good effect.
Words are shifted around to make new sentences, new meanings; a Rubic Cube of words. Sometimes it’s something that’s a little bit like poetry, but not quite – synonymic and phonetic shifts – almost puns – other/times it’s like he’s talking to himself, chatting to dead air, open-mic over Rustic Crunk, joshing imaginary friends, drinking, playfully critiquing himself or getting annoyed by something that might (or might not) have happened earlier that day
M
A prolific photographer, videographer, and musician
François Couperin
a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as Couperin le Grand ("Couperin the Great") to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family.
Couperin acknowledged his debt to the Italian composer Corelli.
His most famous book, L'art de toucher le clavecin ("The Art of Harpsichord Playing", published in 1716), contains suggestions for fingerings, touch, ornamentation and other features of keyboard
technique.
These volumes were admired by Johann Sebastian Bach, who exchanged letters with Couperin, and later by Brahms and by Ravel, who memorialized their composer in Le Tombeau de Couperin
Johannes Brahms's piano music was influenced by the keyboard music of Couperin
Svarta Stugan
The ignition was a spark of inspiration from TV-series Twin Peaks and movie Blade Runner. The Swedish twee-noise/post-rock trio ”Svarta Stugan” started in 2012 with the release of their self-titled debut ”Svarta Stugan Ep”. The debut was a blend of cinematic themes, dreamy soundscapes and their signature twee-noise sound. Their second EP, “EP2: A Mutation and a madness”, was released the following year. EP2 told the tale of a man dragged down into HP Lovecraftian nightmare as reality started to mutate around him. Facing the demons of his past, he did in the end return to the surface but as a mere shadow of his former self. EP2 had a darker sound than it´s predecessor.
This fall the trilogy of EP:s will be complete with ”EP3: Aspects of our future selves”. Once again the influences of Blade Runner and Twin Peaks can be heard but there is also sounds reminiscing of bands like Radiohead and God Speed You! Black Emperor. The set of songs on this EP can be seen as paintings, structures or silhouettes (if you will) of different aspects of our future lives
Steve Kusaba
"The experience of music can by much deeper than just humming a tune. The deeper that music is installed in ones mind, the more profound the effects can.
I have experienced over many decades that ones relationship to different pieces of music grows, morphs, shrinks and can take on staggering proportions.
When one first makes contact with a piece or group of them which has great scope, its first effects might be that of slight amusement. Much of the piece being felt as a sort of a soup. With not enough familiarity a person can be a little adrift as to what is going on. What is needed is for the music to be installed properly in the mind, where it knows well the contours and how it works.
An individual song might be brain mapped fairly quickly (or not) but its huge brethren might take on many shapes over the years. The sweet spot usually is (for most things you say about music, the art form which loves paradoxes, there is always an exception) when one is so familiar with it, you could stop it anywhere and the mind would fill in what comes next, (strongly brain mapped) and where it is fresh because one has not heard it in a while. Thus spending a lot of time getting to know it and then attempting to forget about it so it is extremely well known subconsciously and forgotten a bit consciously and thus, very fresh.
You can wear out even the best music by playing it too much. Your pleasure centers will inform you as to the best number of passes for each selected time frame.
Music can give powerful pulls much like some strong chemicals. It is the opposite of chemicals in that the more you use it the more powerful it gets and there is no dilution of effect. Some pieces are much more powerful than others as is obvious but strangely they can take on degrees of power which change based on outer variables.
There is something about hearing a piece when one is rested, elated, in sorrow or despair, anger, cynicism, ennui and any other number of conditions. The mood can fuel the music and the music can fuel the mood. Daylight, night, while painting, while hiking or biking, at home, at work or play, the interactions dance together as if choreographed. You can have runners high while mountain hiking, come over the ridge and be blasted by an amazing sunset which effects the mood which had been overwhelming you for sometime. Add more inputs. The number of factors effecting our musical experience is limitless.
Mystical mental states, natural or not can create astounding experiences when wedded to the correct music. One can go so deep into their core as to find it hard to return from there sometimes. It can be quite rewarding, exhilarating and slightly (in a good way) frightening.
I began some years ago to write music designed specially for these states of mind, with the intention of developing them and assisting in peoples journey to unknown places and regions of growth, harmony and jagged disruption.
Modern sound pioneers have aided the process by creating very deep and complex sounds to work with, sounds which add to the canvas of experience with other instruments. The most compelling works in this area are greatly aided by the music pioneer learning the pieces very well over time. Their method of interaction should be dictated by their knowledge of themselves and their preferences.
I have used much of this music to go under very deep and it is my hope that others can gain in such a way also. To traverse alien landscapes, see shapes never imagined and to have their consciousness opened up."