Liner Notes
These two musical pieces were recorded in the evening of November 6 and morning of November 7, 2009 as they were performed live to the internet radio audience of Stillstream.com from Common Sound Studio in Decatur, Georgia. The musicians had never performed together as a group before this performance and no preparations were done prior to the broadcast except for choosing keys and tempos.
Nottingham, U.K.-based Jez Creek of Modulator ESP fame was in Atlanta as part of his U.S. tour, where he would be performing at the November 7 City Skies Electronic Music event organized by Jim Combs, and was hosted for his stay at the home of Kevin Haller, another City Skies performer. The three decided to do a live group improvisation for Stillstream.com the night before City Skies, and these edited recordings are the result.
Combs Creek and Haller
Jim Combs, aka Sensitive Chaos, was voted “Best Local Electronic Act” for 2007 and 2005 and Runner-up for 2009, by readers of Atlanta’s Creative Loafing. Radio station KKUP 91.5 FM in Cupertino, CA selected his albums as the “Best Visionary Music of 2009 & 2007. The first song played on January 1, 2010 on NPR/XM Radio syndicated Hearts Of Space radio program was an excerpt from Jim’s Sensitive Chaos song “Fifty Light Years From Home.” And New Age Reporter awarded his first album as one of the “Top 12 Best Ambient/Spacemusic/Electronica Recordings of 2006”. His ambient, down-tempo music is consistently played on radio stations around the world and has most recently been heard on Hearts Of Space, Echoes, Space Station Soma FM and cliqhop IDM, and Stillstream.com. Jim is also the founder and coordinator for the City Skies Electronic Music events held monthly in Decatur, Georgia.
Jez Creek performs as Modulator ESP, an outlet for his improvisational electronic music. He composes using synthesizers, sequencers and samplers and spends far too much time on sound design. He likes a wide range of music from ambient electronica to thrash metal via all points between and tends to like weird or progressive stuff. He listens to music because it takes him away from the humdrum reality of everyday life and into new worlds of imagination. He plays music so he can design his own new worlds. He is happy to include in his musical influences such diverse acts as Airsculpture, Dream Theater, IQ, Jean Michel Jarre, Radio Massacre International, Redshift, Tangerine Dream and Yes. Jez is also a performing member of Astrogator, Cerberus and Quadra and does stuff for Awakenings, Neusonik, and Hampshire Jam ‘Jam’ musical events.
http://www.modulator-esp.co.uk/
Kevin Haller’s moniker for the variety of artistic and musical endeavors is Burning Artist(s) Sale. Alter egos include Killer Haven, a grizzled guitar slinging rocker that prefers to stay in his bunker making videos. KVpop writes catchy hooks, but until recently was too afraid to let friends or colleagues help him put finishing touches on his compositions. K love writes music intended for dance clubs old and new. eleK troniK is an ambient and experimental sound sculptor. Burning Artist occasionally performs as a solo artist (and is even sometimes usurped by Killer Haven), but prefers the dynamic of group interaction. Recent musical involvement has been with the Robert Cheatham Quartet, a regrouped BAS (w/ Barbara Vesey), both City Skies & Different Skies “All Star” jams, and a re-united Amalgamated Cliff Divers. Burning Artist is proud to have played at EYEDRUM’s First Thursday Open Improv for more years than he can remember. Past bands have included GFE, Random Violets, Harper Fragment, Empty V, MASTERCOW, and TOAST.
http://www.myspace.com/burningartistssale
Earman Net Release Text
earman115 – Combs Creek Haller – Singularity
As we’ve written many times, one of the great pleasures of running a netlabel is to meet new artists and release their music. A related pleasure that is in many ways even cooler is to be able to release something for the first time by folks you already know and love. It is precisely that honor that we have today, with this majestic new release called “Singularity”.
This magnificent two-disc album was recorded live the evening of November 6 and into the morning of November 7, 2009. It so happened that Jez Creek, who calls Nottingham in the United Kingdom home, was visiting in the Atlanta, Georgia area as part of his USA tour, in order to perform at the City Skies electronic music concert on November 7. Kevin Haller, whose house Jez was staying at, was also performing at the same concert. And Jim Combs, being the organizer and founder of the concert series, was of course going to be performing as well. So just for fun, the three decided to do a live concert on StillStream.com the night before the big show. And the results were so good that they decided to release the recordings as this album.
Amazingly, given the quality of the pieces, the music was completely improvised. The musicians had never performed together as a group before this set and no preparations were done prior to the broadcast except for choosing keys and tempos. Somehow these three artists who had never played together at the same time, and had done almost nothing to prepare, immediately found a zone in which electronic ambient music of the highest order started pouring forth. Needless to say, the audience that night was blown away by the set, and we think that our listeners are going to be similarly impressed by what they hear in “Singularity”.
For indeed, this is some of the most beautiful live ambient music we have heard in quite awhile. Earth Mantra has long been a fan of all three of the artists’ solo work, but we were dumbfounded by the synergy the three artists found so effortlessly as they sat down to play. Improvising live ambient music can be a challenging task, and to do it really well, with the right balance of patience and activity, is surprisingly hard. The fact that these three artists could hit such a bullseye, with zero preparation and without the benefit of knowing each other’s live playing styles, is in our eyes nothing short of miraculous.
We could attempt to describe this music to you, but ultimately we would fail. Suffice it to say that it is beautiful, it is well constructed, very competently performed, and it just plain rocks. Better yet, why not download a copy of this album right now and give it a listen for yourself. We are certain that any fan of ambient music will be very happy they did.
As always, all Earth Mantra releases are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license. For commercial use, please contact us.
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Music performed live on StillStream.com on November 7, 2009 by Jim Combs, Jez Creek, and Kevin Haller at Common Sound Studio in Decatur, Georgia, USA.
Released in February 2010.
Released under the “Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported” license, which allows and encourages free use of this material so long as certain conditions are met. Details of this license can be found at:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
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earman115 – Combs Creek Haller – Singularity
1:44:36 – 243 MB
Disc 1 – 59:13
01 – Approaching Singularity (59:13, 138.8 MB)
Disc 2 – 45:23
01 – Trapped Inside Singularity (45:23, 106.3 MB)