Passiflora
marţi, iulie 24, 2007
Download for your pleasure: the "Slumber" Mini-Album
The divinely talented Derek Ecklund, impresario of long-time Oregon group Mesmer, has collaborated with me recently. We played at "The Language of Slumber" event at the Enteractive Language Festival in Portland, and at the Dark Arts Festival/AVA fundraiser in Astoria.
"Slumber" was recorded at Mesmer's studio in Astoria (the town is largely the subject matter for my lyric-making. And hey, I'm about to move there, at least part-time). There's a little something for everyone on there, assuming "everyone" is a spaced out ethereal opiate-dreaming poet. As usual, this is live & improvised, unmastered, (and long & uncut!). It works best to listen to all the songs in one go, in the order below:
Columbia Mouth • Alpha Waves I • The Sea (Pt One) • The Sea (Pt Two)
The Lighthouse • The Nursery • Longboat • Picture
The divinely talented Derek Ecklund, impresario of long-time Oregon group Mesmer, has collaborated with me recently. We played at "The Language of Slumber" event at the Enteractive Language Festival in Portland, and at the Dark Arts Festival/AVA fundraiser in Astoria.
"Slumber" was recorded at Mesmer's studio in Astoria (the town is largely the subject matter for my lyric-making. And hey, I'm about to move there, at least part-time). There's a little something for everyone on there, assuming "everyone" is a spaced out ethereal opiate-dreaming poet. As usual, this is live & improvised, unmastered, (and long & uncut!). It works best to listen to all the songs in one go, in the order below:
The Lighthouse • The Nursery • Longboat • Picture
sîmbătă, iulie 07, 2007
LOTSA STUFF AT WWW.MAGDALEN.COM
hello all... in case you are interested in the non-musickal things i get up to, most of my stuff is at www.magdalen.com, including updates about publishing projects, performances, etc.
random ramblings can be found at Interdisciplinary Mayhem...
i'm also editing 2GQ and co-editing PLAZM magazine.
xo
tiffany a.k.a. Passiflora
hello all... in case you are interested in the non-musickal things i get up to, most of my stuff is at www.magdalen.com, including updates about publishing projects, performances, etc.
random ramblings can be found at Interdisciplinary Mayhem...
i'm also editing 2GQ and co-editing PLAZM magazine.
xo
tiffany a.k.a. Passiflora
luni, octombrie 23, 2006
Women Take Back the Noise: now available
The incredible "Women Take Back the Noise" compilation (Ubuibi Records) is finally out. My track "Belly," with Gail Buchanan, appears under my music name, Passiflora.
Ninah Pixie put together this three-CD set of experimental and noise oriented female musicians, including Cosey Fanni Tutti (Throbbing Gristle, Chris and Cosey, Coum Transmissions) and Fe-Mail. Pixie also soldered together one of the wildest pieces of packaging you have ever experienced! It has its own bit of circuit bending in the form of a "noise cookie"; you can fondle the clitlike metal at the center of a flower to make delightful tweaks of noise. It's even got a line out. Yay! Very limited edition of 1000, numbered; includes stickers, pouch, and other finery.
The incredible "Women Take Back the Noise" compilation (Ubuibi Records) is finally out. My track "Belly," with Gail Buchanan, appears under my music name, Passiflora.Ninah Pixie put together this three-CD set of experimental and noise oriented female musicians, including Cosey Fanni Tutti (Throbbing Gristle, Chris and Cosey, Coum Transmissions) and Fe-Mail. Pixie also soldered together one of the wildest pieces of packaging you have ever experienced! It has its own bit of circuit bending in the form of a "noise cookie"; you can fondle the clitlike metal at the center of a flower to make delightful tweaks of noise. It's even got a line out. Yay! Very limited edition of 1000, numbered; includes stickers, pouch, and other finery.
Women Take Back the Noise: now available
The incredible "Women Take Back the Noise" compilation (Ubuibi Records) is finally out. My track "Belly," with Gail Buchanan, appears under my music name, Passiflora.
Ninah Pixie put together this three-CD set of experimental and noise oriented female musicians, including Cosey Fanni Tutti (Throbbing Gristle, Chris and Cosey, Coum Transmissions) and Fe-Mail. Pixie also soldered together one of the wildest pieces of packaging you have ever experienced! It has its own bit of circuit bending in the form of a "noise cookie"; you can fondle the clitlike metal at the center of a flower to make delightful tweaks of noise. It's even got a line out. Yay! Very limited edition of 1000, numbered; includes stickers, pouch, and other finery.
The incredible "Women Take Back the Noise" compilation (Ubuibi Records) is finally out. My track "Belly," with Gail Buchanan, appears under my music name, Passiflora.Ninah Pixie put together this three-CD set of experimental and noise oriented female musicians, including Cosey Fanni Tutti (Throbbing Gristle, Chris and Cosey, Coum Transmissions) and Fe-Mail. Pixie also soldered together one of the wildest pieces of packaging you have ever experienced! It has its own bit of circuit bending in the form of a "noise cookie"; you can fondle the clitlike metal at the center of a flower to make delightful tweaks of noise. It's even got a line out. Yay! Very limited edition of 1000, numbered; includes stickers, pouch, and other finery.
miercuri, iunie 22, 2005
Hey, we just made something cool.
The incredibly good-lucking, funny, and fashionable producer and musician Gail Buchanan just needs to wash her jeans. OK. No really. Together Gail and I just finished two mixes of a very cool track called "Belly." And "Belly: The Sustained Odd Play Mix." I'd offer you an MP3, but the track is destined for the Ubuibi Records compilation Women Take Back the Noise, and exec producer ninah from Big City Orchestra has requested that we keep the tracks exclusive. Woo!
Other musicians include Cosey Fanni Tutti and lots o' other yawning and snorting women. Just like Gail. She is dictating half of this to me, can you tell?
The incredibly good-lucking, funny, and fashionable producer and musician Gail Buchanan just needs to wash her jeans. OK. No really. Together Gail and I just finished two mixes of a very cool track called "Belly." And "Belly: The Sustained Odd Play Mix." I'd offer you an MP3, but the track is destined for the Ubuibi Records compilation Women Take Back the Noise, and exec producer ninah from Big City Orchestra has requested that we keep the tracks exclusive. Woo!
Other musicians include Cosey Fanni Tutti and lots o' other yawning and snorting women. Just like Gail. She is dictating half of this to me, can you tell?
miercuri, iunie 30, 2004
Smokin' Crack
Could it be that the accusations of Satanic backmasking were true? Is Brainwarmer's Bee Side a work of the Debbil himself? The only way to find out is to listen to Bee Side: Crack-2 Mix, made from the original, forward-facing tapes.
Could it be that the accusations of Satanic backmasking were true? Is Brainwarmer's Bee Side a work of the Debbil himself? The only way to find out is to listen to Bee Side: Crack-2 Mix, made from the original, forward-facing tapes.
miercuri, iunie 23, 2004
Linking Lovelies + DNA
Eric Hausmann (now playing Chapman Stick with Portland's Tres Gone power-improv trio) produced this Ambienesque song at his home studio, and then let me name it Disaster Narrowly Averted. I'm not sure, but I think the source tracks are from Nyack and Bee Side. All three songs are on the Brainwarmer album.
Also, I want to thank Warren Ellis for bein' a fan and linking to Nyack from his very popular blog, Die Puny Humans. Nice to have all those people listening.
Eric Hausmann (now playing Chapman Stick with Portland's Tres Gone power-improv trio) produced this Ambienesque song at his home studio, and then let me name it Disaster Narrowly Averted. I'm not sure, but I think the source tracks are from Nyack and Bee Side. All three songs are on the Brainwarmer album.
Also, I want to thank Warren Ellis for bein' a fan and linking to Nyack from his very popular blog, Die Puny Humans. Nice to have all those people listening.
miercuri, iunie 09, 2004
Your Limbs Collapse in Angles All Around Me.
Another -- surprise! -- live improvisation, with Enrique Ugalde (guitar), Equinoxe (keys), and Larold Will (drums), all of Black Orchid. As usual, pardon the tape hiss & all that... Here's Collapse in Angles.
Another -- surprise! -- live improvisation, with Enrique Ugalde (guitar), Equinoxe (keys), and Larold Will (drums), all of Black Orchid. As usual, pardon the tape hiss & all that... Here's Collapse in Angles.
sîmbătă, mai 29, 2004
Chaos Comes First
Much of Black Orchid's trippy improvisation was melodic, or pretty, or rhythmic, but it all had a simultaneously dark & humourous undertone. So let's start with what comes first: Chaos.
Please pardon the inevitable tape hiss & live recording type noises.
Much of Black Orchid's trippy improvisation was melodic, or pretty, or rhythmic, but it all had a simultaneously dark & humourous undertone. So let's start with what comes first: Chaos.
Please pardon the inevitable tape hiss & live recording type noises.
duminică, aprilie 04, 2004
Lovecraftian Space Lullaby
When recording in Nyack, New Jersey with Steve Masucci of The Lost Patrol, I did a quick little improvised thing with voice and keyboards. Later, excerpts of the track appeared on the soundtrack to an animated film of an HP Lovecraft story. Download Nyack on mp3 or buy the Brainwarmer album, which contains the song.
When recording in Nyack, New Jersey with Steve Masucci of The Lost Patrol, I did a quick little improvised thing with voice and keyboards. Later, excerpts of the track appeared on the soundtrack to an animated film of an HP Lovecraft story. Download Nyack on mp3 or buy the Brainwarmer album, which contains the song.
luni, martie 08, 2004
Falling to Pieces
Gail & I will probably go to hell for doing this to such a classic tune. You know it from Patsy Cline's singing. Now find out what happens when someone fucks it up, slows it down, makes a weird arrangement, and a vocalist improvises a new melody on the top: Falling to Pieces.
Gail & I will probably go to hell for doing this to such a classic tune. You know it from Patsy Cline's singing. Now find out what happens when someone fucks it up, slows it down, makes a weird arrangement, and a vocalist improvises a new melody on the top: Falling to Pieces.
vineri, februarie 27, 2004
"Bee Side" for your MP3 Pleasure
My favourite piece on the wacky record put out by my ex-band Brainwarmer is a mad little number called Bee Side. The lovely & talented Gail Buchanan engineered & produced this, based on improvisations by me and Larold Will.
Larold is playing theremin. Sounds like I'm playing piano & Optigan & singing. We recorded onto 2" analog tape, and at one point Gail & I physically picked up the reels and flopped them over to make the backmasking happen, which made me feel super-happy & old school. The vocals may or may not have something to do with smoking crack, if you could hear them going the right direction. Which you could, if I could find the alternate version...
My favourite piece on the wacky record put out by my ex-band Brainwarmer is a mad little number called Bee Side. The lovely & talented Gail Buchanan engineered & produced this, based on improvisations by me and Larold Will.
Larold is playing theremin. Sounds like I'm playing piano & Optigan & singing. We recorded onto 2" analog tape, and at one point Gail & I physically picked up the reels and flopped them over to make the backmasking happen, which made me feel super-happy & old school. The vocals may or may not have something to do with smoking crack, if you could hear them going the right direction. Which you could, if I could find the alternate version...
luni, februarie 23, 2004
Through Plexiglas Sheets ov Harmony
another bit of musique. this one requires patience. patience and a T1 line. you see, this song is a 20+ minute long extract from a 70-minute piece entitled "Through Plexiglas Sheets ov Harmony."
the lovely name comes courtesy of To-Ka-Ge, with whom i improvised this piece on the Drift Catalyst stage on the Esplanade at Burning Man 2002 while dust blew, playa-watchers meditated, and the sun went down. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
another bit of musique. this one requires patience. patience and a T1 line. you see, this song is a 20+ minute long extract from a 70-minute piece entitled "Through Plexiglas Sheets ov Harmony."
the lovely name comes courtesy of To-Ka-Ge, with whom i improvised this piece on the Drift Catalyst stage on the Esplanade at Burning Man 2002 while dust blew, playa-watchers meditated, and the sun went down. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
duminică, februarie 22, 2004
New Song Uploaded: "Pofos (The Last Animal)"
i've recently come to realise that my years of improvisational music & performance -- and various ways of working with extemporaneous word-manifestation -- have downright changed my life. a certain kind of consciousness change is enacted when you shift paradigms from that of Attempting To Create Perfect Wonderful Work That Will Move & Amaze People to that of Opening Up To Whatever Drops Out Of Your Mouth.
it's pretty freakin' scary but highly recommended. this song was improvised by Rudement on live PA while i invented words & melody. George recorded it straight up, not onto tracks, so please pardon any imbalances you may notice (e.g. vocals too low or too high).
i've recently come to realise that my years of improvisational music & performance -- and various ways of working with extemporaneous word-manifestation -- have downright changed my life. a certain kind of consciousness change is enacted when you shift paradigms from that of Attempting To Create Perfect Wonderful Work That Will Move & Amaze People to that of Opening Up To Whatever Drops Out Of Your Mouth.
it's pretty freakin' scary but highly recommended. this song was improvised by Rudement on live PA while i invented words & melody. George recorded it straight up, not onto tracks, so please pardon any imbalances you may notice (e.g. vocals too low or too high).
sîmbătă, februarie 21, 2004
Obligatory Road Song
so my friend david gans heard me say -- well, he *read* me say, since this was online -- that years ago i'd written a song that mentioned Barstow, California in the first line. "Bishop, Boron, Barstow... Miles on the desert..." he says he wants to hear it. here you go, david: "Obligatory Road Song".
this song was a favourite when Black Orchid used to perform it. it was one of very few pre-written, non-improv songs we'd ever do. this particular version is just me & a 4-track (okay, a 3-track, cuz one of the tracks wouldn't work), one of those "i'm in my warehouse all alone late at night with the candles and a very tiny amount of astonishingly low-quality musical gear, drinking red wine" kinds of recordings. the song itself & the bits of story in it are from real life. even the waiter's penis.
so my friend david gans heard me say -- well, he *read* me say, since this was online -- that years ago i'd written a song that mentioned Barstow, California in the first line. "Bishop, Boron, Barstow... Miles on the desert..." he says he wants to hear it. here you go, david: "Obligatory Road Song".
this song was a favourite when Black Orchid used to perform it. it was one of very few pre-written, non-improv songs we'd ever do. this particular version is just me & a 4-track (okay, a 3-track, cuz one of the tracks wouldn't work), one of those "i'm in my warehouse all alone late at night with the candles and a very tiny amount of astonishingly low-quality musical gear, drinking red wine" kinds of recordings. the song itself & the bits of story in it are from real life. even the waiter's penis.
seeping ectoplasm
if you do any sort of creative work, you know what it's like out there. people wanna stuff you into a genre. they don't want your music, your words, your piss & blood & ectoplasm oozing out from the box of definition.
you have an identity, a name, a word, a marker, a symbol that somehow stands in for "you" and the work you create. you've probably been informed that you should attach that signifier only to certain Creative Products. this simplifies matters for audiences, critics, and marketers alike.
in real life, some artists & musicians aren't particularly fond of being penned in like pigs, knee-deep in their own genre slop. writers of literate and literary prose that spans genres are sick to death of having their work belittled as "genre" or condescended to as "regional literature" if they don't happen to follow the narrow guidelines that constrain the ironic, clever, often soulless or willfully inaccessible, predictably elitist New York scenester lit that calls "literary fiction" its own smug title. musicians are bewildered by having to select from drop-down menus of cosy genre descriptions that don't appear to represent the mood, intention, sound, or focus of their actual music.
so welcome to my little world. it's littered with zillions of projects, live & dead. they're very untidy. zines, music projects, performances, events, poems, shows, blogs, communities, books, & plays. my musical tendencies have been toward ethereal improvisations on the one hand, and singer/songwriter material on the other, with experimental, country, cuntronica (electro-country), industrial, choral, classical, jazz, & lounge thrown in for good measure. the pigs have mated with the cows & the farmer burned all the fences down.
Passiflora is the name i sing and play music under now, after being in bands and sitting in with many extraordinary musicians and groups. i originally wanted to restrain Passiflora, confine her to a box, bind her wrists to the latches with strips of gauze. it would be so simple if she embodied only drifty & dreamy music, only ethereal improvisations & extemporaneous spoken words. i found myself shying away from having my real name associated with her. shouldn't she just be separate and mysterious? i wanted to attach her to certain images, faces, & costumes. as though she were a project, a character, a marketing object from within.
i'm not a marketing project, and my musical explorations are not a character in some play. i'm just going to give up. i'll post whatever kind of music i do here, however badly it seems to fit in with the rest of it. i'll admit that i'm me, tiffany lee brown, and i'll admit that Passiflora is stuck with being me, too. hopefully the occasional listener, walking by at a festival when i happen to be playing, clicking a random mp3 to download, running across a CD, will have some kind of delicious experience with the music i've created. they won't care whether there are genre names for what i do. they won't care whether my name is Passiflora or George W. Bush. they'll just let the ectoplasm seep.
that's the best wish i could have. please enjoy.
xoxo
tiffany
if you do any sort of creative work, you know what it's like out there. people wanna stuff you into a genre. they don't want your music, your words, your piss & blood & ectoplasm oozing out from the box of definition.
you have an identity, a name, a word, a marker, a symbol that somehow stands in for "you" and the work you create. you've probably been informed that you should attach that signifier only to certain Creative Products. this simplifies matters for audiences, critics, and marketers alike.
in real life, some artists & musicians aren't particularly fond of being penned in like pigs, knee-deep in their own genre slop. writers of literate and literary prose that spans genres are sick to death of having their work belittled as "genre" or condescended to as "regional literature" if they don't happen to follow the narrow guidelines that constrain the ironic, clever, often soulless or willfully inaccessible, predictably elitist New York scenester lit that calls "literary fiction" its own smug title. musicians are bewildered by having to select from drop-down menus of cosy genre descriptions that don't appear to represent the mood, intention, sound, or focus of their actual music.
so welcome to my little world. it's littered with zillions of projects, live & dead. they're very untidy. zines, music projects, performances, events, poems, shows, blogs, communities, books, & plays. my musical tendencies have been toward ethereal improvisations on the one hand, and singer/songwriter material on the other, with experimental, country, cuntronica (electro-country), industrial, choral, classical, jazz, & lounge thrown in for good measure. the pigs have mated with the cows & the farmer burned all the fences down.
Passiflora is the name i sing and play music under now, after being in bands and sitting in with many extraordinary musicians and groups. i originally wanted to restrain Passiflora, confine her to a box, bind her wrists to the latches with strips of gauze. it would be so simple if she embodied only drifty & dreamy music, only ethereal improvisations & extemporaneous spoken words. i found myself shying away from having my real name associated with her. shouldn't she just be separate and mysterious? i wanted to attach her to certain images, faces, & costumes. as though she were a project, a character, a marketing object from within.
i'm not a marketing project, and my musical explorations are not a character in some play. i'm just going to give up. i'll post whatever kind of music i do here, however badly it seems to fit in with the rest of it. i'll admit that i'm me, tiffany lee brown, and i'll admit that Passiflora is stuck with being me, too. hopefully the occasional listener, walking by at a festival when i happen to be playing, clicking a random mp3 to download, running across a CD, will have some kind of delicious experience with the music i've created. they won't care whether there are genre names for what i do. they won't care whether my name is Passiflora or George W. Bush. they'll just let the ectoplasm seep.
that's the best wish i could have. please enjoy.
xoxo
tiffany
