MP3 Nathan Davis - Memory Spaces

Music for percussion and electronics which unveils and magnifies the subtle complexities of sound.

9 MP3 Songs
ELECTRONIC: Experimental, CLASSICAL: Contemporary



Details:
Nathan Davis bio:
I am a percussionist and composer based in NYC. My music-making is inspired by many sources, beginning with a simple fascination for acoustic phenomena and embracing American experimentalism, Balinese Gamelan, and Karnatic music.
With the phenomenal cellist Ha-Yang Kim I co-founded Odd Appetite, an electroacoustic duo performing our own works and select commissions across North America, Europe, and Asia. I am also a founder of Non Sequitur, a mixed sextet presenting classics of the avant-garde alongside theatric and non-Western music. While in Boston I began playing new and traditional Balinese music with Gamelan Galak-Tika, making my solo debut at Carnegie Hall with the gamelan and Odd Appetite and touring Bali the following summer. Through these activities and other projects I have also been fortunate to work, play, and record with many wonderful musicians and composers including Evan Ziporyn, Christian Wolff, Larry Polansky, Lee Hyla, and others.
In playing and composing I am drawn to make music that revels in sound and that has a narrative and visceral trajectory. In 2002 I wrote a series of pieces using microphones and simple computer processing to magnify the subtle complexities of sounds and to reveal the inherent characters of ordinary objects and instruments. Three of these pieces (including Diving Bell, a winner of the ISCM Composers Competition) are on my cd, Memory Spaces.
Notes on Memory Spaces:
There are certain physical spaces from my memory that reappear in dreams: spaces which, in waking, hold specific associations of time and place but in sleep become a stage for new growth and exploration. Like a mnemonic "memory palace", each space has its consistent elements and a structure through which I move freely. This process of exploring and re-exploring familiar places is more consciously echoed in my work with acoustic materials and electronics. I use microphones and simple computer processing to magnify the subtle complexities of sounds and to reveal the inherent characters of ordinary objects and instruments. My works on this disc stem from the conscious and subconscious aspects of this process, and they share with Kaija Saariaho's piece an architectural intent to create a spatial environment for the listener's imagination.