MP3 Meg Anderson & Jeremy Cox - Anitya

"Anitya" is a vocal and rhythmic trance influenced by American Jazz and Classical while sweeping through (to name a few) Bulgarian, African, and Celtic textures and harmonic sentiments.

11 MP3 Songs in this album (48:32) !
Related styles: Folk: Modern Folk, World: World Fusion, Type: Vocal

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Details:
Intro (Meg Anderson, Jeremy Cox)

Meg Anderson - vocals, midi harp
Phoebe Spier - vocals
Jeremy Cox - percussion
Matt Aurand - percussion


Rhoda - (Meg Anderson. Words by Virginia Woolf)
Meg Anderson - vocals, midi harp
Phoebe Spier - vocals
Jeremy Cox - percussion
Matt Aurand - percussion

Yet there are moments when the walls of the mind grow thin
And nothing is unabsorbed
And i could fancy that we might blow so vast 
So vast a bubble that
 
The sun might set 
And rise in it
And we might take 
The blue of midday
And the black of 
Midnight and be cast off 
And escape from here and now
 
As if a miracle had happened
And life were stayed here and now
And said rhoda we had no more to live
 
And you're all there 
Caught in understanding
I know you, loo loo loo loo
And i could fancy that 
We might go so vast 
So vast and wild away
Away


Jinny - (Meg Anderson. Words by Virginia Woolf)
Meg Anderson - vocals
Carrie Owen - vocals
Paul Owen - vocals
Parrish Collier - vocals
Jeremy Cox - percussion, fender rhodes, beatbox
Jamsion Sevits - percussion, keyboards, beatbox, trumpet
Annette Bjorling - harp 

"Jinny" began in 2006 when I was a student at the Bloom School of Jazz. The first riff of the song came on the buss ride home after working the Aeolian mode in class. I began building on and later arranged it for an adaptation of Virginia Wolfe's playpoem, "The Waves" in November 2009. 

After that show, Jeremy took the rehearsal-recording and secretly worked on it with Jamison, adding auxiliary percussion and other lilting and groovy moments. I was so surprised and delighted and we carried it around with us for a year until the tour when we finally overlaid the vocals.

How proudly we sit here
Dazzle of youth
All's clear all's firm 
Without shadow or illusion
Our flesh is firm and cool
Our differences are clear cut
 
As the shadow of rocks in full sunlight
Days and days are to come
The fruit is swollen beneath the leaf
Winter days summer days
 
With infinite time before us
What shall we do
Watch the coals turn crimson
Reach for books shout with laughter?
All is to come
 
For one moment only before the chain breaks
Before disorder returns see us held in a vice
But now the circle breaks the current flows the passions grow
And pound us with their waves jealously envy desire
And now something deeper than they stronger than love
And more subterranean 
Net of light loop of time ring of steal white words
Islands of light swimming on the grass
 
With infinite time before us
What shall we do
Watch the coals turn crimson
Reach for books shout with laughter?
All is to come
 
I could make a dozen stories 
Of what he said of what she said
And i can see a dozen pictures
But what are stories toys i twist bubbles i 
Blow one ring passing through another
And sometimes i doubt if there are stories
What is my story what is rhoda's what is neville's
There is truth there is fact 
That it true, that is fact
But beyond is all darkness and conje . . .  cture


Felicity - (Jeremy Cox, Meg Anderson)
Meg Anderson - vocals
Jeremy Cox - piano
Jamsion Sevits - trumpet
Matt Aurand - bass guitar
Annette Bjorling - harp

Jeremy wrote this song for his new baby niece, Felicity, who we had the privilege of meeting when she first arrived this past October 2011.  


Lightseed - (Meg Anderson)
Meg Anderson - vocals, keyboard
Carrie Owen - vocals
Jeremy Cox - percussion, vocoder, drum programming
Matt Aurand - bass guitar 

Anitya Movement 1 - (Meg Anderson)
Meg Anderson - vocals, percussion
Carrie Owen - vocals
Jeremy Cox - percussion
Matt Aurand - percussion
Fred Poetzsch - drum programming 

Mid-Tour on our drive from the midwest to the Portland, I played this ditty for Jeremy that I had sung in a cafe in the fall of 2005. The melodies and rhythms came in pieces, so it didn't occur to me to put them on the album -- It overwhelmed me to think of creating one song out of them. Then Jeremy suggested three different movements. Brilliant. 

Carrie does an exquisite job on all three. I arrived at her house in Sacramento to rehearse and heard her crystal clear voice effortlessly ringing through the walls. A composer's dream. 

The other aspect of Anitya Movement 1 that continues to delight me is the syncopation that Jeremy and Matt created with clapping! I like it so much it makes me laugh.

I have never really known the meaning of the lyrics for Anitya Movements 1 and 2. Like most of the songs, the music came first on these too, but in this case I never bothered to apply words that made much sense, leaving it as a mixture of gibberish and nonsense phrases, until it was time to record. Then I shaped them a little further, but not much, into a meaning that I was beginning to glean from them. So they remain a bit cryptic with pieces of "sense". I'd be interested in your interpretation.

Anitya Movement 1
a matter of course and tender as i 
d d d dee yaâ¦
d d d dee i am as i, 
dear
at end of the day we hand it all away
d d d d ⦠
â¦

the end of the end of the end of the end of

doo doo doo doo dee ya i'm the leaf 
and to the soil i spin and go dying 
d d d d dee yeaâ¦

doo doo doo doo dee ya i'm allegiance 
lu lu lu lucky hold me in combat
i commin ahind you and he and i 
who are the babies, i could amaze these

ba ba ba ...

do doo doo doo doo i hum i high and die
along the hundred flips from the ant hill
so mind we have all behind
i and an angel dim why

and by the fire i saw higher
a moment my head n i all came a sire
and know i'm not any
in a fog i offer that shower

n n now you see the fire in my head
and n now you see my gender call it a sea shell
gone, covered up on the land gone to sand
the end i fold into fool's illusion

doo doo doo⦠hey
doo doo doo⦠these and i 
start with rock end in sand
silly mind make sense of the eternal

i was on the edge to fall a lonely demon
count all the reminders long list you know
boom whatever that you were, then such a ride now a lie
when i am a tomb i am a diamond
 
  

Anitya Movement 2 - (Meg Anderson)
Meg Anderson - vocals
Carrie Owen - vocals
Jeremy Cox - piano, drum programming

Anitya Movement 2
i am owning 
up 
in order to enter into see what 
i brought to the surface when you were sleeping

we opened up in a dream
you were standing too close to the 
edge and 
the sun brightly sinking 

we'll be faceless in the end of the end of the eternal
star grows up and swallows these and i
hand in light rehearsal
hang night in front of the eternal

Somebody brought the world to light
and opened up a hole in the sky
wide open are the fools wide open the wise
come gently oh my heart the right path to find

said i said it all in a light bright
he is loving these and i
hi we see the sky

somebody brought the world to light
and opened up a hole in the sky 
wide open are the fools wide open the wise
come quickly oh my heart the right path to fly

Anitya Movement 3 - (Meg Anderson)
Meg Anderson - vocals
Carrie Owen - vocals 

I've been carrying the first line of this song for years imagining Carrie's voice the whole time just to hold in my mind the proper vocal application -- I didn't know I would be recording the lady herself 5 years later. What a blessings. . . I think we got it right. 

The rest of the lyrics and tune were inspired by a conversation Jeremy, Carrie and I had about reincarnation and samsara. Carrie, conveniently holding a Religious Studies Degree, filled in some gaps for us in these basic concepts and beliefs and the conversation was good and filling; The melody and lyrics effortlessly poured out of me the next day. 

The song is both a realization - the freedom found in "Anitya" being the only constant -- and it is also a lament for and a commiseration with each human being who struggles for relief from the great search no matter how mundanely it manifests. 

Anitya Movement 3
oo oo oo oo I carry this to freedom
oo oo oo oo and break my site in a thousand shards of light
delude my heart up
to an annihilated height 
and cancel day with night
and all my answer effortlessly come streaming
and all the broken of us could cycle into a cir-
cle when 
no more to begin and never again end

Spectrum - (Meg Anderson)
Meg Anderson - vocals
Phoebe Spier - vocals
Tiffany Jones Brown - vocals
Jeremy Cox - percussion, drumset, vocoder
Aaron Krister Johnson - piano
Matt Aurand - percussion

What great fun it was to meet up with Phoebe and Tiffani in Portland where they learned and executed âSpectrumâ in an afternoon helping me create a powerful choir effect, and Phoebe busting through so righteously coming out of the fugue. 

Aaron Krister Johnson, created this fugue that swells and makes you want to move and Jeremy pushes it over the edge. Tiffani appropriately named it âBeat Bachâ. 

Spectrum
Oh we'll weigh the same words
Oh'll I am a dancer in love earth
All I recover rain by blood or run into that again
I call and a caught again of whas arye.

Oh wind at her wings and I am, oh lord in a new day
Hopely win, na na na, even hold my shadow

oh na na na na na â¦

 Oh we'll weigh the same words
Oh'll I am a dancer in love earth
All I recover rain by blood or run into that again
I call and a caught again of whas a--

Messi--anicha is Messiah 
This I anicha is this I

Messiah, This I, ⦠


Lullaby - (Meg Anderson)
Meg Anderson - vocals
Michael Anderson - vocals

This tune was created in the summer of 2003 when I directed Imaginary Solutions in close collaboration with Nell Weatherwax (whose 5-acre back yard was our stage) as well as Kate Mcdonnell, Carrie Owen and Marian Conaty. It spilled out of me one afternoon walking around the IU campus as I thought of how to enhance the scene where firefly-like lights emerge from the dark forest.

When we were in San Diego this past Christmas, 2010, I set up the recording equipment on a whim and asked my dad to lay down a couple tracks. Thanks Dad!

Lullaby 
Oh My Children
Dance like the Sunlight
Across the black eternity
Walking through the forest to our home
A la la le le lu


Birdsong - (Meg Anderson. Words by Annika Johnson and Meg Anderson)
Meg Anderson - vocals
Elodie Lafont - vocals
Jonathan Sexton - vocals
Jamison Sevits - vocals, bass
Jeremy Cox - drumset, beatbox
Josh Hobbs - guitar
Steve Corrigan - vibes

The making of "The Birdsong" practically began and ended the tour. Jeremy worked with the Knoxville crew to complete the musical arrangement; we were also generously received at Elodie and Jonathan's where we laid down some vocals. And then the piece was put on hold because the delicacy of the arrangement was not matching up to my original vision; the two would not reconcile in my hard head until 5 months later in San Diego when I was graced with the idea to use my niece's words for the lyrics. My sister had captured Annika's personal tale when she discovered a little bird that had died from flying into a window at Grandma's house. The heart of this story matched the heart of the arrangement and illuminated the fine work of the Knoxville musicians; I was freed from my stubbornness and âThe Birdsongâ was born!

The Birdsong
And in and out we breathe and we are gone
And on and on we love and move along
And out and out we grow and go to seed
And on and up we're dust and we are freed
 
She young so small said, "let me tell you about the bird.
He flew high to the window but the window knocked him down
And he was in blood on the ground
 
"Why," she said
"I was very very mad at him"
 
"We tried to wash it up but we couldn't
So we were waiting for the rain to do it
And he was awful dead and i petted him like this
And i wanted to slumber it in my arms like this
But i couldn't
Grandma throwed him away"
 
Tiny flight, Tiny love, Tiny life
How so big every time
 
Get up every heart and mind-filled form
Dance disintegrate into a dusty storm
Round again embodying the why 
Cant the colors be so everlasting in the sky
 
Oh the going on the going on the going on
We worldly going on the going on the going on
She worldy going on singing oh the birdsong  




Produced by Jeremy Cox and Meg Anderson
Engineered by Jeremy Cox, Meg Anderson, Jamison Sevits, Matt Aurand, and Nick Corrigan
Mixed by Fred Poetzsch, Jeremy Cox, and Meg Anderson
Mastered by Fred Poetzsch

Recorded in Knoxville, TN; Nashville, TN; Bloomington, IN; Chicago, IL; Ypsilanti, MI; Portland, OR; Richmond, CA; Sacramento, CA; Newport Coast, CA; San Diego, CA