Stuart Bruce, Chain DLK
“Unusually for this genre, the press release on Histoires d’histoire is sparse — a simple list of titles, durations, dates and credits.”
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Paul Dolden
Histoires d’Histoire
Labelempreintes DIGITALesGenreElectronic
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Paul Dolden’s maximalist take on ancient myths and tuning systems, 2012 to 2016: the five-movement Music of Another Present Era plus two pieces for soloist and tape with guitarist Maurizio Grandinetti and trumpeter Łukasz Gothszalk.
Histoires d’Histoire collects music that Paul Dolden made between 2012 and 2016 in his studio in Val-Morin, Québec, a period in which he turned to mythology. Each piece imagines how the music of an ancient culture might have sounded, using the microtonal scales that survive, and lets present-day styles collide with that past: the contest between Marsyas and Apollo as a battle of the bands, Shango as a funk drummer, Samaritans in Babylonian times singing show tunes. The disc was a finalist for album of the year at the Prix Opus 2016-17.
Music of Another Present Era is a 44-minute work in five movements, commissioned by Réseaux des arts médiatiques in Montréal, NAISA in Toronto and Maison des arts sonores in Montpellier, and premiered complete in Montréal in October 2016. Marsyas’ Melodies uses ancient Arab and Greek tunings, Shango’s Funkiness builds cross rhythms on the number six, Air of The Rainbow Robe and Feathered Skirt reimagines a Tang dynasty court piece, and The Cosmic Circle Dance drives the dance rhythms to a frenzied end.
Two works for soloist and tape follow. BeBop Baghdad, commissioned and premiered in Modena in 2014 by guitarist Maurizio Grandinetti, is a simulated jam session that moves from free jazz to a Latin club, Nashville and speed metal, with Arabic scales throughout. Show Tunes in Samarian Starlight, commissioned by trumpeter Łukasz Gothszalk, plays the same melodies in different tuning systems, between ballad and groove.
Born in Ottawa in 1956, Dolden began at sixteen as a professional electric guitarist, violinist and cellist. His music layers hundreds of recorded instrumental and vocal performances, and he has won over twenty international awards.
CD in OGpak, empreintes DIGITALes IMED 17143, 2017.
Details
Cat. number: IMED 17143
Year: 2017
Release notes
Music of Another Present Era plays freely with our ability to imagine another time and culture. At the same time, it recognizes that this historical imagining is necessarily conditioned by our own time and place. We do not know exactly what ancient music sounded like, as we are left with only inaudible details such as the microtonal scales that were used. This work appropriates a number of these ancient tuning systems to create a sense of the past within our present era. While the music of…
Tracklist
| Music Of Another Present Era | |||
| 1 | Marsyas’ Melodies | ||
| 2 | Shango's Funkiness | ||
| 3 | Entr’acte | ||
| 4 | Air Of The Rainbow Robe And Feathered Skirt | ||
| 5 | The Cosmic Circle Dance | ||
| - | |||
| 6 | BeBop Baghdad | ||
| 7 | Show Tunes In Samarian Starlight | ||
Simon Cummings, 5:4
“Nobody — but nobody — makes music that sounds like Paul Dolden.”
Roland Torres, SilenceAndSound
“Guitariste, violoniste et violoncelliste, Paul Dolden est un compositeur touche à tout qui a su depuis ses débuts, combiner l’héritage musical de notre passé, au sens global du terme, et modernité, via l’utilisation des nouvelles technologies pour tisser des liens étroits entre racines disparues et imaginaire mondialiste.”
