Tag: Alex Wand

CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Dance, Experimental Music, Los Angeles

Alex Wand – Music for Dance 2017-2020

Music for Dance 2017-2020, by Alex Wand, is a new album of selected electronic instrumental music created as accompaniment for choreographed dance. Wand’s experience with the local dance community is extensive and includes residencies with the LA Dance Project, Los Angeles Performance Practice, REDCAT, and Metro Art LA. According to the liner notes, Wand has worked with choreographer Jay Carlon “ …as a collaborator on his site-specific dance theater productions and dance films…” This collection consists of eight tracks of electronic music, primarily realized using modular synths. Although Wand’s supple voice is absent from this album, the inventive sounds he creates provide an open and inviting framework for interpretive dance.

Composers working with dance companies have a distinguished history in new music. Lou Harrison often collaborated with dance choreographers during his career. John Cage famously devised the prepared piano to give his accompaniment more percussive punch, assisting the dancers to better follow the beat. The closest piece to the traditional forms of dance music in Alex Wand’s new album is Crest, track 5, which provides a repeating phrase at a brisk tempo that is mostly percussive in texture. This piece feels like dance in that it encourages movement. The rounded tones are subdued but active, and interesting harmonies develop as the repeating phrases evolve.

Out of Bounds, track 3, further explores the percussive texture but with a different expressive intent. This begins with a strong beat and rapid electronic pulse. The drum beats occasionally vary in pitch and volume so that the feeling is like being inside of a helicopter. A sine tone is heard and the rhythms change up, becoming more broadly mechanical. The pulses here are less a guide for body movement and more a framework that allows the dancer to react. Other tracks in the album encourage a similar response. Flocking, track 1, is typical with deep, sustained tones setting a warm foundation while a repeating, syncopated chirp in the higher registers convincingly evokes other worlds. There is a feeling of open grandeur to this that engages the listener while allowing the dancer full scope for interpretation.

Four Triangles features four synthetic tones with differing pitches and duration. The pitches are based on the resonant frequencies of pieces of sheet metal and the processed sounds are somewhere between a pure sine wave and a bell chime. These attractive tones blend well together and form engaging harmonies. Signal, track 7, consists of complex electronic sounds that seem to be emulating a message of some sort. Low, sustained tones compliment the beeps and boops in the upper registers. This ends dramatically as the signals fall away leaving just the lower tones. The other pieces in this album are similarly intended to give the dancers a wide canvas for expression.

Although often abstract and otherworldly, Music for Dance makes for an excellent contrast with the obvious human element that the dancer provides. Alex Wand writes: “The tracks feature fluctuating synth pulses, swirls of noise textures, and pitch-shifted recordings of planetary magnetospheres… I composed these pieces with the intent to leave room for the dance to speak and hope that this sense of spaciousness is translated to the listener as well.”

In addition to the electronic realization of his accompaniments, Wand has also experimented with physical inputs such as wireless accelerometers and contact microphones to provide a path for interaction between the movement of the dancer and the music. Music for Dance 2017-2020 adds a 21st Century sensibility to the long-standing collaboration between new music and interpretive dance.

Music for Dance 2017-2020 can be heard at Bandcamp.


by Paul Muller
Contemporary Classical

Review: Alex Wand – Carretera

Alex Wand

Carretera

In the fall of 2018 composer Alex Wand assumed his Alejandro Botijo persona and began a cycling trip from Los Angeles to Michoacán, Mexico. Alex explains: “I create aliases for myself that highlight certain qualities of my person. I think of them like archetypal, mythological people that help me realize existing aspects of myself. For example, Alejandro Botijo helped me bypass the physical limitations of my body, feelings of loneliness, fear of being hit by a truck, along with many other vulnerabilities that come with cycling over 2,000 miles alone.”

The bicycle trip took him along the migratory path of the monarch butterflies and Alejandro recorded his impressions with field recordings and music from that perspective. The monarch butterfly is the only species of butterfly known to make a two-way migration during the year. Towards the end of October they make their way south, spending the winter in Southern California and Mexico, heading north again in March to spend the summer in the US and Canada. At the conclusion of the trip, Wand/Botijo created a summary of his experiences and the result is Carretera, a series of miniature musical impressions of the journey south.

From the liner notes: “These compositions investigate migration from the monarch’s perspective. The field recordings and spoken word are meant to be ways of listening-with the monarchs by capturing moments of stillness and space on their journey, as well as outlining myriad challenges such as predators, pesticides, and habitat degradation. Alejandro loops, time warps, and pitch shifts the musical sounds to express overlaying temporalities and to articulate the repetitive aspects of migration. With these elements, the music seeks to trace the experience of the monarch/cyclist on their journey to the oyamel forests of Michoacán.”

High Desert, the first track, describes Botijo’s first stage of his trip south from Los Angeles. Single bell-like tones are heard accompanied by a sputtered rushing sound, as if cycling alongside a busy desert highway. Wand provides spoken commentary with his calmly enigmatic voice, repeating a list of the hazardous contents of the roadside along with the beauty of the landscape. There is a swirling mix of headlights, broken bottles and nails together with vivid red and purple sunsets.

Baptist Church follows, and this has lighter tones combined with a softly hopeful tremolo. The vocals begin with “There’s a Baptist Church at the border town where the railroad used to pass through. There’s an old building where the railroad workers used to spend the night.” A series of stronger tones are heard at irregular intervals, invoking the presence of railroad tracks. As the text is repeated, more details are added so that gradually the feeling becomes one of sanctuary – a place that a migrating butterfly – or cyclist – might find rest for the night.

Depredadores is next, full of aggressive percussive beats and active rhythms. The text is now in Spanish, a list of words and names accompanied by low video game sounds. Only a minute and a half in length, Depredadores nevertheless captures the sense of crossing into Mexico by way of a gritty border town. Texaco follows with the sound of mystical drums and cymbals. The text speaks of an abandoned gas station, a barbed wire fence, farmland and a chili factory. Deep guitar chords paint a grim and desolate picture of what could be an agricultural town in northern Mexico.

Mercado, on track 5, however, is very different. A lovely groove comprised of light electronic tones is heard and soon accompanied by animated street sounds and the chatter of voices in Spanish. Clearly we have traveled farther into Mexico and have finally arrived at a warm and welcoming village. Repartiendo el Pan follows, opening with a sweet repeating guitar phrase and the sound of chirping birds. Children are heard playing, and wind instruments enter with a happy bounce. The piece ends with a short fragment of a pop song sung in Spanish, continuing the hospitable feeling that carries over from the previous track. Clearly we are deep into Mexico.

Stream, track 7, is just that: the sounds of rushing water accompanied by electronic rhythmic phrases. There is no spoken narration or human sounds. Restful, calming and most definitely rural. Carretera follows and this opens with an active, bouncing synth and repeating guitar lines that radiate an upbeat and optimistic feel. A series of spoken place names and Spanish nouns are heard, adding an intimacy to the music and creating an emotional sense of homecoming.

The final track is I Wish I Could Disappear, and this features sunny, repeating guitar lines accompanied by the sung and spoken words of the title. This is a final summing up of the emotional changes triggered by the long journey. From the northern border lands to a place deep in the Mexican interior, there is a real sense of longing in this music for a simple communal life that is in harmony with the natural environment. Perhaps it is this – and not just the climate – that draws the monarch butterflies back each winter.

Carretera is an engaging and succinct depiction of a long emotional journey, as seen from the eye level of a migrating butterfly. Like the monarch, we long for a place where we can be part of a welcoming community – Carretera completely and elegantly captures this sensibility.

Carretera is distributed for digital download via Bandcamp and a vinyl disk may be ordered. There is also a companion film Camino de las Monarcas, that is available for download.


by Paul Muller