EP5
The FoundatiOn Team thank you packets have been sent and we’ve already received a lot of positive feedback from this year’s EP. We’ve also received requests for more in depth track notes so without further ado…
Gamelgong
music by Shoji Kameda; Kelvin Underwood : drumkit, Kristofer Bergstrom : bonang, melodica and taiko, Masato Baba : fue and taiko, Shoji Kameda : fue, melodica, taiko and chappa.
Recently I’ve been fascinated with the music of Indonesia. I had my first opportunity to collaborate with artists from southeast Asia back in 2006 as part of the Asia Pacific Performance Exchange. Inspired by the experience I traveled to Bali the next summer for a two week study program with Cudamani. Last year I had another opportunity to travel to Southeast Asian this time to central Java as a part of the Indonesian Arts Education Exchange Residency. While I was in Java I purchased a set of bonang and brought them back to Los Angeles and we put this piece together for our last Works In Progress concert. I also bought a melodica the last time I was in Ashland and we used it in this piece and it makes a big entrance in the Gagaku-esque breakdown because you know every piece should have a Gagaku break. It’s also On Ensemble’s second 5/4 piece because you know 5/4 is the new 4/4.
Fallingmusic by Masato Baba; Kelvin Underwood : koto, Kristofer Bergstrom : taiko, Masato Baba : fue and percussion, Shoji Kameda : chappa.
Falling is Maz’s newest fue feature piece. This one was a tricky piece to record because so much of the piece relies on breath and tempo variations. We ended up recording the fue and koto parts together and then Kris had to follow those parts with his taiko part. Usually you lay down the rhythmic parts first and the melodic parts later but for this piece it made sense to have the fue command the tempo and feel.
Undertowmusic and lyrics by Kelvin Underwood; Kelvin Underwood : drumkit, hand drums, vocals and guitar, Shoji Kameda : everything else.
On Ensemble goes indie rock! Well kind of… This is another song that came out of last Works In Progress concert. For the EP we wanted to stretch it and see what else we could do with it. I’m such a sucker for a indie dance rock track with a strip down beat and saw wave synths. Kelvin wasn’t going for the saw wave synth parts so I mangled the guitar parts until they fit a similar role. Kelvin added more hand percussion and we put it all together and came up with our own version of a world music meets post-punk revival track.
Ordinary Livesmusic and lyrics by Shoji Kameda, Kelvin Underwood and Masato Baba; Masato Baba : background vocals and fue, Kelvin Underwood : lead vocals and drumkit, Kristofer Bergstrom : koto, Shoji Kameda : background vocals, synths and samplers.
This is probably my favorite track on EP5 because it was so much fun to put together. It started with Maz and I fooling around on a set of vibes we recently acquired from his parents. After some initial bits of inspiration I put together an instrumental track and had Maz sing some background vocal color parts. One of my dreams is to write a track as good as “Solsbury Hill” the friggin’ gold standard of 7/4 songs and I was trying to write something really melodic based on gamelan-esque layers of vibes and glockenspiel. Kelvin heard the track and started scribbling some phrases that unleashed a flurry of creativity. Maz heard a part then I wrote more lyrics then Kelvin added another line and we had a song.
Help I'm a Bugmusic by Kametron; Somnath Roy : ghatam and percussion, Patrick Graham : shimejishi and percussion, Shoji Kameda : everything else.
First of all props to Dylan who submitted the best track title for this track during our little “Name this Track” contest! Back when I was working on material for our last album Ume in the Middle I had recorded two great friends and collaborators, Somnath and Patrick, jamming to a groove from “Zeecha!!!”. I ended up not putting “Zeecha!!!” on the last album but had all this great material that Somnath and Patrick had put down so I cut it up, mangled everything added saw wave synths (yes finally!) and did a Kametron version of a “Third World hip-hop” track. There is a ton of great hip-hop out there in the world and one of my favorite things to do when I travel is track down locally grown hip hop albums. I found really interesting hip-hop in Yogyakarta and it turns out that angry kids from Mongolia rapping about poverty is pretty convincing. On a tangentially related note; is there anything that could make me a bigger M.I.A. fan? Yes, a possible collaboration with Egyptian Lover! Holy cow. Do you ever feel like the chaos of the world conspires to do something beautiful just for you? That’s what an M.I.A./Egyptian Lover album would be like for me.
Anyways, enjoy the tracks!
Tags: EP5
I’m only on track 2 and can’t wait until hearing them all to say how much I love your guys’ work!
Sophia – thanks! wow that was a fast comment. i only pressed publish a few minutes ago!
REALLY awesome stuff, guys! I LOVED Undertow. Very cool to hear what you’ve been up to — sending lots of love from Portland!
Heather – thanks! we’ve been trying to play in Portland for sometime but seems like we’re always passing though instead:)
Nice work fellas! I love hearing the slight variations over time of each song and how they develop and keep getting better and better. As fans, we’re lucky that we get to be involved along the way and witness the layers behind your art. Personal favorite…Ordinary Lives (I’m a sucker for melancholy). :)
Hey, guys, LOVE the album cover! Can’t wait to listen to the music too!