“I found this track on a drive while looking for something else. It’s from 2005, and that’s all I know about it – I can’t remember when or how I did it. But I like it, so I thought I’d share it here.”

(from Richard via Soundcloud)

Richard Lainhart (February 14, 1953 – December 30, 2011)

Dear friends of Richard,

It is with a heavy heart that I that I must tell you Richard Lainhart, composer, musician, technologist, filmmaker, and digital artisan died Friday, December 30, 2011. On December 17, Richard complained of pains in his side and was admitted to the hospital for tests which showed an intestinal cancer. He was operated on on December 21. After the surgery (which showed the cancer had not spread), there were infectious complications which took his life on December 30.
He struggled valiantly to overcome his infection, but it was not to be. We are all in shock and cannot grasp the idea of his not making music, talking music, teaching, posting and playing.

Caroline Meyers

Richard Lainhart’s wife

I never met Richard personally but did exchange some emails with him and I was impressed with his lack of dogma when it came to electronic music. On one hand he a big part in the early days of electronic music but he was also embracing making music with whatever software or hardware that best helped him express himself.  You can hear more of his music on his soundcloud page and also ImprovFriday members hosted a tribute posted dedications for him last weekend (Jan 5-7 2012).

Richard Lainhart Improv Friday Dedication, Jan 5-7 2011
Richard Lainhart SoundCloud Page
Richard Lainhart, archive.org
Vimeo
Youtube
Synthtopia obituary
Create Digital Music obituary 

Quotes

“Lainhart crafts sounds in a tonal, musical fashion – sustained tones, drones, melodic fragments – and electronically manipulates them into beautiful tapestries of sound.” (Waterfront Week)

[His] “music reflects the spirit of possibility that once defined electronic music, bringing with it a sense of past, present and future that transcends time, technology and cultural assumptions. The spell- binding music seemed to evoke feelings that can’t quite be named, and suggest music I might rather imagine for myself in silence than trust most composers to compose.” (The Village Voice).

“He’s evolved a singular vision as a composer, performer and engineer of darkly seductive minimalism.” (Peter Marsh, BBC)

ve been weary of the day a member of ImprovFriday would pass away. In terms of his involvement with ImprovFriday: I could ask Richard to play live for IF and he would literally get back to me within hours and set it up. As most of you know, he also was generous enough to lend a tune for ImprovFriday Vol. 2 and participated in numerous events. We are really going to miss Richard. Next week’s theme will be “Richard Lainhart Dedications”

Richard was by far one of the true contemporary electronic music genius’s and his knowledge of its roots put him way ahead of most of us. Richard’s contribution to contemporary electronic music was immense and his knowledge of its historical applications was legendary.  – Steve Moshier

Richard changed the way I listen to music – and there is no greater compliment that one musician can pay to another. He will be missed very, very much. – Paul Muller

Biography (via O-Townmedia)
“Richard Lainhart is an award-winning composer, author, and filmmaker – a digital artisan who works with sonic and visual data. Since childhood, he’s been interested in natural processes such as waves, flames and clouds, in harmonics and harmony, and in creative interactions with machines, using them as compositional methods to present sounds and images that are as beautiful as he can make them.

Lainhart studied composition and electronic music with Joel Chadabe at the State University of New York at Albany. He has composed music for film, television, CD-ROMs, interactive applications, and the Web. His compositions have been performed in the US, England, Sweden, Germany, Australia, and Japan. Recordings of his music have appeared on the Periodic Music, Vacant Lot, XI Records, Airglow Music, Tobira Records, and ExOvo labels. As an active performer, Lainhart has appeared in public approximately 2000 times. Besides performing his own work, he has worked and performed with John Cage, David Tudor, Steve Reich, Phill Niblock, David Berhman, and Jordan Rudess, among many others. He has composed over 100 electronic and acoustic works. In 2008, he was commissioned by the Electronic Music Foundation to contribute a work to New York Soundscape.

Lainhart’s animations and short films have been shown at festivals in the US, the UK, Canada, Germany, and Korea, and online at ResFest, The New Venue, The Bitscreen, and Streaming Cinema 2.0. His film “A Haiku Setting” won awards in several categories at the 2002 International Festival of Cinema and Technology in Toronto. In 2009, he was awarded a Film & Media grant by the New York State Council on the Arts for “No Other Time”, full-length intermedia performance designed for a large reverberant space, combining live analog electronics with four-channel playback, and high-definition computer-animated film projection.”

Download mp3

A Finnish composer, writer and visual artist who resides in Kitee, Finland. Jukka-Pekka specializes in software and algorythm-driven musical compositions including the programming of 8-bit video game chips. His compositions are distinctively electronic in nature and that is why this piece – ‘Small Gestures #1′ – is something of a surprise to those who are familiar with his music.

‘Small Gestures #1′ is a minimalist piece in the classic sense and here Jukka-Pekka has managed to capture the energy and optimism that characterized the early works of Reich and Glass.

Jukka-Pekka Kervinen contributed a piece to the most recent Roanoke Marginal Arts Festival and the Jyvaskylan taidemuseo (music for videos), Finland, also in 2011. When he is not writing music, Jukka-Pekka is involved in photography, poetry and publishing. Further information here.

Download mp3

From the composer:

“‘Eris’ was originally written as a wind ensemble piece in late 2006. the piece is named after the dwarf planet that was responsible for the ousting of pluto.  This version of ‘Eris’ was recorded in May, 2011, with synthesizers, electric guitars, electric piccolo bass, and electric bass with one on a part.”

Jon Brenner is a Seattle-based composer and musician who writes contemporary art music and performs chamber music, new and old. His works include music for soloists, chamber ensembles, film, art installations, and larger ensembles. Jon plays viola da gamba and harpsichord and has appeared with the New Baroque Orchestra in Seattle.

Artwork for ‘Eris’ by Jon Brenner

Further information at www.jonbrenner.com.

“Another improv, this one for the ImprovFriday Jan. 13-15 session. Auduino, FM2 and FM3 Buddha Machines, Memory Man delay box, MoogerFooger ring modulator. Trimmed at the beginning and end.

This track is also available as part of the “Following A Line” release on the mysterybear netlabel:”

download at archive.org

Following A Line (part 2) by mysterybear

http://mysterybear.net/
http://soundcloud.com/mysterybear

Download mp3

James Ross is a Brooklyn, NY-based composer and performer who writes music for orchestral and chamber ensembles, as well as solo music for the guitar and the zhongruan (a type of Chinese lute). He has also performed and recorded electronic and improvised music. I find his most compelling work to be reflective looped ambient pieces, of which ‘Wash 2′ is an excellent example.

Ross’ music unfolds slowly into an introspective space that carries the listener along on a gentle current of soft sounds and textures. Even at its full 25 minutes ‘Wash 2′ seems short – the music is fully engaging the entire time.

Embody the Struggle, Evan Kuchar (2010)

“Chamber minimalism with electronics. Violin, clarinet, cello, bass clarinet, piano, synths, drum machines. Slowly unfolding introspection, building, climaxing, remixing.”

Embody the Struggle by evankuchar

Evan Kuchar, Website

C. J. Boyd: Dynamos/Scrumpin’ (2006) (right click to download)

“This is a song from my “minor label debut”, The Greatest Weight, released by Sounds Are Active in 2006. Having been performing live with a loop pedal for a few years, I started writing more songs with that in mind. But I didn’t like the idea of using the loop pedal to record. So I actually played everything all the way through, even the really repetitive parts. This song became a kind of zen practice. It’s so much harder to play the same 6 notes over and over for 10-15 minutes than it is to rip a gnarly solo for the same amount of time.  The recording process took ages, but it was so methodical and centering. “

http://cjboyd.bandcamp.com/
http://www.cjboyd.com/