7 Albums by Peter B
Support the industry and go out and buy a CD or MP3 today! 22tet Peter Blasser Elyria Lights available at HERE:
- The Longhouse Dance
- The Birdhouse Bop
- Go Eat Some Bread, sung by Vanessa
- AV Dog
- Hymn: nighttime the river shore
- Sucka
- AV Dog, sung by Vanessa
- The Soltano
- Sucka, sung by Vanessa
- The Mono
- Go eat some bread
- Hymn: she eat the man
- The sunlight sets
- Ye Olde Pub: The Snakehole
- Ye Olde Pub: The Wishbone
- Ye Olde Pub: The Pines
- Ye Olde Pub: The Happy Light
- Ye Olde Pub: The Dog boat
Peter Blasser The Sound of Doves in a Cave available at Shinkoyo
Peter B Luteus available through Resipiscent
Some biographical notes about the albums
Well oh my god, what a revu! Some of these are really embarassing
to me and I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun trying to figure out
why. The first five were made at Oberlin, and are roughly spaced
one per year there. They reflect the winter time scenery, the
post-steel reconfiguration of the lake, and also some summertime jams
from Virginia are in there too. My father died in 1999, and
that's kinda a turning point for the music, although there is quite
mellow material from before that point. In general I learned a
lot those years, and here is some documentation of that.
Oh, Dessy
This album is set against the backdrop of Oberlin Conservatory and my
first experiences there. I was enrolled in the Classics
department for I had shown skills in Greek and Latin. But I was
heavily involved with the TIMARA department from the beginning; it was
an interest to me because I had been composing MIDI files in high
school, and making tapes and such. The TIMARA department is
located in the basement of the Conservatory (designed by IM PEI, also
of Nat'l Gall'y of Art, WTC) and was remodeled in the eighties based
loosely on the aesthetic that became ST:TNG, heavy influence on the
beige bezels, tightly carpeted and climate controlled. A
certain Professor Povall took me under his wing from the beginning,
inviting me to move up from the College Intro class to the Con Intro
class. This is around that time, when I believed heavily in this
new Pop music, emblazoned by Beck. But I also had other
influences, including CDROMs about the ancient world, which I sampled
here. I wanted to make pop music that came from Ancient Greece.
I had an argument with a certain Ezra Buchla, whom I never had met in
person. The argument was on email listserve, and it was about Pop
music vs. State sponsored music. I was on the "Beck" side of the
argument, basically competition has brought out these hyper-vibrant
artists, but they still have beat-oriented music in order to get
consumers' ears. Ezra was on the "NPR" side of the argument,
that these radio institutions exist to fund experimental art in order
to progress our music, and break out of the Beck Ape Mode. What a
funny argument, now that I look back on it. Since then Ezra and I
had switched sides several times. He is a great friend and I love
him. This CD is all about that argument tho, and you can hear my
most blatant Beck-Raps and Beats here.
Mysterious Overture
In Oberlin they had a wonderful co-op system, that I stumbled upon
while I was still eating Mariott at Stevensen. Behind Stevensen
is Keep Co-op, which is a huge cottage structure, containing a student
run stainless industrial kitchen as well as student-cleaned
dorms. Neo-hippy lifestyle sometimes, although most of my friends
came to be closs-cropped intellectuals, mycologists, neuro-science
majors. Smart people. And there was a bike co-op in the
basement. We made bagels, pizza, had good old consensus arguments
after dinner. Any joke in the music about food is sure to come
from the co-op. Harkness had a tofu maker! I was a
breakfast cook of "Tofu McBitches", basically a tofu imitation of
McDonalds egg biscuit. I also was bagel maker and food
buyer. Some special meals included a slightly drunk and very bad
one where ethiopian food was thrown by naked men wrapped in saran
wrap. Very bad night, I cut my finger while trying to knife
myself out of saran wrap, went to the hospital, headache. I
learned that I fainted when seeing blood that year.
A good friend from the co-op, Aaron Birk, is a dramtist, writer.
He was interested in directing a Sam Shepherd play, "Suicide in Bb",
and he asked me to make the music. It is a psychological play
about a musician, Niles, who, IMHO, found a new tuning that took him
4D. The play is about 2 detectives, materialists, on Niles'
trail, they think he killed himself, who become buffoons by the end,
the final blow being their own fears as they enter 4D with Niles.
On a totally different perspective, I will now quote Drunvalo
Melchezedek "when this happens you will see four dimensional objects
all around you, they will just appear around you. Do not be
disturbed. They will manifest your thoughts. People that
want guns will get them, but this will be their undoing. [they will get
guns pointed all ways including getting shot in the face. (PB)] You
must control your thoughts with the Mer-Ka-Ba". The Lounge track
is especially about this, known in Twin Peaks as "entering the black
lodge". The play was set in Asia House, a wood paneled room, lit
noir. These tracks were transferred to tape, then i created a
simple setup: guitar amplifier, long long long speaker wire to the
piano on stage, on top I put a found radio case (1940s) on top, gutted
the radio, hooked up to the old speaker. So I could play these
tracks from the stage at any time on cue. The waltz was a special
cue for the actors, because they danced to it. Cowboy was about
Niles reliving a childhood dream, and then keeping the character as he
entered 4D. Tico.mp3 is the "hit single" for after party, it's
karaoke lyrics are:
The grass is green my legs are
moving, I'm falling down into the ground
Tico, my friend, let's have some hot-sauce, I want to discuss this now.
The moon is out, I want to shout, I want to go out of the house a ditch
Tico, my friend, let's have some hot-sauce, I'm sure you know about
this, oh alright.
Tofu Alpha
Whew. This one's more related to OH DESSY. Lot's of rap, but
fair amount of experiments too. I was into this idea of "series
songs", with the same rap but different backgrounds. Tofu Alpha 1
is narrated by my high school friend George. He was funny in a
whiskey dick sorta way, and I totally resonated with that.
Another high school friend, ben kohler, was a big influence, with the
weirdo crew, one guy with a mohawk. Totally goofballs.
We would iron on letters make t-shirts that said "Mel: like a two
dollar whore". I didn't know what a dildo was and I was saying
dildo jokes outloud in front of the teachers.
Dark times are obfuscated by... obfuscating lyrics! These
lyrics were transferred into cagean meta-material, mashed up in
Cakewalk pro audio.
A'D'LAKE
This one goes along with Elyria Lights. It is about Ohio, the
mysts of Lake Erie, steel-town emptiness. There were waterfalls
in Elyria, near Oberlin, that you could walk under. Totally
enchanting. I cought a fish down there with friend Adam Barr, a
carp in a cave-pool. Fish was a big thing, I would bring them
back to the co-op and preserve them like totems. "the fish rides
on the waves" is metaphor for digital audio processing. wind in
the mic was a big thing, totally personal sound of being cold and
ghostal.
Some of the birds you hear here were made in CSound, put on casette
tape, then brought to a cave or alleyway or a rock-cave at the
lake. So I re-recorded them with HIFI DAT in situ, and played them in a
TIMARA concert as "gull in rock cave" "bat in cave" "warbler in la
Sotano alleyway". I wasn't at the concert but Prof Tom Lopez told
me later that some of his students were like "why did he do this, this
is an ornithology project" as if they didn't realize they were not
CSound birds. I hadn't put it in the program that they were maded
in CSound, and in fact I did write program notes as if it were an
ornithology project, as if they were real birds.
Third Animal is "Dog", as metaphor I guess for the bestiality in
humans, but our faithful humility in the end. When we make the
dog look for chips, we mean "circuit chips that come across the lake
from canada". They float like driftwood, which in general I was
interested in in that time. Prof Tom Lopez will vouch, I was
making a lot of primitive electronic instruments embedded in
driftwood. One was in a huge eroded railroad tye, totally
improbable and impractical. Chips were found in Northern Ohio on
Broadway St Cleveland, near the steel pits, Electronic Surplus
Incorporated. Lots of old dusty stuff. Made some magical
circuits from their stuff. Remember whenever you are looking for
chips, its not for "Lays"!!! It's circuit chips not potatoe chips.
BSides
BSides is besides, and also "B-Sides". It is a compilation of all
the odd tracks of those years. Too much to explain each piece
separately, I will let the compilation speak for itself in surprising
mashups of diversity. A lot of the original demos from Elyria
Lights are hear, and I think they are better than the final versions!
Din Datin Dudero
Ya now we're out of college! This was made in Chicago, in a brief
stint there doing various things. One was touring. I made
the Din Datin
Dudero in Chicago to take on tour. It was a sort of thesis
instrument about the concept of nodes, which kindof is foreshadowed by
chaos theory and.... chaos magic!
Supasounds
Are recent supercollider sounds, backing tracks for various
vocals/actions.
