UNIVERSARY: songs, drones and refrains of life

"Iíve always just wanted to understand what makes music tick - what is the common thread running through all great and transcendent musical experiences. I grew up with a special passion for all things psychedelic. So any music that promised to induce qualities such as hypnosis, ecstasy, extended listener disorientation, involuntary bodily response - I explored, whether it was centuries old Indian ragas, John Coltraneís modal jams, the whole early Glass/Reich thing, the various electronic dance movements - disco/dub-reggae/hip-hop/techno, James Brown, and of course, rock bands who were exploring new forms such as the early Grateful Dead, early Pink Floyd, The Velvet Underground, and Captain Beefheart."

"But at the same time, Iíve always had a complete passion for the well crafted, heart-felt song and even during my deepest periods of sonic exploration one could find me listening to Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Bob Marley, Todd Rundgren, mid 70ís Philly Sound, Dionne Warwick/Burt Bacharach, Al Green, Paul Westerberg, Aimee Mann, and many others whose art was in telling a story or communicating an experience or feeling. I knew I wanted to be both, if possible, - the wizard and the poet. One talks to the earth - the other talks to other people. When I was working on my first opera, The Manhattan Book of the Dead, between 1993 to 95, I wrote the libretto and also created hummable melodies. I realized I wanted to have my cake and eat it, too - to affect people emotionally and physically at the same time."

"With the album, Universary, I wanted to test whether my experimental/mathematical theories could support a song structure - if they could work with a popular audience. And I wanted to see if a melody and lyrics and groove could still shine through and grab the casual listener even though there were all of these subversive things bubbling over, under, and inside the verses and choruses. My goal was to put all my influences and ideas together without compromising - too much - the qualities of either extreme. I mean, I knew that I could create a Frankensteinís monster - that would be easy. What I really wanted to see was if I could make something where these opposites would actually thrive. I wanted to create a situation where they would sound better than ever as a result of the unusual context in which they were found."

Listen to tracks from Universary...