From Emoke B'Racz:
The love that flows is the art, the words and the music that our parents gave us with their lives. Forever grateful.
From Istvan Peter B'Racz:
Words are rails upon which consciousness may ride. In this work, I placed my ear to the tracks and listened to the sounds of a thought as it travels...My goal was to create a work that rides in-between the awake state and where dreams run free...this way, when one listens to the work, the words and sounds will create a "mind's-eye sculpture" when one is in a receptive state. I used Digital Performer, Ableton LIVE, and Alesis QS8, Yamaha Motif, Roland V-Synth, Korg KAOSS mixer, Emu sampler, SFX machine, as well as a Sony DPS-V55 processor to create the sounds you hear.
I. "Hungarian Childhood": I used my sister Emoke's voice as the main origin of sound generation, with the exception of an organ and bass-line (where the organ melody is derived from the melodic intervals embedded in her speaking the words "hungarian childhood". The bass-line comes from an old Hungarian folk-song "Tavaszi Szél vizet áraszt" (Spring winds bring forth rain).
II. "Father" This is a powerful poem about our father, Istvan B'Racz Sr., who endured the unbelievable wrath of evil due to unfortunate political circumstances. He and his friends had ended up in the most awful of situations that have now become horror-legend in our families. He almost never spoke about it, not to me, anyway. My sister's descriptions chill to the bone, and what's really frightening is what is NOT told. In this work I used my own voice, partially because it bears a slight resemblance to his. I did very little to my voice, unlike the previous track. I did not use the entire poem, the music is the psychology of the words, the subconscious, and the unspoken.
III. Bonus Track: Soundtrack for the short film "He was a poet" written and directed by Mark Saba, and filmed by Jerry Domian. A poet dies, and gets buried in a tree. Then a company cuts it down and makes furniture. There is no dialog, and only a few words are shown in the film- the rest are images and sounds in slow-shifting dreamy scenes. The music was created with the mindset that the film itself was "dreaming" and its own dream generated the sounds. Haunting prepared trumpet performance by Joseph Drew, with distant ringing tones of Gesualdo and sound design from noises of trees falling and being cut.
From Piroska Gibson:
Watching a train
gliding in
to its final destination
and you are
standing there,
at the destination,
waiting for your loved one,
your mind
is full of anticipation
it has been a long long time,
or
you are on the train
and it is gliding in
to its final destination,
slowing down,
you are looking,
out the window,
trying to see
if your loved one
is there waiting.
for further info:
www.malaprops.com
www.istvanpeterbracz.com
released May 20, 2015
Words by Emoke B'Racz: Text for "Hungarian Childhood" and "Father" from "Every Tree is the Forest" by Emoke B'Racz.
Music, recording, sound design, mixing, and production by Istvan Peter B'Racz:
Cover watercolor by Piroska Gibson (our sister).
copyright 2002: Emoke B'Racz, text; Istvan Peter B'Racz, music; Piroska Gibson, watercolor.
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