ALBUM REVIEW: Jherek Bischoff’s Cistern

Posted on August 22, 2016 by maestrobeats

Jherek+Bischoff+by+Alex+Stoddard+4+Landscape

Photo credit: Alex Stoddard

Cistern is Jherek Bischoff’s anticipated follow-up to his debut album Composed, which featured a quirky, orchestral pop sound. On Composed, Bischoff recorded orchestral instruments separately and layered the sounds to create a full ensemble. With Cistern, he gets help from the excellent NYC-based ensemble Contemporaneous, who provide the orchestral sounds that have become the touchstone of his work. It’s been called “headphone music,” and it is experienced best when enveloped in large headphones. Audiences in Times Square were given just this opportunity, listening to a late-night “Silent Orchestra” performance of Cistern on wireless headphones, accompanied by visuals displayed on massive video screens (a Midnight Moment presented by Times Square Arts).

Times Square presentation. Photo credit: Jim Batt.

Serenity – that’s the feeling that pervades the music on this album. It’s music that isn’t meant to really excite or engage you in a particular way, but seeks to bring you to a contemplative place. For Bischoff, that place was a massive cistern underneath Fort Worden on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, where he improvised inside a space with a 45-second reverb. This is no place for fast, complex music, and it’s easy to hear the inspiration of this cavernous space in the music of the album, which uses simple, slow motives and a lot of repetition to convey its ideas.

The experience of playing in a massive darkened echo chamber is possibly the most closely portrayed by Lemon, the album’s shortest track, and the evocative closing track The Sea’s Son, which use silence to the fullest extent. Interesting orchestration abounds on Cistern from the start of the album, with a toy piano and militaristic percussion entering the mix on the track Automatism. Strings sliding and bending pitch create an interesting atmosphere on the title track, a straight-up passacaglia. The one track to create a bit of tension is The Wolf, playing low instruments off the rest of the ensemble in a hunt-like dance of sound, but it stands apart from the all-encompassing introspection of this album.

Photo credit: Alex Stoddard

Though music that is relentlessly inward-looking and meditative rarely suits my taste, the melodies and harmonies of Closer to Capture, together with the stop-start of this music’s rhythm makes it the star for me on this new release. It’s also hard not to be swept away by the nostalgia of The Sea’s Son; Bischoff says that as he composed in this album’s slower, almost back-to-basics style, he was reminded of the simpler times of his childhood, growing up on a sailboat in Seattle. As the final track’s unresolved harmony hangs in the air, it’s easy to visualize a human figure standing on the prow of a boat, gazing across the bay. I find that I actually enjoy the music of Cistern much more in film soundtrack form; Bischoff has done a small amount of scoring (i.e. Netflix’s Wet Hot American Summer), and I hope we can look forward to more film-related projects from this busy composer.

For more videos featuring Jherek Bischoff, visit our video page for 3 tracks from Cistern recorded right here in our studios with a quartet of the Seattle-based string ensemble, SCRAPE.

NEW VIDEOS: Jherek Bischoff and Scrape

Posted on March 4, 2015 by maestrobeats

Jherek Bischoff recently co-curated the Bang on a Can marathon here in Seattle. Part of this epic, six-hour new music extravaganza included a collaboration between Jherek and the local string ensemble Scrape, who stopped by our studios for a video session of some awesome original tunes!

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Portraits of Contemporary Polish Composers: EWA TRĘBACZ

Posted on July 7, 2014 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Stapleton

Outdoor locations in Washington (and all over the Pacific Coast, for some, like Nat Evans) have proven to be inspiring recording venues for new music. Ancient Lakes and the Dan Harpole Cistern are two such locations that inspired Seattle-based Ewa Trebacz (originally from Kraków, Poland).

Second Inversion’s Album of the Week is a collection of some of Ewa’s finished products which include field recordings from these locations. What makes this album so fascinating is that while much of it was recorded and produced in Poland, there’s a very special part of Washington state incorporated into some of these pieces (things lost things invisible, Errai and ANC’L’SUNR).

Furthermore, this album is part of a special annual project from The Polish Music Information Centre and Polish Composers’ Union to preserve new works and performances by living composers. Each year they publish 10 CDs, featuring a different composer In 2013, Ewa Trebacz one of the chosen composers.

Second Inversion was thrilled to talk to Ewa and Josiah Boothby (French horn collaborator on much of this disc) about each work:

The two have a longstanding friendship, which surely made the collaboration fun, but Ewa says, “Horn is AWESOME for processing or editing. You can almost make any instrument out of the horn sound… you can process it so many ways, create so many timbres, you will never be able to tell it came from the horn.”

On the method of composition, recording, and production, Ewa told us, “our method of work is somewhat like film production. We basically travel from one place to another and then later I create some basic shape of the piece that’s kind like a labyrinth of spaces. Later, in the concert performance the electronic part is reproduced by a surround speaker system at the same time the live performers bring the element of ‘here and now.’ Josiah ends up playing with himself from the past and at the same time creating the very direct
interaction of where the performance takes place.”

The Dan Harpole Cistern at Ford Worden is a large underground space with a 45-second reverberation time. Ewa recorded several musicians in this space to be used later in live performance. What’s it like to play an instrument in the Cistern? Josiah says, “It’s other worldly down there!… so often when we’re performing this difficult music by living composers, it’s hard. As a performer for me in that piece (things lost things invisible), I got to go into a resonant space, make big noises, and I got told, you know, do something a little less this way or a little more this way.. it was a lot of fun!”

Errai was another piece with samples (Josiah on horn and Anna Niedzwiedz, voice) recorded in the Cistern. Josiah goes on to say, “in a space that’s resonant enough to still sound while I’m playing another note, all of a sudden I can play chords with myself. Anna and I were not only playing with each other, we were playing with ourselves and there were several of us, simultaneously, and this is before Ewa starts doing anything with the electronics.”

Recordings from ANC’L’SUNR came from multiple locations, including the Cistern and also another Washington location, Ancient Lakes. What’s with the title? Ewa explains, “Funny thing, everyone keeps asking me what the language is, or what it means… but really, it’s an abbreviation for places where I made recordings. So, the word itself doesn’t really mean anything, but I think it’s inspiring.” This piece was produced with ATK, a software package developed by Juan Pampin, Joshua Parmenter, and Joseph Anderson at the UW DXARTS which preserves as much spatial relation in sounds as possible.

Ewa holds Masters Degrees in Composition, Computer Science and Econometrics and a PhD from the University of Washington’s Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) , where she currently works as a Research Scientist.