Hi all, I spent some time this year working on more ‘horn’ recordings. Strangely, these sort of evolved into duet recordings. Not my intention, but it felt right and I’ve increasingly learned to work as intuitively as possible. Many thanks to Tim Barnes for cultivating that mindset within me.
If you navigate over to the ‘releases’ page, there is a direct zip link at the bottom which includes 320 kbps MP3s and 24/96 WAVs, or you can check it out on Bandcamp. Feel free to Paypal me at shedding.sounds@gmail.com if you’d like to throw me some money. Or not. It’s never been about that. Thanks to my friends for being involved. Art and info below.
Connor Bell – sound
Guy Birkin – art
Josh Mason – text layout
Billy Gomberg – words
This turned into a series of duets, but the idea is the same, so the text Billy wrote for “This Is My Horn, Vol. 1” remains a good summary of what I’m trying to do:
Most musicians have a passion for listening that matches their passion for playing. Tracing the influences and reflections that end up on a single recording can be a messy task if we commit to real geography of the phenomenon, instead of the poetic, abstracted interpretation we end up listening to and weaving into our own archives.
Connor Bell has been practicing and playing and releasing music for a while (as Shedding and in various bands), and on TIMH he connects his own listener’s passion and musician’s commitment into process and product. Working from his love of solo jazz recordings, Connor approached a design of his synthesizer as something capable of gestures that move through texture and a free sense of melody. An instrument he can play, a language we hear and start to understand.
Leaning back into a wistful bearing on easy tempo solos, Connor’s performance finds overlays of timbre like mutated multiphonics, resisting calm while gathering a soft neon glow as edges appear, suddenly bristling or momentarily melancholy. Given his intention, Connor’s solos hold an inviting space to a listener – robust and skilled, this is deceptively complex music keeping a room warm for you.