Post_Piano

At the core of this album is a 22-kHz piano sample. Back in 1997, Kenneth Kirschner took that sample, stretched it across the keyboard (pitching up and down to fit the standard pitch of each key), and became enamored with the noisy, grainy piano sound obtained. He has used it a lot since, and in 2001-2002 he came back to it to prepare five piano suites. Made of fragments of simple, almost childlike piano motifs, these pieces were then delivered to microsoundsmith Taylor Deupree to sample and re-create. The results ally fragility and innocence — beauty that stretches far beyond the methods and processes at play. At times the piano's presence is limited to trace elements: filtered clicks, abstract pulses, and the ghostly reverb of unheard notes. In other pieces (like "02.15.02"), Deupree keeps the melody at the center of his stage, wrapping microscopic pulses around it. Ambient and relaxing, this music sounds like a new form of new age music (the creative kind, early on, before birds and water streams ruined everything). The technology of experimental electronica has been fully integrated, and now the composer transcends processes to focus on manipulating emotions (in a good sense!) and inspiring memories. Deupree's ten constructions constitute the audio partition of post_piano. A data partition contains the original piano sample in aiff format and the five piano pieces in mp3 format. The CD is released under the Open Audio License; musicians are invited to use the material to continue the collaboration. ~ François Couture, Rovi