Woman Hiding In Collar

I. View from bottom of staircase

II. Close-up view

III. Detail

There's also a version of this stencil somewhere on a canvas. This was the very first one I made using a real face, so it's definitely not great. But, I put it up here to show what one of these designs could potentially look like on a wall. The obvious fault here is that the woman's head is cut off by the frame of the stencil, which is further exposed by the black ring around the image. However, I think the streak of red really fortifies the whole frame, and provides some extension of the image beyond the subject herself. While I sprayed this one, I used a really old adhesive, which left some streaking and residue on the paint. I've since switched to a different adhesive spray.

Most people ask why this is called "Woman Hiding...", and it's because she's pulling her collar to hide her face. Someone thought this looked like Bob Dylan. My favorite part about this stencil is the hair, which I just cut all by hand instead of using the hair from the original transfer image.

Black and red spray paint on wall
Cambridge, MA
Summer, 2007

Organisms

Nat'l Geographic Museum, Washington, D.C.
February, 2006

Done Dried Up

Cambridge, MA
22 February, 2008

Rid of Rimsky

Red and green acrylic and binder clips

Cambridge, MA
16 April, 2008

Penseur Du Sénégal

*La Conversation:

MOI
Ça va?

PENSEUR
(en baissant la tête)
Ça ne va pas.

Quartier des Artisans, Dakar, Sénégal
January, 2008

Esbjorn In The U.S.A.

This review appeared in an edition of The Tech, MIT's student newspaper

E.S.T.
Sculler’s Jazz Club
September 26 2007

Upright bass solo. I grab the nearest seat while Dan Berglund evokes the voice of a soft-spoken woman from his instrument. I’m sitting in the worst seat in the house – behind a large ceiling support pole (every club’s got at least one). I can’t see Dan, but I’m so absorbed already. Fast runs down the high strings are nestled in between long sustained notes down low. Seamlessly, he switches between his fingers and his bow, carefully selecting which intervals warrant the slight pluck of his index and thumb and which do not. Esbjorn Svensson (piano) and Magnus Ostrom (drums), the only two members of the band I can actually see, sit still and patiently as Berglund continues through his solo.

After another handful of measures, Ostrom emerges with polyrhthyms ensconced within the sporadic bass notes. Svensson breaks his solemn pose with a jerk of the left hand. In one climatic sweep, the band comes together and navigates through the piece tightly. The song concludes in one large hit on the downbeat, and the crowd applauds immediately afterwards. Before Svensson stands up to banter with the audience, I run to an open seat near the front row, right in front of Ostrom’s kit, and remain there through the end of the show.

“E.S.T. is not jazz. We’re not bebop nor swing. We’re inspired by rock and roll, classical, and jazz music. But then again what is jazz?” Svensson makes his claim looking me straight in the eyes, sitting across from me at a round table twenty minutes after the crowd had dispersed. It was hard to get him to sit down, what with the whole audience lining up to shake his hand. One woman wouldn’t let go of his grip, reiterating that “[his] music was transcendent.” The members of E.S.T., whom all speak and understand English extremely well, in addition to their native Swedish tongue, smile humbly and agree to sign CDs.

I probe Svensson once again to reveal to me the meaning of genres in music. He’s more certain this time around: “If jazz is improvising, then yes, E.S.T. is jazz.” True, E.S.T. may be difficult to classify – their instrumentation almost pigeon-holes them as a ‘jazz trio’ – but their 2003 album Seven Days of Falling debuted on the Pop charts in three different countries. Further, just take a look at the demographic of a typical E.S.T. audience: jazz students, white-collar Monk fans, and electronica junkies.

It’s E.S.T.’s expansive landscaping of the sonic space that has gained them such a fanbase. Not only do they pay homage do the late greats of jazz and swing, but they enhance their live show with clever uses of natural and digital effects. Seated in front of the drumkit, I marveled at the selection of pedals skirting Ostrom’s feet. Many of his drums were fitted with acoustic triggers, each routed to one of six pedals, and then to a small mixer. In the middle of the second set, Ostrom resorted to tapping the snare with his knuckles, while modulating the pedals with his other hand and his feet. The sounds achieved weren’t gimmicky or forced in any way – just simply a reinforcement of the acoustic and natural possibilities of the snare.

“So would E.S.T. play a straight acoustic show, with no electronics?” Svensson eyes drifted upwards, recalling a recent memory. He crossed his legs and replied, “Well yeah – this tour we were late for our show in Germany. We didn’t have time to set up the sound. We played a set completely acoustic, no effects.” He later adds that the effects are merely a “complement to the acoustic trio. It’s about finding new sounds.” At this point Berglund and Ostrum join us, placing themselves at an adjacent table. I was curious to find out when they started using effects. “Around 1993. Dan was the first to use a distortion pedal.”

In addition to Dan’s distortion pedals and Orstrum’s delay units, Svensson captures his piano playing through two condenser mics, which run into a Line 6 Pod. He primarily uses the unit is for amplifier modeling and subtle backing support to his chord arrangements. Svensson likens using the Pod to “adding a little perfume” to the music. What struck me most, though, was Svensson’s daring move to play the piano while running a glass guitar slide over the piano strings. “I think I once saw Keith Jarrett do it. Or maybe heard of him doing it. Or maybe I just started doing it.” His inspiration might be unclear, but the sound is ambitious nonetheless.

The E.S.T. live experience, as is the case with most bands who improvise, is riddled with surprises. A personal highlight for me during the second set was a stellar, almost eleven minute, performance of the song ‘Mingle In The Mincing Machine’. The set opened with a title from the new album, Tuesday Wonderland, which included an improvised ambient section towards the end. Somewhere in the middle of the ambience and structured noise, Berglund's bass could be heard pulsating in and out of the opening to ‘Mingle’. I immediately recognized it and started cheering. With no delay, the whole band plowed through the song.

You’re average trio doesn’t contain such freedom and equality amongst its members. Most piano trios, especially ones named after the piano player himself, are solely directed by the keys. However, E.S.T. operates differently. “If Dan wants to do a song, Dan does a song. We follow. He has that kind of authority in the band,” says Svensson. Though it’s his trio and he composes the music, it’s truly a collaborative.

The experience of a spectacular live show, followed by an extremely comfortable and enlightening conversation with the band afterwards indicates to me that this is a group who truly cares about music. Their attention to the full breadth of their catalog (the second set contained only one new track), coupled with their desire to challenge each other sonically, invites listeners to enjoy what could quite possibly be the strongest working relationship in contemporary music today. While their music subverts all the recipes and formulas of pop music in the current era, E.S.T. continues to gain international notoriety. As Svensson himself put it, with every ounce of humility, “everyone always wants to hears [jazz] standards – but I think good old music will survive.”

***

The Bastards (Haiku)

Nobody has the
Decency or the Courage
Who will win the war?

Chennai, India
13 June, 2006

Point-Virgule

(or download the song!)

One of the first real 'synth meditations'. Only a handful of my songs have French titles, and this one is most fitting, I think. It translates to semi-colon in English. Just like the punctuation mark, this song is all about suspension, and interdependence of subunits. I had the synth plugged into my analog cassette 4-track machine. At points, you can definitely tell that this song was recorded on master tape and then later transferred to the computer.

I improvised the 'refrain' of this song while meditating on it. However, since this whole song was improvised, I didn't remember exactly what I played for the 'refrain' when it came time to play it again. So each one is slightly different, which is really what I love about this song.

In case you're wondering, the drum loop was programmed before hand, and triggered by the right hand. The whole song is recorded/performed simultaneously, that is to say the drum loop runs in the background, the left hand does the string parts, and the right hand does the synth soloing.

When I felt the meditation coming to a close, I finished the song and opened my eyes, realizing that almost nine minutes had passed! It didn't feel like it at the time. If you sit through all nine minutes, you win a glass harmonica.

Really though, this song does deserve a listen, if not for its musical and melodic successes, then for the fact that you'll get a true look into what synth meditation means to me (and what it can produce).