Coupling Duet by Dave Scanlon

I was once a bear. Life for such an animal is entirely dedicated to preparing for winter and then enduring it. In my animal mind I decided that I would not stand for this continuous cycle any longer. Each year as my diet shifted from roots to berries I knew that the fall was approaching. The revelation occurred to me that if I continued on a diet of roots the summer would be unable to progress. As that summer went on and the berries ripened I would approach the plants with confidence and say, “I have seen the creator.”

Life can be sustained on roots if the body fat for hibernation is not needed. Without the coming winter, there was no need to hunt. Throughout that summer as prey presented itself, I resisted and softly said, “I have seen the creator.” The days inevitably grew shorter. The foliage changed color and I saw that I had been mistaken. I had not prepared for the winter. By the time the dropping temperatures forced me into hibernation I knew that it would be a sleep I would not wake up from. As I passed the gods took interest in me. Touched by my faith and discipline, but angered by my ignorance, the gods had me reborn in human form so that I would understand that the reason for my mistake was that I saw the world in relationship to myself.

This music attempts to project empathy. This is chamber music without classical posture.

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DAVE SCANLON is a composer/guitarist, and an active member of the experimental rock band JOBS (fka killer BOB), the avant-garde collective Pet Bottle Ningen, and the pop group Leverage Models. Scanlon has released music on New Amsterdam Records, Tzadik Records, Hometapes, Clean Feed Records, New Atlantis Records, and Primary Records.

Coupling Duet is an album of Scanlon's compositional work for piano and guitar.

SHINKOYO is the ectoplasm connecting a group of composers, visual artists, improvisers, instrument builders, thinkers, scholars and conceptual artists exploring a new synthesis of sound and vision.

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