Code-Talker by Steve Long

The Code-talker paradox is an issue in linguistics that calls into question fundamental ideas about the nature of language. The term was coined in 2001 by linguist Mark Baker to describe the Navajo code talkers of WWII. The premise of the paradox highlights how language can both assist and hinder communication.

For me the term code-talker evokes real life instances of communication impeded both intentionally and unintentionally. I think about the translation from inspiration to the execution of a piece of music. I think about my everyday life as a gay man code-switching with family, friends, and strangers. I think about the Tower of Babel situation, which is the virtual world.

Code-Talker is an album of solo pipe-organ music that plays with memory and my relationship with the past, both historical and personal. It was recorded live at St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University in New York, NY. The piece is a guided improvisation populated by musical odds and ends collected from disparate times in my life and arranged like objects on a shelf. These references are sewn together into a latticework created by intuitive responses to the overtones bouncing around the chapel. It is worth noting that almost 20 years ago, and only a few blocks away, I began my brief stint as a composition student at the Manhattan School of Music. So, when a short series of harmonies I wrote in 2005 found its way into the music I was not surprised. This music is on the verge of coming into focus and giving up its intentions. It is offered up as a message but an encrypted one, indecipherable to everyone except myself.
-Steve Long

Bio:
Steve Long is a composer, keyboardist and native Brooklynite. As pianist and composer he leads PRNCX, a group dedicated to playing his compositions. He has been commissioned by flautist Isabel Lepanto Gleicher of the International Contemporary Ensemble, vocalist Jane Sheldon, vocalist Virginia Warnken of Roomful of Teeth, Chatterbox (Isabel Crespo Pardo, Jolee Gordon, Priya Carlberg), and Anthony Coleman's large ensemble Survivors Breakfast. Recent collaborative projects include Lesley Mok’s quartet Cobalt, the pipe-organ/double-bass duo Vanitas with bassist Henry Fraser, and co-songwriting and arranging with Benjamin Lazar Davis and Kim Anderson. As an educator, Long has given several guest artist lectures at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and Northeastern University. He currently teaches at The New School. Recent grants and awards include funding from the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and the City Artist Corps Grant.

experimental music label /// est. 2020 /// submissions are currently CLOSED

email: nat@triptickstapes.com

Distribution:
Tobira Records (JP)
Squidco (US)

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