doom.kit
Album: Happiness and Truth (2023)
This album was written in collaboration with David Broome under the project name doom.kit.
doom.kit is a musical performance duo that uses electronics to blur the cognition of sound. They discover exquisite momvents in psycho-acoustic phenomenon and blend those within more conventional musical expectations. In its most basic form, doom.kit is a violin and piano duo, but that is just the beginning of their aural adventures.
Photo: Jo Saldivar
psithurism (2021)
Psithurism (noun): A rare obsolete word that describes the sound of wind rustling leaves.
blue hour (2021)
Written during an icestorm.
echo (2020)
Taking loose inspiration from the Echo character in Echo and Narcissus, this piece is laden with ASMR-like phrases of self-doubt, self-deprecation, and codependency.
bloom (2019)
bloom (36.151195, -95.846574) is an autobiographical collage-like piece that focuses on the first 9 years of my childhood, using sounds and imagery that were prominent then. In this piece, the sounds of nature are juxtaposed with technology, a large part of our "90s kid" childhoods: we played outside, got muddy, and climbed trees, but still remember the smell of the computer room and have Windows 95 sounds ingrained in our memories.
The albizia julibrissin tree is a symbol of the first house I lived in and was a beautiful canopy tree in our backyard that was planted when I was born and grew up with me. A man talks about this type of tree in a wash of electronic soundscape.
I've also used music and sounds that were important to me in my childhood, including fragments of music by Dido, a busy road (I lived right along 1-44), and windchimes. J.R.R. Tolkein's "On Fairy-Stories" is used to evoke the sense of awe and wonder that the natural world held for me.
covers (2023-24)
And Heaven Turned to Her Weeping (2023)
Through the Skies for You (2024)
alruna (2019)
ALRUNA is an original composition written for the official 10 year anniversary fan tribute project called ECHOES FROM OUR PAST for the electronic duo and subcultural phenomenon iamamiwhoami. The 6-movement chamber suite references conceptual and musical themes from iamamiwhoami’s early discography. Focusing on the myth of the mandrake, ALRUNA begins from a point of darkness and obscurity, but slowly struggles into a cautiously hopeful outlook.
Musicians:
Corbin Bodley and Nicholas Bashforth, violins
Jeff Smith, viola
Erica Parker, cello
Lorelei Barton, harp
Mixed and Mastered by:
SongSmith Records (Jeff Smith)
EP artwork by Richard Ortiz
palace (2014-15)
Palace, a song cycle for voice and piano, guides its listeners on an introspective pilgrimage through the many rooms of the mind and heart. Palace is currently unfinished.
Movements 1 and 2 of Palace (Idols and Figure I) won the Béla Rózsa Composition Competition and was consequently performed for the Béla Rózsa Memorial Concert at The University of Tulsa, both in February of 2016.
Piano: Abigail Gschwend-Harris
Soprano: Abigail Raiford
Text: Kiersten Moser
moonscape (2014)
Written for Landscapes and Soundscapes, a collaboration between TU student composers and the Gilcrease Museum spearheaded by Matthew Magerkurth in 2015. Scored for six wineglasses, tam-tam, suspended cymbal, beer bottles, two sopranos, violin, and cello. Inspired by William Robinson Leigh’s 1947 oil painting Landscape on the Moon.
Performers: Benjamin Krumweide (wineglasses), Megan Kepley (violin), Matthew Magerkurth (cello), Courtney Picking (suspended cymbal), Gavin Bauer (tam-tam), Abigail Raiford and Melanie Piché Miller (sopranos, beer bottles).
Photo by Danielle Eagle on Unsplash