ANDREA PARKINS & BRIAN CHASE

AVALANCHE OF ROUTES

(confront collectors series ccs 67)

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Brian Chase : drums, electronics

Andrea Parkins : accordion, electronics, amplified objects, live processing

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Recorded by Danny Blume at Hidden Quarry, Woodstock, NY, February 2014.

 

The duo of electroacoustic instrumentalist Andrea Parkins and drummer Brian Chase has its beginnings in the clubs of Brooklyn, NY, 2013. Parkins and Chase each bring to this project their distinct and distinguished histories as active members on the New York experimental scene. As collaborators, they emphasize the focused merging of improvisation and composition: a dedicated exploration of the “complicated relationship” between the act of spontaneous creation and honing of precise form within context.  In addition to being strong acoustic instrumentalists - Parkins on accordion and Chase on drum kit - the duo shares a love for electroacoustic music and its methodologies:  Parkins employs her self-designed virtual instruments to transform her materials (field recordings, everyday objects and small instruments) into zones of sculpted electronic feedback, punctuated by gaps and rifts; Chase's use of guitar pedals on drums and percussion manifests these instruments’ under-heard acoustic subtleties. For their debut album, Avalanche of Routes, the duo spent two days recording in a home studio in Woodstock, NY in snowy February 2014.  They found that the music took on a surprisingly noir-like quality: each track is suggestive of an equivocal scene and character; the tonal imagery is very rich in its depth of imagination; the thematic material unfolds at the whims of (non)reactionary pushes and pulls; their sonic language covers broad ground as even the slightest sound can serve as an object of fascination.