The kind folks at the Terse label asked if I would like to contribute to their holiday compilation "Terse Greetings".  The release contains the song I created, "Tiny Reindeer Dance":



The whole compilation is a fun, free listen:

Giordano Ciampini made this fun video which uses my song "Berries". This is called "Everything I Learned about Life,  I Learned in Mermaid School":

Everything I learned about life, I learned at mermaid school from Giordano Ciampini on Vimeo.

 Torontoist reporter Kaitlin Wright shows in this video that there are a world of times that only a sense of style and the right green finds will do.

David Nemeth is a big supporter of Creative Commons and liberal licensing, who make abstract non-traditional music in his own right. His website "Acts of Silence" is an excellent resource for folks who like to discover liberally-licensed music that does not color between the lines.

Though my music sometimes colors near the lines, but merely makes a mess of it, I was glad that David reviewed my new album "Constellation Blackbird". He
"gets" my music, and makes me think about what I was up to, a bit.

Here is David's review of "Operation Blackbird":

Acts of Silence Review: Gurdonark, Constellation Blackbird

Director Jennifer Phang makes excellent near-future dystopian sci-fi movies. Her film "Half Life" caught my eye some years ago. I am pleased that my track "Fortitude Bumper" now appears on her new film, "Advantageous". The new film is a really great piece of story-telling, about a near-future in which new technology is used to perpetuate old stereotypes.

The song is an abbreviated rework of my 2007 release "Fortitude" from the "Seven Virtues" EP.  The film won an award at this year's Sundance Film Festival and is about to receive its debut on Netflix. It's a solid story about a future a bit more high-tech but a bit worse than our present.

I'd like to give a shout-out not only to Jennifer Phang, but also to
Timo Chen whose work in creating the vast majority of the soundtrack is a great listen and just right for the film.


Here's a great piece from Indiewire about the movie "Advantageous".

Advantageous on Indiewire

Here's the Facebook page for the film:

Advantageous the Movie facebook page 

I enjoy listening to Studio 360, a radio program produced by WNYC. I was pleased to see that one of its recent podcast features used as its background parts of my song "Constellation Blackbird" in an article about use of biological processes in art:

I like to see my songs re-used. Here "Small Pond" from the new "Constellation Blackbird" soundtracks an analog demonstration of a virtual game:

Hermaton at Bosch Shine from Darf Design on Vimeo.

I like that video creators pick up my Creative Commons songs and take them along on video rides ranging from space exploration to make-up application.

Here I present a video based off the gentle song 'Naive' off my new release, "Constellation Blackbird".  The video was shot during a bicycle ride on the Watters Creek Trail in Allen, Texas, and during visits to Bob Woodruff Park in Plano, Texas and to Green Park in Allen, Texas. These are sights and sounds of a single, somewhat rainy north Texas USA weekend.

Tom Laird hosts "Fade to Yellow", a weekly radio show featuring ambient, post-rock and other electronica music, plus interviews, on Austin's KOOP radio station. He also releases the show as a cloudcast on Mixcloud.

I am pleased that on Episode 169, he plays my song "Ramble" from the new album "Constellation Blackbird".  I think the whole show is a good listen, and my piece is a lesser but weirder part of the fun. I encourage you to check it out, as it has fun tracks and some good small-label interview material:

Episode 169 - Fade To Yellow - Life Imitated By Computers and other Biosphere Simulator Concepts by Tom Laird on Mixcloud

Lee Rosevere is an electronic music artist who also curates the Happy Puppy Records netlabel.  He's also a good guy. I was pleased when he took my song "Thoughts" off my new album "Constellation Blackbird" and created a new song "Thoughtful".

 "Thoughts" as I created it has a kind of retro synth melody sound. Lee's piece takes one line from that fairly straightforward melody, and, with some clever additions, takes the sound some different places.

 Here's the new track:



I'm grateful to him for sharing this piece. One nice thing about recording Creative Commons work is that such sharing and remixing and remodeling is easy, with attribution.
 

Check out Lee's other work at his netlabel:

Happy Puppy Records netlabel

or at his Bandcamp page:

Lee Rosevere's Bandcamp page

He's a good listen who, like me, loves the old early synthesizer stuff from the 1970s but does not quite bathe in it. He  just splashes about a bit, and I think that is where all the fun wades in.

I've been pleased with the early feedback for my new album, "Constellation Blackbird". Any creative endeavor released into the ether involves a bit of worry and a bit of fun. Folks I respect have been kind enough to reach out by email or social media message with a kind word or two. I am grateful.

I do not take it all too much to heart, though. I  remember once when a ccMixter song of mine was used for a widely-watched video of large trees being relocated in Australia as part of a road construction team's work. I was pleased to happen upon discussion of my work on that video in French. I used a translation program to discover that the posters considered my piece a major drawback about the video. I learned a lesson in humility (and rueful amusement) that day. Similarly, the new album will not win universal acclaim, as at least one "rating" on a music social media site attests. The pleasures of weirdbient work do not include mass adulation. I cannot imagine that my music will appeal to everyone. I am happy with "appeals to anyone".  I only imagine having fun making and sharing music.

Today I got a bit of good news. Alex O'Brien over at the Free Music Archive posted "Constellation Blackbird" there. I have other works there, and I am pleased that "Constellation Blackbird" will join the fun.

Here is the link to the album at the Free Music Archive:

The Music Manumit Podcast features interviews with artists who release liberally-licensed music. I appeared on this show back in 2012. Tom Ray, a Creative Commons musician, and Doug Whitfield, an attorney with a keen interest in Creative Commons, serve as effective advocates for more open music.

I was pleased when they asked me to appear again on the show. As always, I found myself less than incisively insightful, but I enjoyed the discussion very much. Here's the podcast of my appearance:

Gurdonark Returns: Music Manumit Podcast

I am pleased to announce the release of my new song collection, "Constellation Blackbird" on the Weareallghosts netlabel. It's available at bandcamp.com or archive.org, released under a Creative Commons license.

My friend Thomas Mathie did the cool cover art and wrote the liner notes. He describes it as "dissonant frequencies, naive sounds, and glitchy melodies". I think he's got a bit of a point, there. I call it weirdbient, though, and that term works for me:

Phantom Circuit is an excellent UK-based podcast which plays an electic mix of
electronic music and intriguing offbeat material. The April 2015 edition (episode 153) marks a triumphant return after a brief hiatus. My song, "Forgotten Fields", first released in 2009, is one of the pieces featured on the podcast.  I really enjoyed hearing the other artists' work on this podcast:

Phantom Circuit #153 (19th Apr. 2015): first edition of Series 4 by Phantom Circuit on Mixcloud