Ace Texan film-maker (now in Iowa) Julianna Villarosa gave her friends some 16mm footage and invited them to make something with it. Then she added all the micro-films together. The resulting film is called:

Friendfilm

Julianna included my song "Small Pond" as part of the soundtrack about 45 seconds in. It's fun to be part of something friendly and a bit more extensive than one's own efforts. 

Australian film-maker Marie Craven used my music, likably remixed a bit, in her video "Endless Wall to Wall Carpet", which is a response to a poem by Anne Cotten. I am pleased to learn that her film was accepted to the 2018 Zebra Poetry Film Festival.


Endless wall to wall carpet from Marie Craven on Vimeo.

I enjoy Marie's work, and am delighted to appear in her film.

Video-maker Monique Smulders created this excellent video entitled "Small Pond/een vijvertje", which features my song "Small Pond" as its soundtrack. I like her work--and am pleased to share it here:

Today is Netlabel Day 2018. I am pleased that my track "Rainy Day Inside" is one of the tracks on the Cerebral Rift netlabel compilation "Into the Rift, Volume 3: From Genial Times".

It's a download here:

Into the Rift v. 3

I am pleased that three of my pieces appear on the release "Double Blindfold Project" on the Cerebral Audio netlabel.

In this project, I created one piece, "Surgery".  Then I was sent anonymized samples by the artist Delicasession to create a second piece, "Words Left Unsaid (re-imagined Delicasession)".  Then I was sent a further set of anonymized samples to create "Distant Festival".

I enjoyed the process of creation, though with hindsight I wish that I had had more fun with the samples that I used to create "Distant Festival". I went for the raucous blend, when perhaps I should have used a scalpel for the subtle tone instead.

The release is available here:
Double Blindfold project

This Spring in north Texas I've been enjoying walks and bicycle rides. I've seen a lot of interesting things. Sometimes I capture a little bit of what I see on video.

This video uses my 2011 song "Slide Rule" to present some nature footage I took, both very recent and a bit less recent:

I like the annual July event known as Netlabel Day. Last week Netlabel Day 2016 brought a huge group of new releases, including a number of artists whose work I find interesting and fun.

The Cerebral Rift netlabel also released a compilation called "Into the Rift, Volume 1". I am pleased that my track "Deeper Vanity" is on that release:

Cerebral Rift, Volume 1

Thanks to Soundchaser for running this Netlabel Day compilation.

St. Louis ambient and electronica artist Mystified curated a new compilation called "New Mind Emergence'.  Consistent with its theme,  I created a song called "The Robot Smiles Upon Enlightenment". I am pleased to have this track released on Mystified's curated compilation:

Although I was born in Texas, I grew up in Arkansas. My artist name is a contraction of Gurdon, Arkansas, the town I lived in from age 5 to age 15. I sometimes think of myself as being "of" each of the three places at which I have lived for years---Texas, Arkansas and California. But by any measure, I nonetheless am an Arkansas artist.

So I found myself well-pleased to be asked to contribute to the compilation "Ambient Arkansas". My song "Poison Springs" refers to a battlefield about 20 miles from each of the three towns in which I grew up.  I dutifully resisted the urge to add cannons to the song, despite an inner 1812 Overture longing.  

Here's a link to the album, available on Bandcamp from the Aural Films label:

I'm pleased to advise that I just released my newest album, "Reflections on Self".



The song titles, and more indirectly the ten pieces, all deal with the puzzle of dealing with being oneself.

As is usual, it's available for download with payment optional, and available for re-use under a BY-SA Creative Commons license.

My song "Potato Dawn" takes a fun trip to Scandinavia in this charming short film by Jose Manuel Rios:


Trip to Scandinavia from Jose Manuel Rios Valiente on Vimeo.

I use different Creative Commons licenses to release my work. Some folks only use attribution non-commercial licenses that bar commercial uses without a license.  I do that sometimes, but I prefer to release my work Attribution only, to permit commercial uses. Sometimes, I require share-alike, which tends to make things a bit less commercial.

Here is the kind of things that happen when I license BY. Here young Gabrielle models thrift store fashion, with her mom's expert narration, with the modeling scenes set to my tune "Kindergarten":

I make Creative Commons music to be liberally shared. One thing I like is that folks use my songs in their videos. The count as of this writing is in excess of three thousand videos that make some use of one of my songs on Youtube, and a couple of hundred more on Vimeo.

I learned from a teenager I mentored that lots of folks use Youtube as their music streaming service. I see some of my songs posted with a single still image. This is fine with me, so long as the license is followed.

I thought, though, that I could create a video or three that cater to this "listener-oriented" use of the video.  I took a number of my photographs of local north Texas sights, and used MyPhotoFilmStrip and OpenShot Video to create this
video of "Constellation Blackbird" by Gurdonark:

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.