Listening Beam Five

Listening Beam Five

Description: 
Music for the third ear
Composers: 
Stephen Rush
Chris Peck
Jon Moniaci
Crystal Mooncone
Performers: 
Stephen Rush
Chris Peck
Jon Moniaci
Crystal Mooncone
Catalog Number: 
#973
Genre: 
experimental
new music
electronic
Collection: 
ambient
Meditative (neo New Age)
Minimalism
soundtrack
Location: 

Ann Arbor, MI

Price: 
$15.00
Release Date: 
Mar 24, 2017
Liner Notes: 
View
1 CD
Listening Beam FiveiTunes Artist's PageiTunes Album Page
Song TitleTimePrice
1.Fossil Tears08:50$0.99
2.Los Senderos de Mitras03:21$0.99
3.Homage03:59$0.99
4.Imaginary Azimuths03:29$0.99
5.Leeward Side05:50$0.99
6.Perth Airport04:41$0.99
7.Rocky's Landscape09:24$0.99
8.Light Tunnel14:13
One Sheet: 

Crystal Mooncone (Stephen Rush, Chris Peck and Jon Moniaci) is an electroacoustic band with a psychedelic sensibility, mixing playful interaction with committed listening and melding virtuosic musicianship with a taste for risk. In the ten years they’ve performed together they’ve developed a compositional process akin to Zen calligraphy -- a blend of spontaneity and precision. The trio plumbs the unknown through this process, honing their collective musical decision-making while still delighting in the unexpected.

The result is a rich, textured sound that blends old and new technologies, hi-fi and lo-fi, acoustic and electronic, analog and digital, familiar and unfamiliar, nostalgic and futuristic. Instruments such as piano and flute collide with hardware and plumbing supplies. Whimsical instruments like slide whistles and bike horns take on serious prominence (with echoes of the Art Ensemble of Chicago). Crystal Mooncone conjures cinematic landscapes anchored by moments of exquisite sonic detail and musicality.  Listening Beam Five is Crystal Mooncone’s fifth album, following Escape Cone Listening Beam 4 and Escape Cone Listening Beam III released by Deep Listening.

Each member is an accomplished composer and artist in his own right. Rush is a Professor of Music at the University of Michigan and has performed with Roscoe Mitchell, Pauline Oliveros, Elliott Sharp and more, including orchestral, chamber and solo works on over 30 CDs. Peck has a longstanding engagement as a collaborator with contemporary dance and performance companies in Los Angeles, Brussels and elsewhere. He teaches music courses at the Global Arts Studies Program at the University of California Merced. Moniaci also frequently collaborates with dance makers. In 2011 he received a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for his score for choreographer Beth Gill’s Electric Midwife.

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Stephen Rush is a Professor of Music at the University of Michigan where he founded the Digital Music Ensemble over 25 years ago, premiering works by La Monte Young, John Cage and Philip Glass. As a performer he has worked with Roscoe Mitchell, Pauline Oliveros, Eugene Chadbourne, Steve Swell and Elliott Sharp, and has orchestral, chamber and solo works recorded on over thirty CD’s.  He is also the author of “Free Jazz, Harmolodics and Ornette Coleman,” a book of extensive interviews with Ornette Coleman and analyses of compositions/transcriptions of Harmolodic music.   

Chris Peck is a composer, computer musician, improviser, and songwriter with a longstanding engagement as a collaborator with contemporary dance and performance. Recent projects have included co-creations of music-dance works with LA-based choreographer Milka Djordjevich (MASS at The Kitchen, NYC in 2015) and Brussels-based choreographer Eleanor Bauer (MEYOUCYCLE at Kunstenfestivaldesarts in 2016). Peck teaches music courses at the Global Arts Studies Program at the University of California Merced, where he also directs the Experimental Inter-Arts Ensemble.

Jon Moniaci is a composer, musician and software engineer who frequently collaborates with dance makers. His music incorporates acoustic and electronic textures and often relies on flexible and improvisatory structures. In 2011 he received a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for his score for choreographer Beth Gill’s Electric Midwife. 

Reviews: 

MIDWEST RECORD

"A new set of improv soundscapes from a bunch closely associated with experimental dance troupes plays like it could easily be presented to new agy types as well. This trio let's their telepathy be their leader as they take this music to where unicorns, fairies and other creatures play in fields that aren't as wide any more due to traffic rolling through with the trepidation it causes right there in the music. Contemporary head music for the heads that appreciate it." - Chris Spector

GAPPLEGATE CLASSICAL-MODERN MUSIC REVIEW

"The relatively simple means to produce a broad spectrum of cosmic moods does not detract from the aural appeal of it all. Drones and sustains layer under tonal events that include folk-like melodies and other diatonic lyricalities. Generally the overall sound transcends the relative simplicity of each element. What is remarkable is the engaging and affective outcomes of each scape. These three are attuned to the ambient objectives of each number and make all eight interrelate and stand forward. Some beautiful, gently aspiring music." [FULL ARTICLE] - Grego Applegate Edwards

 

TEXTURA

“Crystal Mooncone has transplanted itself to the center of a humid tropical forest. “Imaginary Azimuths” pairs simple acoustic piano melodies with bike horns and Turkish bells in a way that suggests some imaginary meeting between Brian Eno and The Art Ensemble of Chicago. The trio isn't afraid to venture into truly alien territory, as shown by the shuddering meditation “Leeward Side” (replete with chanting and needling micromoog textures) and industrial-drone exploration “Light Tunnel”; “Rocky's Landscape,” on the other hand, calms the nerves with nine, uncluttered minutes of drowsy musings, with Peck's flute playing a prime reason for its soothing effect. As diverse as the instrumentation is on the fifty-four-minute release, the recurring presence of flute, electric piano, and accordion ultimately does much to make its eight settings feel connected and the recording whole.” [FULL ARTICLE]

THE RAMBLER

“Listening Beam Five by Crystal Mooncone (Stephen Rush, Chris Peck and Jon Moniaci. More of a 60s, West Coast psychedelia vibe here, although washed out, exhausted, like the fade-outs to a Bitches Brew session at full scale. The instrumentarium includes Phase Maracas, Foil-o-tron, Distant Echo Flute, Float Tank Rhodes and Cistern Singing, so that should give some idea (or not).” - Tim Rutherford-Johnson

CHAIN D.L.K.

"The best composition on the disc was the final track, “Light Tunnel.” Cicada-like noise greets the listener, becoming increasingly intense, with rumbling bass and piano peeking through at times. As the noise settles down, we hear singing that sounds like it is taking place in a tunnel, before ending with flute and heavy drone." [FULL ARTICLE]