Metta Editions is a label centered around the work of David Shea and various releases of new and old works. The label will be available exclusively on-line and in very select record stores for the first year, and will feature new limited edition works and series as well as re-releases of many of the cds from the 80s and 90s plus other unreleased pieces from that period. The label will grow to include published articles and short books of collected writings, CD and DVD releases of other artists working in collage, film music, contemporary classical music, Asian traditional musics, religious and ritual music, music concrete and field recordings.
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| The
Art of Memory The Art of Memory is based on the book of Francis Yates of the same name which chronicles and examines the history of memory techniques from the ancient Greeks and Romans through the late renaissance and explores the technical to the most mystical connections. The recording is two seperate works. the first is The Art of Memory collection. Each piece was constructed from acoustic scored and improvised works, samples from films and records and many of the computer programs thta I had worked on during my time at Ircam in Paris. The return to sampling co-incided with the move to Australia and a focus on the Pacific Asian part of the globe. Each piece dealt with memory and conditioning through sound icons, styles, field recordings, film archive sources and recordings I had used on other cds and in other contexts. The live musicians were constructed from the classical ensembles I worked with while living in Brussels and the recordings I made leading to the two Classical Works cds and combined with samples found in Brussels and Melbourne with a healthy dose of electronic manipulation and techniques from the Ircam days. The second work is a soundtrack for the film AM/PM by Belgian writer and director Herman Asselberghs. The film is constructed from still photographs which have slow motion tracked camera movement across them accompanied by a text narrated about the internalised emotions of global media and terrorism. A producer of the film Dial History, on the history of hijacking which I wrote the score to in 97, Herman created a virtual tribute to the work of Chris Marker of La Jete fame and I followed with an emotional yet very abstract computer score of which I created the suite for this cd. The cd is a collection of works related directly to my search into the use of sampling and memory theatre based on one of the most influential books that led to much of my approach in constructing these sampled compositions and performances. For more info see the articles - Memory Fragments, Writings on Memory and The Art of Memory.  official mail order (UK) you can now buy The Art of Memory with paypal! $25 ($3.50 postage & handling) |
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| Satyricon Recorded throughout 97 and 98 this was one of the first cds that focussed on large ensemble work and moved away from sampling leading to the chamber classical works of 98-04. Based both on the original ancient Roman text by Petronius, the minister of pleasure and elegance under emporer Nero (believe it or not) and the Fellini film of the same name, this recording followed the fragmented narrative of the text and focused on the use of modern and traditional musical languages in a musical cinematic flow. Constructed of musical scenes, each style and sound icon was scored for various ensembles of musicians and was then mixed with samples of those same musicians. Exploring the orchestration between acoutic traditions and sampler, turntable, and computer instrument, Satyricon was the most complete cinema style work of mine in the 90's. It followed directly after the Tower of Mirrors and Hsi Yu Chi which was based on Chineese mythology and was a very personal search into the roots of western mythology and the shocking moderness of the original text. Working with musicians such as Zeena Parkins, Erik Friedlander, Anthony Coleman, Sebastian Steinberg (from Soul Coughing), Jim Pugliese and a group of traditional Italian musicians sampled from sessions during the recording of the Neustra Signora project (from that same year) organised by the great Tullio Angelini of More Music, the ensembles were constructed and/or recorded live to follow the diversity of historical and linguistic styles found in the original text. This re-issue contains all the original material and a new track constructed from the many solo performances that were arranged later and recorded for the cd Triptych as Satyricon 2000 official mail order (UK) you can now buy Satyricon with paypal! $25 ($3.50 postage & handling) |
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| Una
Nota Solo The first CD on the label is Una Nota Solo a limited series of 1000 of a work based on the Art of Memory, which is due to be released in May by Sub Rosa records. A collection of my new film works, sampler collages, field recordings in Australia and live ensemble arrangements, all beginning and ending on a single note, and inspired by the work of Giacinto Scelsi. These pieces were the framework for the Art of Memory and include collections of the Memory Lane project of the Rotterdam Film festival among other new pieces. The first CD to return to collage sampling after three live ensemble works, the Una Nota Solo record returns the the narrative cinema style of Satyricon and The Tower of Mirrors both which will be re-released in the coming months. So Metta Editions begins here with this work which
is a full overview of what I have been doing since leaving New York
and Europe for Australia and will give the sense for what will be
the focus for the label in the next few years.
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| The Tower of Mirrors The Tower was the third of my New York ensemble larger works and the most complete in terms of sampling, turntable and collage. It followed the Hsi Yu Chi based on the ancient chineese epic Journey to West which the stories of Sun Wu Kung or Monkey were taken and was based on a novel written a century later by a Buddhist monk called The Tower of Myriad Mirrors. The short novella was intended to fit between the 60th and 61st chapter of the 100 Hsi Yu Chi chapters and is one of the strangest surreal novels ever written. At the time I was a full on Hong Kong film fanatic and like Hsi Yu Chi is was a collection of tributes to Hong Kong directors as well as my personal look into the original stories. At the time I had not seen Monkey, the Japaneese childrens series so popular in Japan, England and Australia but have since made up for lost time. The group of musicians was the finest I had worked with to that point and the line up of Sim Cain (Rollins band), Mark Ribot, Dave Douglas, Erik Freidlander, David Morley, Jim Pugliese, and many others was a pleasure from start to finish. Each piece dealt with the various mirrors that Monkey stares into and enters that world in the story and the ensemble needed to be very diverse from sampled characters to live players from very different backgrounds. Like Prisoner, Shock Corridor and Hsi-Yu Chi the structure was composed in types of scenes each with a seperate method and historical sound language and was filled with tributes to various composers and directors. The pieces were also intended to be played sequentially or in random order to capture a bit more of the exotica surreal mix of the original book. The Tower included but was also the begining of the movement away from collage turnatable and sampler playing, to instrumental and elcetronic based compositions which led to the recording of the very western Satyricon cd. Each section has its own mini history which can be found in the articles Works of the Jade Tower. The Towers of Mirrors will be available in December 2007 but we accept Pre-Orders |
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