Pulse transit by Ashley Davies

The musical influences are easy to explain; Captain Beefheart, Eno, Burt Bacharach and Talking Heads to name a few. Harder to explain is the inspiration Davies draws from expressionist and modern dance.

“A few years back I started going to a different type of dance show/performance…I had previously gone to more traditional musical theatre shows until a friend took me to a show in Melbourne by dance company CHUNKY MOVE.
I enjoyed how it didn’t seem to be in time…in fact there didn’t seem to be any sense of time. they played with time, had there own sense of time…it was random. Some one mentioned to me at another performance of modern dance that if they (the dancers) feel they are getting in time they will get back out of it. The sense of rhythm and movement of the pieces affected me. I did not know enough about modern dance to understand the rudiments of this type of dance form, but what I did know is that I wanted to take the ideas I was getting from the visuals, movement, timing and performances and put that to music. And the seed that took root in my mind was to write music that had a sense of bending time, slowing down and speeding up etc, even though its foundation was an unmovable pulse…which established a groove for me to work out from and a subconscious beat for the listener”.
Pulse – transit is 2 parallel trajectories travelling 2 lines of time… one shifting, the other fixed. The downbeat is set and constant during the course of the piece/work. The speed shifts only thru the feel of the time signatures, 4/4, 7/8, 5/16 to name a few, and the way the instruments are played and where the notes are placed.

Ashley Davies is a composer and drummer from Melbourne, Australia. He has recorded and produced 6 albums and conceived 3 live theatre shows incorporating his own compositions. He’s a highly sought after session musician having played on over 60 albums, recorded for film and television soundtracks, and performed with various artists in Australia and internationally.