Night Sky by Ken Moore
Ken has, for some time now, abandoned structured music in favor of spontaneous and improvised creations. Indeed, for the last nine years, there has been an undeniable obsession with percussion music; in particular, the sounds that he creates with the tam-tams in the Gong Room. Night Sky is, for some, a welcome deviation from that, but it is not without its percussive elements.
Back in 1981, when Chris Meyer reviewed his "To Come Into Being" cassette in the newsletter "Synex", he wrote: "If it can ever be said that a person paid his dues to his past, Ken has done it [on this tape]". Therefore, presented here on Night Sky are 17 songs that were conjured up in a series of improvisations. Nothing was prepared ahead of time, and nothing was rehearsed, until he added tracks from some of his previous "improvised" recordings. In short, every song on this album came from his heart. All the titles were given to the pieces at the time of recording.
Indeed, some of these songs will sound like they were "composed", but these are all first take recordings; nothing was re-recorded or done over. After everything was added (and some things taken away), Ken arranged the order of the pieces to best reflect the moods, and to set up a journey by which (if listened to in completion) the listener will be able to travel through a story of untold imagination.
Tracklist
| 1. | Spring Is | 4:45 |
| 2. | Raindrops | 6:35 |
| 3. | Quiet Silence | 1:25 |
| 4. | Scream In Daylight | 4:02 |
| 5. | Merry-Go-Around | 3:48 |
| 6. | Year Of The Locusts | 4:25 |
| 7. | Ugly Melody | 2:58 |
| 8. | Windy As It Was | 2:40 |
| 9. | Sun Will Shine | 2:37 |
| 10. | Bells In The Chimney | 4:05 |
| 11. | Dance In The Weeds | 3:13 |
| 12. | Green Mountain Circle | 2:55 |
| 13. | Counter Attack | 2:04 |
| 14. | Leisure Time | 2:44 |
| 15. | Cloudy This Time | 2:06 |
| 16. | Blowing Leaves | 3:09 |
| 17. | A Warm Damp Night | 4:29 |
Credits
Ken Moore plays:programmed synthesizers, Moog SubPhatty analog synthesizer, electric piano, chimes and various percussion, pipe organ, Steinway grand piano, electric guitar, kalimba (African thumb piano), string synthesizer (violin and cello), saxophone, harpsichord, mellotron (flute, oboe, viola), plucked and electric bass, vibraphone, African balafon, toy horn, toy whistle, Minimoog synthesizer
Cover photo by Hollishots
Note: there are no sequencers on this album; everything was played in real-time by hand, and by only one musician.
License
CC BY-ND 3.0. See the Creative Commons website for details.Tags
Ken Moore has been using sound as music since 1975. This site began as a promotion for the Moore/Myers band, which released two albums in the 1980s. Now, Ken has expanded his talents to include percussion and abstract recordings from the Gong Room. With the addition of Short Story, ACS is creating even better adventurous sounds, more than ever before.