wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

New Sounds

Sunday, May 25, 2008
  • Gyan Riley
    Guitarist and Composer Gyan Riley

    Six-String Riley

    For this edition of New Sounds, Gyan Riley joins us in the studio to present recent works and sneak peeks at in-progress studio recordings. The gifted young guitarist and composer is also the son of legendary American composer Terry Riley. Let it be known that Gyan started out on violin, but coveted the electric guitar because of an older brother’s band. He later won a raffle for a nylon string guitar and four free classical lessons. When he wasn't practicing classical stuff, he was learning every Dead Kennedys, Dead Milkmen, Descendents, Misfits, etc., and other punk song he could get his hands on. Listen to some of Gyan playing guitar with the World Guitar Ensemble, The Falla Guitar Trio; as the mandocellist of the Modern Mandolin Quartet, and some of his own works from his debut recording “Food for the Bearded.” Also, there’s music by the post-rock/chamber group called Clogs, and more.

PROGRAM # 2548, With Gyan Riley (First aired on Thurs., 5/18/06)

ARTIST(S)

RECORDING

CUT(S)

SOURCE

World Guitar Ensemble

Crossing Borders

G. Riley: Morebettabutta, excerpt [1:30]

CCN Music #080603
www.world-guitar-ensemble.com

Clogs

Lantern

Kapsburger [2:00]

Brassland #010
www.brassland.org*

Lullaby For Sue

Swarms [6:00]

Brassland #004
www.brassland.org*

Lantern

5/4 [2:30]

See above.

Gyan Riley

Live

Procession of the Ancestors [6:30]

This performance not commercially available. Riley’s own CD, “Food For The Bearded,” is at www.newalbion.com*

Private tape

Herbie Moonshine’s Last Dance [7:30]

More about Riley at
www.gyanriley.com

Live

Eyes of Orion [4:00]

Appears on the guitar compilation “156 Strings.” Cuneiform RUNE 163CD. Available at cuneiformrecords.com

Clogs

Lullaby For Sue

Who’s Down Now? [3:30]

See above.

Leave a Comment

Please stay on topic, be civil, and be brief.
Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments. Names are displayed with all comments. WNYC reserves the right to edit any comments posted on this site. Please read the WNYC.org Comment Guidelines before posting.

Your comment


* required
The information entered into this form will not be used to send unsolicited email and will not be sold to a third party.
 

Twitchy Renaissance-Infused Minimalism

New Sounds

From the New Sounds Live concerts at Merkin Hall, Nico Muhly presents a series of new electroacoustic ensemble works, combining “twitchy Minimalism” and Renaissance polyphony. Hear brand-new works from "Mothertongue," along with other works, recorded live.

In Robert Moran's Kitchen

New Sounds

From October 30, 1989, the infamous "cooking show" with composer/raconteur Robert Moran. Recorded while cooking an Indian dinner in John Schaefer's kitchen, for reasons still not entirely clear. Along the way, we hear an "acoustic" version of Cage's 0:00 - for amplification of chopping vegetables and blender. And don't miss the teary conversation as onions are chopped. View the the recipes.

Michael Hedges and Michael Manring

New Sounds

The incredibly gifted and astonishingly original guitarist Michael Hedges left the planet much too soon in 1997. Avant-folk and ever-entertaining, Hedges made brilliant music with alternate tunings, harmonics and was known for striking the guitar’s body and strings with his fingers, palms and knuckles. His close friend and sometime collaborator, electric bass virtuoso Michael Manring, was a genre-bender, before music writers ever discovered that hyphenated term. He started out in the New Age bins, but moved all over with various projects, including the very first New Age-death-metal-jazz-funk-fusion record, among other things, with his “hyperbass”, (a fretless instrument which makes re-tuning mid-piece a little easier). On this October 10, 1987 edition of New Sounds, the two artists visited and played at the WNYC performance studios.

Caravan Variations

New Sounds

Like camels slogging through the sand, the exotic strains of “Caravan,” by Duke Ellington and his sometime trombonist Juan Tizol (with rarely heard lyrics by Irving Mills), have been played loose, fast, swinging, and/or slow by just about everyone. For this New Sounds program, it’s another of the occasional series of programs of Theme and Variations, where the premise is simple: take a single piece of music and explore what a number of musicians have done with it, through arrangements, deconstructions, and revisions of the original theme. This time around, it’s Duke Ellington’s “Caravan.” Listen to arrangements by Romania’s Fanfare Ciocarlia, Hungary’s Kalman Balogh & The Gipsy Cimbalom Band, the California Guitar Trio, the ska group Hepcat, banjoman Bela Fleck, Lebanese composer Rabih Abou-Khalil, and trumpeter/composer Jon Hassell, among others.