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| Ave Mater Noctis Salve, mater tenebrae fertile, et terribilis nimis salve mater atra qui pluviamque sanguinem dissipat salve, tenebra miraque dives concavum infintum unde gnascamur et in quo egrediemur ave mater noctis qui ad nos cum somno venit qui dolores nostros consolat qui nobis pacem dat salve, tenebra muta mare gravidum ubi incolet non ortum ave mater atra in qua et nos post mortem requiescimus, ave mater tenebrae terribilisque fecunda in cui utero crescit semen lucis Ave Lux Score sample |
Hail, Mother Night hail, mother of darkness fertile and terrifying hail, dark mother who brings rain and blood hail, darkness rich and strange endless void from which we arise and to which we shall return hail, mother night who comes to us with sleep who comforts our sorrows who brings us peace hail, silent darkness pregnant sea where dwells what is not yet born hail, dark mother in whom we rest at death hail, mother of darkness terrible and fecund in whose dark womb grows the seed of light Hail to the Light |
You Gotta Give 'Em Hope (2012) :
American Roads (2012) for voices and instruments
Shine (2015) for voices and string band
The Eyes of All / O Praise the Lord (1981)
These three pieces were composed and performed by the group SH/AD, consisting of Arthur Durkee and Stuart Hinds. They were recorded in August 1985, at Moody Auditorium in Lubbock, TX, and performed as tape pieces for a concert entitled Worlds, held in Lubbock that same month, produced by Stuart Hinds.
Each piece featurs different extended vocal techniques, in structured improvisational forms, and were recorded to 4-track reel tape in the acoustically resonant space of the large atrium of the auditorium. (Several other longer pieces were also recorded in this space during the same period, featuring for example tuned glass bowls, percussion, song, and other elements.)
The first piece, Mantra, uses harmonic singing, or overtone singing, as its foundation. Its mood is introspective, meditative, static, transcendant. The second piece, Chant, utilizes a shamanic text from an Ojibway medicine lodge ritual. This is shamanic, dramatic music: when we began recording, I found myself singing a lead line, all unplanned, that became the central melody of the piece, and around which we built all the other elements in multitrack; I can't tell you where this came from, it just seemed to appear, and take over the entire process. Listening to Chant again, after several years, I find myself feeling as though a numinous door had been opened to other worlds. The third piece in the set, Hamatsa, featuring guest lead vocalist Paul McMillion, is based around the myth of the Kwakiutl cannibal-spirit performed in the winter sacred riitual dances. The voices call to the hamatsa figure, and also in the voice of the cannibal spirit, making for a dramatic narrative piece of music theater.
Twenty years after co-creating these pieces, I still get a chill up my spine listening to them. I am pleased to present them here, publicly available for the first time.
Mantra
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