MacLean, Steve

Bridges

Label: Recommended Records Country: UK

"These recordings collect together works spanning two decades of composition and experimentation that balance traditional musical resources (the band, compositional skills, instrumental techniques, acoustic and amplified instruments) and the new technologies (computers, software, processing). The first CD showcases polyrhythmic, careful compositions (like those on his last ReR CD, Opposite of War), which still no-one has tried to emulate. The second is more meditative, abstract and electronic, moving from Kora through electric and acoustic guitars - with and without radical effects processing - to piano and virtual orchestra, putting various softwares through their paces."-Chris Cutler, ReR Megacorp

"Steve MacLean began playing drums and guitar at the age of seven and composing at twelve. Completing high school early, he met Roswell Rudd and began playing concerts with him in New York. He moved to the city and took a job in a busy recording studio, working with cutting edge artists of every genre and spending his free time moving around the NYC "downtown" free improvisation scene. He soon joined Nick Didkovsky's Dr. Nerve and made a slew of records. By 1980 he was scoring for dance, performing his own compositions on PBS television's New Music Directions series, and setting up his own studio, which over the next two decades produced award winning scores and sound design for hundreds of TV and radio commercials, films and disparate multi-media projects. Between times he co-founded the Portland Experimental Music Collective, established his own permanent ensemble and had compositions performed at numerous festivals. He moved to Boston in 2000 to take up a professorship in the Synthesis and Ensemble Departments at Berklee College of Music. He continues regularly to perform composed and improvised music - alone, with a student ensemble and in numerous projects with Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, Nick Didkovsky, Ken Field, Chris Cutler, Jonathan LaMaster, Eric Rosenthal, and others.

The recordings on this double CD collect together works spanning two decades of composition and experimentation. They balance traditional musical resources (the band, compositional skills, instrumental techniques, acoustic and amplified instruments) with the new technologies (computers, signal processing, sampling and recording software). The first showcases the kind of signature polyrhythmic, precise, instrumental compositions familiar from his last ReR CD, Opposite of War, while the second is more meditative, abstract and electronic, moving from acoustic kora through electric and acoustic guitars - with and without radical effects processing - to piano and virtual orchestra."-ReR USA, from the 1-sheet