The Squid's Ear Magazine


Leith, Oliver / George Barton / Siwan Rhys : Good Day Good Day Bad Day Bad Day (Another Timbre)

UK composer Oliver Leith presents a work in 8 movements for piano, keys and percussion performed by Siwan Rhys (keys) and George Barton, an invocation of everyday life through a personal and often idiosyncratic orchestration reflective of personal ritual & habits; our good and our irrational, often contradictory impetus, portrayed through quirky and embraceable episodes.
 

Price: $15.95



Quantity:

In Stock

Quantity in Basket: None

Log In to use our Wish List
Shipping Weight: 2.00 units

Sample The Album:





product information:

Personnel:



Oliver Leith-composer

George Barton-percussion

Siwan Rhys-piano, keyboards


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




Label: Another Timbre
Catalog ID: at161
Squidco Product Code: 29590

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2020
Country: UK
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded at Real World Studios, in Box, Wiltshire, England, on March 22nd and 23rd, 2020, by Mark Knoop, and Dom Shaw.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

Another Timbre Interview with Oliver Leith

"Tell us about your background and how you came to experimental music.

Recently I've thought about experimental music differently. Right now a lot of people are getting angry at boring statues being decapitated and drowned. Why are we so reverent to old things? I've never considered myself a classical musician, or part of that world and although I'm very pleased and enjoy that those groups and those places support my music, it doesn't feel like my culture. Maybe everyone feels that way. That being said, I also never set out to make experimental music. I liked the orchestral instruments, I can't perform and I couldn't write good grand sparkly orchestral music. I think that I write wrongly and I'm more comfortable drinking with people who don't mind that.

What were your earliest encounters with music growing up, and did you study it at university?

I played guitar in bands as a teenager, also a little classical. My secondary school was awful for everything else but had this strangely brilliant music department run by serious musicians, mostly jazz people, no strings at the school. Music was my favourite thing but after a while I didn't want to play anymore. I heard the version of Prayer (oh doctor Jesus) by Miles Davis and Gil Evans which has this amazing lion roar brass bit which I found as meaty as Nirvana and that stuff - so I started to try and steal that, getting my mates to multitrack and record bits and make a big fake band. After a bit more of that, I wrote a piece for ten glockenspiels and when I heard it live I thought wow this is a great feeling, really good. I then studied composition at Guildhall for a long long time, had a lovely time there, met good friends, had nice teachers. A visiting string quartet once said about a piece of mine 'this just sounds like rock music', emphasis on the just. I don't think that is true but is a funny arc.

So if your music isn't rock, but also doesn't fit into the classical music world, how do you describe or situate it?

Well I wouldn't mind if it was rock at all - that's their sniffs. I don't think it is one thing. I guess part of the reason I use classical instruments, other than enjoying the sound, is because I can't perform and they are very used to the idea of someone notating ideas - so - if I could be given a death metal band or something to work with that I could write instructions for, just like an ensemble, that'd be just grand, I'd write blood bath flogging or something.

This piece ('good day bad day...') is what I sound like with those instruments and with George and Siwan in mind. I sometimes make electronic music which is very different but I think you could tell it's made by the same person, maybe. It's like visual artists who make short art films, if they are given the chance to make a feature film, some might expect it to be a longer version of their usual but a feature is a different format, why would they not want to try the big budget magic. You can look at an artist like Steve McQueen, where you can move between the wonderful rolling oil drum to a two-hour widow heist film. It is all him, just for different forces. I think that's great.

So moving on to 'good day good day bad day bad day', what does the title refer to?

I like looking at and framing everyday life, sometimes banal things. Good day good day bad day bad day is almost an incantation, I was interested in the rituals, habits, things we tell ourselves to keep going, invasive irrational thoughts, odd pleasures and reliefs of life. Mainly because I realised when chatting to mates that these sometimes debilitating thoughts, anxieties and compulsions are just normal, common. The piece isn't biographical or about them, but is sort of fed by these ideas, a tender look at the violent, loving, contradictory, stupid, repetitive, frightening, comforting thoughts that dictate a good day or a bad day. It seemed a nice musical thing too, specific, fiddly, nervous, pressured, repetitive - I don't know how musicians do it. When it was first performed I wanted it to look like it was in George and Siwan's living room, weird in St John Smith's Square but it seemed an extension of the piece - a private thing, a home space, some mugs, a rug, maybe a lamp in the middle of a concert hall. I was very happy after the concert, had some drinks with friendly faces.

Is 'good day good day bad day bad day' similar to your other recent pieces, and have you written other pieces that are as long?

It is my longest piece for sure, my acoustic pieces are usually written with the people in mind, perhaps more than the instruments. I've started to think of it like writing for bands - or like producing for bands - players have something more than ensemble, personalities, even how they present themselves off stage - CD covers, posters and all that - everything goes into the pieces - like characters. So - my pieces can sound very different - the only seemingly unshakeable constant is that they always sound a little sad. I can't help that, I have tried.

I'd seen Siwan and George do long performances of things like Feldman and, as we became better friends, something emerged - something very particular, sensitive and lovely about them as people and musicians - this idea about privateness, tenderness etc seemed to already be their piece. Hopefully one day I will do them a bigger piece.

Yes, that sense of tenderness certainly comes across, through the unorthodox weirdness of the soundworld. The piece divides clearly into different sections, but I guess that you were composing intuitively rather than having an underlying structure or programme determining the music...?

It was a mainly intuitive bit of work, I'd say. Structure and things like that are more to me like positioning things on a shelf, done by eye and shuffling - oh that little plastic apple works besides that ash tray which only sits right beside the mirror. I worked on some sounds with George and Siwan, stole some of their ideas - got together the broad brushstroke material and instruments and then I played on the floor of my studio for a long time. This was a much more hands on process than usual, more tactile. George leant me the waterphone and I ripped my fingers to shreds trying to make it not sound like horror soundtracking - now he has to rip his hands doing it, which I'm sorry about. Some of the sampler instruments, like the orchestra warming up sound, have a vaguely extra musical beginning, not high concept, but I always think when I see musicians about to perform that it's like standing at the edge of a cliff, queasy or something - apparently it's not always like that but it would be for me. It also makes a great sound."


Artist Biographies

"Oliver Leith is a London based composer making acoustic music, electronic music and video. His work focuses on text, image, video, theatre, pathos and the everyday.

Commissions have been given by groups such as London Sinfonietta, Festival Aix-en-Provence, the London Symphony Orchestra, Tanglewood Music Festival, Heidelberg festival, Musicon, Homo Novus/Valmiera theatre and St John Smith's Square.

Collaborators and performers have included Apartment House, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Ives Ensemble, Exaudi, 12 Ensemble, Plus Minus, Mimitabu, Philharmonia Orchestra, An Assembly, Trio Catch, GBSR Duo, Loré Lixenberg, Explore Ensemble, Matthew Herbert and John Harle.

Performances have taken place at the Royal Festival Hall, Barbican Hall, Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, Royal Opera House, Aldeburgh, Huddersfield (HCMF), LSO St Luke's, St Martin-in-the-fields, Horniman Museum, The Forge, CNSDMP (Paris), RCM, GSMD, Milton Court, Howard Assembly Room, The Place, Handel House, Mexican Embassy (UK and Tokyo), Liszt academy (Budapest), Maison du Canada (Paris), Howard Assembly and Leeds Lieder. Visual art collaborations are exhibited at The Museum of Western Australia and recorded music is played on BBC Radio 3 and NTS radio.

Oliver was the recipient of a British Composer Award in 2016 and of a Royal Philharmonic Composition prize in 2014."

-Oliver Leith Website (https://oliverchristopheleith.com/Biography)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"George Barton is a solo, chamber and orchestral percussionist and timpanist based in London.

He is a member of the Colin Currie Group and has also worked with the London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Nash Ensemble, Britten Sinfonia, Aurora Orchestra, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Endymion, Music Theatre Wales, BBC Singers, Mahogany Opera Group, Notes Inégales, Riot Ensemble, London Contemporary Orchestra, the Royal Opera House, and the Multi-Story Orchestra, among many other ensembles and orchestras.

As a solo artist George has performed at the Southbank Centre's "The Rest is Noise" festival, the "Occupy the Pianos" festival at St John's Smith Square, and at a number of Nonclassical events across London, among other venues across the UK. His collaboration with Turner Prize -winning artist Jeremy Deller at the Barbican's Station to Station festival was featured on BBC2's Artsnight, and his playing has been recorded and broadcast many times for BBC Radio 3 and NMC. He was featured soloist at Filthy Lucre's The Sounding Body concerts and clubnight - footage available on the media page.

As an ensemble and orchestral player he has performed at all the major London concert halls, including at the BBC Proms every year since 2014, as well as such venues as the Cologne Philharmonie, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Tokyo Opera City, and many others.

He has performed chamber music at various venues around the UK and abroad, including the Concertgebouw Grote Zaal, Amsterdam, Cité de la Musique, Paris, Delft Chamber Music Festival, Royal Festival Hall, and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

With duo partner Siwan Rhys he has performed at St John's Smith Square, Barbican Hall, the City of London Festival, XOYO, Scala and The Forge, among other venues. Committed to commissioning new music, the duo became New Dots artists in 2014; in 2017 they took part in the Stockhausen biennial at Kürten, performing Kontakte and solo works. The duo was selected to become one of three St John's Smith Square Young Artists for the 2017-18 season. Their programme for the season included the premiere of a 40-minute work from Oliver Leit and the UK premiere of Eric Wubbels' doxa, alongside music by Stockhausen, Kagel, Cage, Fran le Lohé and John Luther Adams, as well as unpublished music by Morton Feldman."

-George Barton Website (https://www.georgebartonpercussion.com/about)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Welsh pianist Siwan Rhys enjoys a varied career of solo, chamber, and ensemble playing, with a strong focus on contemporary music and collaboration with composers.

She has played at prestigious British venues such as the Barbican Hall, Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall, St David's Hall, Symphony Hall, and abroad at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Le Tambour Rennes, and Shanghai Symphony Hall amongst others. She has also appeared at the Aldeburgh Festival, BBC Proms, Principal Sound, Occupy the Pianos, Lille Piano(s) Festival, and has recorded many times for television, radio, and labels such as NMC, all that dust, and Prima Facie. Her recent recording of Stockhausen's KONTAKTE (with percussionist George Barton) was released in October 2019 on the all that dust label.

Recent concert engagements include performances of Charles Ives' 'Concord Sonata' in France as part of the Oeuvres Monstres series, Nono's ...sofferte onde serene... at the Principal Sound festival, Feldman's For Philip Guston and Why Patterns?, Stockhausen's KONTAKTE, and appearances at Occupy the Pianos and Lille Piano(s) Festival playing music by Vivier and Eastman.

Also a regular ensemble and orchestral pianist, Siwan has worked with the London Sinfonietta, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Colin Currie Group, Aldeburgh Festival Ensemble, Mahogany Opera Group, Music Theatre Wales, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, with conductors Oliver Knussen, François-Xavier Roth, and George Benjamin among others.

Siwan works regularly with mezzo-soprano Lucy Goddard, and is a member of GBSR piano-percussion duo with whom she was a 2017-18 St John's Smith Square Young Artist.

She is an honorary member of the Welsh Gorsedd of Bards and an Entente Cordiale alumna. She teaches at the London Contemporary School of Piano."

-Siwan Rhys Website (https://www.siwanrhys.co.uk/siwan-rhys-piano-biography)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Untitled 6:44

2. Untitled 2:08

3. Untitled 4:46

4. Untitled 4:26

5. Untitled 5:51

6. Untitled 9:41

7. Untitled 2:16

8. Untitled 8:31

Related Categories of Interest:


Compositional Forms
Piano & Keyboards
Percussion & Drums
Electro-Acoustic
Organized Sound and Sample Based Music
Duo Recordings
London & UK Improv & Related Scenes
New in Compositional Music

Search for other titles on the label:
Another Timbre.


Recommended & Related Releases:
Parkinson, Tim / Apartment House
An Album
(Another Timbre)
Collecting five chamber works from prolific London-based composer Tim Parkinson, written between 1998 and 2017 and performed by the Apartment House ensemble: one piece for solo violin performed by Mira Benjamin, two duos for violin & piano (by Benjamin & Siwan Rhys), a quintet for winds and strings and a septet, both featuring flute and bass clarinet.
Parkinson, Tim / Apartment House
An Album
(Another Timbre)
Collecting five chamber works from prolific London-based composer Tim Parkinson, written between 1998 and 2017 and performed by the Apartment House ensemble: one piece for solo violin performed by Mira Benjamin, two duos for violin & piano (by Benjamin & Siwan Rhys), a quintet for winds and strings and a septet, both featuring flute and bass clarinet.
Feldman, Barbara Monk
Verses
(Another Timbre)
Known for her chamber and piano works, Canadian composer and widow of Morton Feldman presents five beautiful chamber works performed by the trio of George Barton on percussion, Siwan Rhys on piano and Mira Benjamin on violin, introspective and contemplative pieces of rich color & reflection that reveal the gravity between sound and silence.
Smith, Linda Catlin
Wanderer
(Another Timbre)
Eight sophisticated chamber pieces composed by Linda Catlin Smith and realized by the Canadian Apartment House ensemble, including a solo piano performed by Philip Thomas, a piano duo with Thomas and Mark Knoop, and works for percussion & cello, 2 quintet pieces for strings, percussion and winds, and two 7-piece conducted works with two percussionists, strings and brass.
Other Recommended Releases:
Stiebler, Ernstalbrecht / Tilman Kanitz
The Pankow-Park Sessions, Vol.1
(Another Timbre)
Six potent duo improvisations for cello and piano by composer & pianist Ernstalbrecht Stiebler and fellow-Berlin resident Tilman Kanitz, who have been developing their dialog together for several years in studio, focusing much of their momentum on pitch and harmony, their work all the more remarkable for Stiebler only having begun improvising in his mid-80s.
Houben, Eva-Maria
Together On The Way
(Another Timbre)
A brooding work for pipe organ, piano and percussion, created by composer Eva-Maria Houben and the GBSR Duo of Siwan Rhys & George Barton, commissioned by the 2021 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and recorded in concert in the resonance of of Huddersfield's St. Paul's Hall using the organ built by Wood's of Huddersfield.
Akama, Ryoko
Songs For A Shed
(Another Timbre)
Six beautiful, fragile and mysterious works for piano in combinations with other orchestral arrangements and solo, including pitch-based compositions and a graphic work directed by photographs, performed by members of Apartment House in duos, quintets & sextets; works initially commissioned by Another Timbre and Philip Thomas and here performed on piano by Siwan Rhys.
Leith, Oliver
Me Hollywood
(Another Timbre)
Five chamber works written by composer UK Oliver Leith, the debut CD release from the creative music group Explore Ensemble including a piece they commissioned--Me Hollywood--, the compositions spanning four years of work and reflecting a sort of portrait of the composer as he experiments with unusual arrangements, sampling sounds, and new instruments.
Weeks, James
Summer
(Another Timbre)
Five chamber works from UK composer James Week performed by Explore Ensemble, developing works extending the poetic idea of a piece as an imaginary or remembered space by exploring combinations of instruments such as the mixed instrumental duos, the use of slow-moving or static background harmonics, and intimate instrumental idioms based on long, breath-length sounds.



Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought:
Pisaro-Liu, Michael (Guy Vandromme / Adriaan Severins / Luciana Elizondo / Fabio Gionfrida)
A Room Outdoors [2 CDs]
(elsewhere)
Two realizations of Michael Pisaro-Liu's 2006 work for sustaining instruments, harmonium & field recordings, recorded first at Wild Gallery, in Brussels with Guy Vandromme (keyboards) and Adriaan Severins (field recordings and synthesizer); then at the Museo Archeologico San Lorenzo, in Cremona, Italy with Luciana Elizondo (viola da gamba) and Fabio Gionfrida (field recordings), in collaboration with Guy Vandromme (Indian harmonium).
Lambkin, Graham / James Rushford
Gondolas [2 CDs]
(erstwhile)
The first collaboration between electroacoustic composers and performers, Graham Lambkin (The Shadow Ring) from Kent, England and Australian composer, improviser and concrète collagist James Rushford, the two developing a series of fascinatingly mysterious and detailed sound compositions that incorporate live playing; beautifully packaged.
Sorey, Tyshawn Trio (w/ Aaron Diehl / Matt Brewer)
Continuing
(Pi Recordings)
Drummer Tyshawn Sorey takes his sophisticated piano trio of pianist Aaron Diehl and bassist Matt Brewer into deeper territory following their debut album Continuing, here expanding the breadth of their playing in four extended and passionate interpretations of works by Wayne Shorter, Ahmad Jamal, Sorey's mentor Harold Mabern, and the standard "Angel Eyes".
Feldman, Morton / Apartment House
Violin and String Quartet [2 CDs]
(Another Timbre)
One of New York School minimalist composer Morton Feldman's later works, this extended composition spread across two CDs invokes waves of beautifully suspended, weaving strings from four violinists and cello, performed by the UK Apartment House ensemble violinists Mira Benjamin, Chihiro Ono, Amalia Young & Bridget Carey and cellist Anton Lukoszevieze.
Crane, Laurence
Natural World
(Another Timbre)
A work for voice, piano and electronics from experimental composer Laurence Crane, working with the closely associated UK ensemble Apartment House, Natural World is in three sections--"Field Guide", "Chorus" and "Seascape"--with vocalist Juliet Fraser and pianist & electronic artist Mark Knoop, Crane's work describing the natural world and portending the fragility of our ecosystems.
Oliveros, Pauline / Apartment House
Sound Pieces
(Another Timbre)
Six sound-oriented compositions for acoustic ensemble performed by the UK ensemble Apartment House, beautifully reflective and rich works, the first six pieces being text scores for open instrumentation, along with Peace/Tree, a seven movement work for violin, cello and piano that specifies pitches while leaving room for interpretation and improvisation.
Lonsdale, Eden
Clear and Hazy Moons
(Another Timbre)
Splitting the album between two ensembles, UK composer Eden Lonsdale's beautifully languid compositions are performed first by Apartment House, and then by the young Rothko Collective, the four pieces showing Lonsdale's development of writing for harmony, timbre and resonance into works focused on the passing of time and the integration of prominent melodic elements.
Baldini, Marco
Vesperi
(Another Timbre)
Influenced by the seemingly contradictory sources of 16th century Italian composers and their polyphonic compositions, Eliane Radigue, and North Indian classical, Italian composer Marco Baldini's beautifully dark works employ a slow, rarefied pace and subdued dynamics with a fascination for pianissimo playing, heard in eight chamber compositions for low strings and marimba.
Pisaro-Liu, Michael
Tombstones (performed by Barbara Dang & Muzzix)
(elsewhere)
Applying techniques that Michael Pisaro uses in his audio compositions to song formats, this album presents 11 new versions of songs from his 2013 Human Ear Music album, here reworked for clarity and recorded under the artistic direction of the Lille-based pianist Barbara Dang and six members of the Muzzix collective (Bellefont, Cruz, Orins, Pruvost & Pruvost).
O'Rourke, Jim / Apartment House
Best That You Do This For Me
(Another Timbre)
The UK ensemble Apartment House commissioned this work from composer & experimenter Jim O'Rourke based on their performance of other O'Rourke works, here interpreting a new graphic score designed like a sonic mobile, creating a minimal yet episodic piece of flexible interpretation as the performers whistle, hum and quietly sing in combination with bowed harmonics.
Winter, Michael / Liminar
Single Track
(Another Timbre)
Working with Liminar, one of the premier new music ensembles in Mexico, German/US composer Michael Winter wrote this dynamic and extended work pursuing a method of enumerating all ways of articulating a 6-note chord with 7 instruments bound by certain constraints, using the computer science concept of "Gray Code" switches to create shifts within the piece's progressions.
Democ, Adrian / Apartment House
Hlaholika
(Another Timbre)
Commissioned by Another Timbre for the quarantine commissions series, Hlaholika was developed by composer Adrián Demoč for the Apartment House ensemble as a quintet of violin, double bass, clarinet, viola & piano, using the configurations for 3 other works performed here by Apartment House; plus a piece for an ensemble from the Janacek School of Music in the Czech Republic.
Beuger, Antoine / Apartment House
Jankelevitch Sextets
(Another Timbre)
The 4th album on Another Timbre from a series of pieces by composer Antoine Beuger, each acknowledging a cultural or intellectual figure, here titled for philosopher, musicologist, educator and one-time member of the French Resistance, Vladimir Jankélévitch, represented by Beuger in a large dramatic work performed by the Apartment House sextet.
Armstrong, Newton: Plus Minus Ensemble; Severine Ballon
The Way To Go Out
(Another Timbre)
Three minimal works for small ensemble incorporating electronics by Australian-born, UK-resident composer Newton Armstrong: 2 performed by the London-based Plus-Minus Ensemble directed by Mark Knoop as an acoustic quartet configuration and one as an electroacoustic quartet; and a solo work for multiple cello layers and resonance performed by Séverine Ballon.
Verlaak, Maya
All English Music is Greensleeves
(Another Timbre)
Five fascinating works by the Belgian composer Maya Verlaak, realized by Apartment House and soloists Sarah Saviet & Mark Knoop, experimental compositions including a work of personal reflection based on "Alouette"; a conceptual game piece; a composition layering pre-recorded segments of "Greensleaves"; and two interactive acoustic & computer pieces.
Lamb, Catherine / Harmonic Space Orchestra
Prisma Interius VII 7 VIII
(Sacred Realism)
Two hauntingly beautiful works in microtonal composer and violist Catherine Lamb's "Prisma Interius" series, the first a duo with violinist Johnny Change and Xavier Lopez on the "secondary rainbow synthesizer", which channels the sound outside of the performance space as a generator of ambient sound; then a sextet of strings and winds with two secondary rainbow synthesizers.
Oceans Roar 1000 Drums
[VINYL]
(Sacred Realism)
Their first proper vinyl release since forming in 2008, this studio album recorded in Berlin finds Berlin saxophonist and electronic artist Bryan Eubanks, double bassist Andrew Lafkas, and NY drummer & cymbal player Tod Capp in an extended and dark improvisation, with Catherine Lamb's "secondary rainbow synthesizer" interacting and filtering their work as a 4th member.



The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

© 2002-, Squidco LLC