RECORDINGS
Jeff Myers - Goodnight
OUT NOW ON NEUMA RECORDS
READ LINER NOTES
LISTEN/BUY ON BANDCAMP
STREAM ON YOUTUBE - APPLE MUSIC - SPOTIFY
OUT NOW ON NEUMA RECORDS
READ LINER NOTES
LISTEN/BUY ON BANDCAMP
STREAM ON YOUTUBE - APPLE MUSIC - SPOTIFY
When is a piano not a piano?
Goodnight, enigmatically, is Jeff Myers’s answer: floating piano sonorities tracing where a piano once was, but without all the hardware. Perhaps, as it were, an after-dinner sleep dreaming on both.
“As a night owl, often going to bed a little before dawn, I often find myself with adequate quiet time where I can sit with long sounds and stare into them with my ears. In the middle of the pandemic, I began to make extended drone compositions for my own enjoyment or, sometimes, as a way to relax and fall asleep. I drew on my large catalog of piano harmonics as fodder for these dronescapes; stretching, shaping, and layering them to make walls - and clouds - of sound.”
While the waking Myers often gravitates towards narrative stories told through his acoustic compositions, this set of nocturnal, spectral sounds exists more as atmosphere – phases and feelings suggestive of a night well spent. “The result is something of an outlier in my creative output, but something I truly enjoyed, and I hope that listeners will drift with the flow as I have.”
Highlights of the eight electroacoustic pieces include Goodnight that sets the tone for the entire experience. Orbital pulsates at different tempi; much like planets orbiting the sun, they move at different speeds and intersect at various junctures. Oxytocin plays with the idea of human touch and the magical feeling of physical connection. Overdose simulates a mild drug overdose: the initial sensory overload and distress, followed by distorted thinking, hallucinations, or anything else you can imagine. Pulsar returns to the bright energy of the earlier drones. Digestif sits low in register and growls bitterly. Date Night builds to a grand climax and blissfully fades away into a wash of overtones .
Goodnight, enigmatically, is Jeff Myers’s answer: floating piano sonorities tracing where a piano once was, but without all the hardware. Perhaps, as it were, an after-dinner sleep dreaming on both.
“As a night owl, often going to bed a little before dawn, I often find myself with adequate quiet time where I can sit with long sounds and stare into them with my ears. In the middle of the pandemic, I began to make extended drone compositions for my own enjoyment or, sometimes, as a way to relax and fall asleep. I drew on my large catalog of piano harmonics as fodder for these dronescapes; stretching, shaping, and layering them to make walls - and clouds - of sound.”
While the waking Myers often gravitates towards narrative stories told through his acoustic compositions, this set of nocturnal, spectral sounds exists more as atmosphere – phases and feelings suggestive of a night well spent. “The result is something of an outlier in my creative output, but something I truly enjoyed, and I hope that listeners will drift with the flow as I have.”
Highlights of the eight electroacoustic pieces include Goodnight that sets the tone for the entire experience. Orbital pulsates at different tempi; much like planets orbiting the sun, they move at different speeds and intersect at various junctures. Oxytocin plays with the idea of human touch and the magical feeling of physical connection. Overdose simulates a mild drug overdose: the initial sensory overload and distress, followed by distorted thinking, hallucinations, or anything else you can imagine. Pulsar returns to the bright energy of the earlier drones. Digestif sits low in register and growls bitterly. Date Night builds to a grand climax and blissfully fades away into a wash of overtones .
REVIEWS
"Mit Goodnight entführt Jeff Myers in ein schwebendes, fast körperloses Klanguniversum – ein Album zwischen meditativer Tiefe und experimenteller Klangkunst." [With Goodnight, Jeff Myers takes us into a floating, almost disembodied sound universe – an album between meditative depth and experimental sound art.]
- AM:plified
"Spectral sounds and hovering spaces..."
- Jazz Weekly
"eerie and...dystopian"
- Viking in the Wilderness
"Mit Goodnight entführt Jeff Myers in ein schwebendes, fast körperloses Klanguniversum – ein Album zwischen meditativer Tiefe und experimenteller Klangkunst." [With Goodnight, Jeff Myers takes us into a floating, almost disembodied sound universe – an album between meditative depth and experimental sound art.]
- AM:plified
"Spectral sounds and hovering spaces..."
- Jazz Weekly
"eerie and...dystopian"
- Viking in the Wilderness
Jeff Myers - Requiem
feat. Rachel Calloway and JACK Quartet
OUT NOW ON INNOVA RECORDINGS
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Requiem, the highly-anticipated debut album from composer Jeff Myers, gently and beautifully addresses one of the most difficult aspects of our humanity. This is an essential, welcome, and modern take on the universal experience of death and loss. Through his unique combination of lyric vocal lines, microtonality, and just intonation, Myers achieves a rapturous space of solace that feels suspended in time. Tempering his traditionally “brilliant and powerful” (The Classical Voice of New England) style with a tender intimacy, Myers builds a mysterious and compelling sound world that is immediately gripping and deeply cathartic. The main work on the album, Requiem Aeternam, unfurls in two parts: I. Grieving and II. Dying. It interweaves a secular exploration of death by diverse poets such as Rumi, Petrarch, Frida Schanz, and Oscar Wilde with a traditional Filipino lullaby and Christian liturgical texts.
Written as a response to the sudden death of Myers’ sister-in-law in 2010, this music provides an earthly path for integration and emotional processing outside the containers of any strictly religious context. Poignant, healing, and transcendent, the work is a modern masterpiece, expertly brought to life by the GRAMMY-nominated JACK Quartet and renowned vocalist Rachel Calloway.
The final track on the album, dopamine, is an early collaboration between Myers and the JACK Quartet from 2009. In this fascinating tapestry of color, the re-tuned quartet plays almost entirely in harmonics to create a kind of meta-instrument that offers a both resonance and bite, driven to glorious capitulation.
This compelling album combines material that is at once personal and universal with the intimacy of one of the world’s leading string quartets, and a voice of “penetrating clarity… [and] considerable depth of expression.” (The New York Times) The result is a highly charged and exciting encapsulation of Myers’ style and potential.
Written as a response to the sudden death of Myers’ sister-in-law in 2010, this music provides an earthly path for integration and emotional processing outside the containers of any strictly religious context. Poignant, healing, and transcendent, the work is a modern masterpiece, expertly brought to life by the GRAMMY-nominated JACK Quartet and renowned vocalist Rachel Calloway.
The final track on the album, dopamine, is an early collaboration between Myers and the JACK Quartet from 2009. In this fascinating tapestry of color, the re-tuned quartet plays almost entirely in harmonics to create a kind of meta-instrument that offers a both resonance and bite, driven to glorious capitulation.
This compelling album combines material that is at once personal and universal with the intimacy of one of the world’s leading string quartets, and a voice of “penetrating clarity… [and] considerable depth of expression.” (The New York Times) The result is a highly charged and exciting encapsulation of Myers’ style and potential.
REVIEWS
"A fine, committed performance..."
- American Record Guide
"A fine, committed performance..."
- American Record Guide
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