We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Abies Firma

by Daniel Schmidt

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 USD  or more

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 61 Recital releases available on Bandcamp and save 50%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Whiplash, Interview with Charlie Morrow, Let the Darkness Fall, Homage to Annea Lockwood, Sending Up A Spiral Of, Spontaneous Musical Invention, As Above, So Below, Margrethe Fjorden, and 53 more. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      $307 USD or more (50% OFF)

     

  • Limited Edition CD
    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    First CD Edition of 500
    20-page booklet holding program notes, scores, & a new essay on American Gamelan by Jay Arms
    Includes unreleased bonus track "Cypress"

    Includes unlimited streaming of Abies Firma via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

1.
Accumulation 04:20
2.
3.
Untitled 04:27
4.
Rebab Delay 06:58
5.
6.
Abies Firma 13:48
7.
8.
9.
10.

about

The second album by the American Gamelan composer and instrument builder, Daniel Schmidt, following In My Arms, Many Flowers, his majestic debut on Recital. Abies Firma lies next chronologically, collecting works from 1976 to 1991, considered the second phase of his compositional form.

“We were like children playing with new toys,” Daniel recalls of the early days of American Gamelan music. “Though, as we moved into the 1980s, I moved away from Javanese traditional formalism completely, no longer using a constant stream of notes.” Daniel became a father twice over in the early 80s, transforming his compositional voice, finding himself open to new affects. Notably, the Sierra fir species, ‘abies firma’ … “These trees gave me a sense of rising and rising, all their branches reaching toward sun and sky. Looking at them across open spaces, I felt myself part of their upward striving. The tall mountain trees became rising themes and arpeggios, sometimes even sweeping across the six octaves of the gamelan.”

This album holds a variety of recordings including an especially immersive tape-delay piece for the rebab, a bowed Javanese instrument. A sort of Eastern Frippertronics weaving the stereo field. Another standout is a semi-improvised flute and gamelan work, ebbing in slowly like a night’s wind. “Accumulation” and “Abies Magnifica,” the spirited opening pieces, exemplify the precision and dexterity of Daniel’s group, The Berkeley Gamelan, who at this time were constantly performing around North America. Two pieces on the album were co-composed by Schmidt and the late Lou Harrison, who helped conceive of the American style of gamelan and enjoyed a similarly long and varied musical career. “Unempins to Sociseknum” is based on arranging Harrison’s social security number against Schmidt’s unemployment insurance number. A window into the cooperative spirit and experimentation of the late 70s.

With each LP comes a CD including the addition of “One White Crow,” a three-part tapestry of melodic fragments which epitomizes the second phase of Schmidt’s composing; a divergence from both Javanese and European music. Daniel states, “William James once said that one white crow would suffice to overturn science’s assertion that all crows are black. I felt myself to be ‘one white crow’ amidst the prominent, established musical styles.”

by Sean McCann, September 2019

credits

released November 15, 2019

Composed by Daniel Schmidt (with Peter Plonsky *track 3 ||| Lou Harrison *tracks 5 & 7)
Performed by The Berkeley Gamelan
Tapes transferred by Sean McCann, 2018
LP Edition is sold out
www.recitalprogram.com/abies-firma/

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Recital Glendale, California

Founded in 2012 by Sean McCann.
Focusing on abstract and beautiful music.
Sometimes just one of those things and sometimes both of those things.

contact / help

Contact Recital

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Abies Firma, you may also like: