HANNIS BROWN "severe insomnia" cd

Severe Insomnia is the second release by New York-based experimental composer Hannis Brown and his first album for Lumberton Trading Company. It is a spine-chilling and unpredictable rollercoaster-ride of a listen. The 11 instrumental tracks run the gamut from musique-concrete tape collages and electro-acoustic composition to works for chamber ensembles, orchestra, and solo prepared guitar. Inspired by the meandering and disjunct images that manifest themselves on the backs of eyelids during bouts of insomnia, the music is charged with an instability marked by atonal explosions of saxophones, sedate interludes of electronic and orchestral textures, and nightmarish climaxes of tone clusters. Each piece creates a unique sonic space while contributing to an overarching theme of somnipathy—the anguished screams of ´Face Down At Twilight´, the chopped found sounds of ´Alice’s Attic´, the churning orchestral textures of ´Furies´. Incorporating the microtonal orchestrations of Pendereki and Ligeti with the electro-acoustic spatial compositions of Edgar Varese and frenzied free jazz of Charles Mingus, Severe Insomnia is coloured with unorthodox textures and orchestrations. Violins gliss through streams of broken harmonics. Tapped beer bottles, spinning coins, and metal garbage cans scraped with paper clips serve as percussion behind the sounds of children’s voices and spiraling woodwind clusters. Strings oscillate slowly in and out of phase with one another; hyperventilating breathing exercises cloak muddled trumpet and flute. The result is a unique and unsettling suite of compositions; a textural concept work that pushes you to the depths of your subconscious and hold you there.