Inventions & Canons, by Sean Clancy

Inventions & Canons

by Sean Clancy

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Modern Music Dan Blurring the division between found sound and music, I love the way Look At That One evolves from seaside sussuration into an endless drone. Like the shoreline at incoming tide, hard to tell where one texture ends and the other begins. The final track's nagging guitar chords push at the senses with a firm insistence that carries the music onward yet remains fixed, turning endlessly without moving. A quiet, gentle odyssey. Favorite track: Look At That One.

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1.	Drip 09:50	buy track
2.	Hi 06:29	buy track
3.	Rattle 03:08	buy track
4.	Sigh 01:58	buy track
5.	Look At That One 04:42	buy track
6.	Noise Stick 06:12	buy track
7.	Fan 07:18	buy track

about

This is a collection of pieces that foregrounds sounds recorded on my phone between 2017 – 2021, a practice I began around 2014 for no real reason other than I wanted to document sounds that excited me in some way. Little by little, some of these sounds began appearing in pieces I was writing, and now (for the time being at least), it has become more central to what I do.

This particular collection of works came into existence really to illustrate an alternative use of traditional contrapuntal techniques. Most of these pieces use particular unedited environmental recordings canonically (the same recording starting a few seconds later in a different spatial location). These canons move and morph into different sonic terrains creating some sense of movement, and are answered by some instrumental melodic inventions on synthesizer, guitar, or prepared piano, which are tuned to the sonic landscape. By doing this, I hope to illustrate another use of counterpoint, which is as I see it, simply one voice moving against another, sometimes together – much like we do in life.

The nature of these environmental recordings makes this release quite specific. They exhibit very happy experiences from my life, such as collecting seashells with my wife and son, but also moments of immense grief and sadness, like waiting in a COVID deserted hospice canteen whilst my family took turns spending our last moments with my Dad before he died. Others still, are simply mundane and neutral, such as my freezer defrosting. Perhaps I’ve become a musician that the composer Martijn Padding might argue ‘only looks at what is in front of them.’ However, maybe this is a useful practice, as the actor Wendell Pierce suggests ‘The more specific you are, the more universal you become...’ If this is indeed the case, I hope that at least some of these tracks resonate with you and your own experiences, and that they can bring sonic excitement, solace, or a moment of contemplation into your own existence.

credits

released November 5, 2021

Performed, recorded, mixed & mastered by Seán Clancy

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about

Sean Clancy Dublin, Ireland

I am an experimental composer & performer from Ireland. I write music for electronic instruments, acoustic instruments, & environmental sounds. For the most part, my work is involved with the act of translating non-musical things into music. My music is often long, repetitive, and contains sustained drones. I am also Ad Astra Fellow Assistant Professor in music at UCD in Ireland. ... more

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