Oct '26

2026 October 3, Catskill Listening Club Offerings

Tonight was our first meeting in more than a year. We met in a new space - the Catskill Zen Circle in Leeds, NY. It was a beautiful session.
In attendance tonight were Rebecca Bray, Rodney Greenblat, Jimmy Garver, Meredith Kooi, Kenji Garland, Elisa Harkins, Stephen Spera, Theo Baker, David Garland, Bill Loeb, Tamalyn Miller, Katie Down, Dorcinda Knauth, Maria Michails, Robert Nideffer, Jack Magai, Abigail Simon, Diana Mellon, Sam Haddix, Marina Zurcow

M(K)G Meredith Kooi Kiki Garland shared a recording from their recent performance at Radio Buena Vida in Glasgow. They’re experimenting with a new practice of improvisatory performing with their existing recordings: manipulating those recordings and also generating sound with M’s voice and K’s electronics.
Many sonic events occur. Loads of clarity result. Layers of manipulations. Wails Helicopters Lamentations Apocolyptic Allusions to Apocolypse TuningLISTEN

Elisa Harkins shared a track that’s in process. Elisa sings with the group Bitchin Bajas. This is the first time she’s collaborated with them; they’ve been friends for many years.
Maybe add another vocoder an octave above what’s happening. Lose the vocoder. Lose the vocoder sometimes. Maybe the song gets thicker and thinner at times. “Happy Birthday” could glimmer and shimmer. Many peyote songs have a drum or rattle; this one does not; the voice doesn’t need to hew to that trad cadence. Maybe provide counterpoint to the melody with a trumpet. Maybe this 4:30 radio-ready song format does not suit this content - could it be 20 minutes long?LISTEN

Stephen Sperashared a track that’s he’s considering including in an upcoming album to be called “Born With Wings” - an album dedicated to birds and birdsong, both natural and synthetic.
Lots of things happening in shimmering clouds. Ethereal. Floating Autumn workings. Busy animals. Blending of synthetic and found sounds - to the point of not know which is which. Events in space. This music is orchestrated; motifs repeat. This is v different than improvised musics which follow their own path and evolve. Laughter emerged out of a musical phrase perfectly in tune - this was appreciated by all.

Theo Baker is in the late stages of putting together a new album; he shared some of it with us in the form of a sizzle reel. He’s making the entire thing using a Zoom Sampletrak ST-224, an 18-bit digital sampler/sequencer/re-sampler from 1999.
Beautiful spare beats and moods sourced mainly from New Age cassette tapes. Keeping the ugly parts. The difficult lo-fi nature of the XXX machine has a huge impact on what it sounds like. Creating Friction: everything is way too slick in 2026; these sounds are are creating friction; they’re helping us engage in something more real. One step in the production chain is micro cassettes which create artifacts and aliasing. Searching for a line-in micro cassette recorder. What’s your relationship to nostalgia and humor? TB4 is constantly digging and auditioning, chasing a feeling, looking for the sadness and playing that over and over and over again.

David Garland shared a 35-year-old recording that he and Rodney made; a collection of songs called Friends In Space.
Story songs with weird interludes of what it sounds like on different planets. The midi technology of that time was a bit more cumbersome than it is today.

Rodney Greenblathas done a series of musics called Golden Pillbug. These are stranger and more wild sounds than the regular Rodney Greenblatt musics. Released on cassette, owners of the Golden Pillbug are encouraged to deposit their tape (after listening) in a place where cool people hang out. Tonight he shared a song from the upcoming Golden Pillbug III.
Insects Acorns Discursive Confident Conversations Clear Conlon Nancarrow

Jimmy GarverI shared two iterations of a song that uses the same instrumentation - one very fast and the other at a moderate tempo. People said they sounded very very different from each other, like different songs. The musics are all middle, no beginning or end. A possible solution to this is to give in to genre. Or, perhaps, disavow the “problem” of only middle; just make stuff that continues on and on and on.