Hallock Hill

Kyle Bobby Dunn, “Promenade,” A Young Person’s Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn (Low Point, 2010)

A single note cast out against a canvas stretches and twists, sometimes over, sometimes under itself. Others weave, or are woven, into these stretches of sound, and careen round the landscape. What are you feeling? It might be peace, which is momentary, or conflict, which is slight and usually only base and elemental. The landscape is without rhythm, in the same way that a river, or passing clouds, are without rhythm. Yet. They have design.

What comes to you might be said to come through you, and you can choose to focus on it, let it inhabit you, or not. It will still be there, like the waves breaking against the beach. They don’t need to be listened to. One might sense a certain intelligence of sound, or of sounds, an intuitive grasp of one for the other, a familiarity of one slightly contorted.

People don’t talk about beauty nearly enough. These twelve discrete beautiful objects will care for you, if you let them. And if you don’t, they will still be beautiful. But let them care for you.

You will struggle to categorize these sounds, ask yourself what you are hearing, remember a distant day when you had some peace in your life and you were able to think, unfettered. Is that a trombone? A guitar? Is that organic or synthesized? As these questions disappear, and I hope they do, you’ll have an opportunity. Opportunity to find different states of being. Some might be coincident with one’s temperament. Some might chop at it, and the joint might be irreparable.

These work by incremental building and rebuilding. Recycling. Revisioning. The whole shows a multiple of moods and emotions, crafted by a caring ear that clearly points towards the variety of experience. The waves on the shore. Snowflakes. Fingerprints. Tree roots.

The next time you pick up a familiar object, one you’ve had nearly all your life, find one thing you never noticed about it. All those things are there, whether you look for them or not.

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These pieces were recorded over several years in North Carolina, New York, New Jersey and Alberta, Canada. This album takes four pieces from last year’s Fervency, expands on them and adds material across 2 CDs. Soundscapes can be meticulously created. And these are.

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