Shadow Time
We are very proud to release the first compositions of John Barner called Shadow Time. These were never meant to be released on an album, only for performance, but we are very happy to make this happen. See John's notes below about the thoughts and process behind the making of the record.
Notes on Shadow Time
From 1995 until 1999, I was regularly commissioned to produce music for live events. Often, at the time the music was commissioned, I did not know how the music would feature in the event, or indeed, even what the event would be—be it a play, poetry recital, or modern dance performance. The music provided the soundtrack to those events and likely some more that I either do not recall or did not myself attend (for example, after completing these notes, I recalled one piece was commissioned to accompany a local artist who was simply painting live in front of an audience). Upon receiving a commission, I made only three stipulations: 1.) that the music not be recorded, or included in any planned recording, of the event; 2.) that the recording I provided of the music only be played during the event for which it was intended, and; 3.) that the recording I provided of the music be destroyed after the event concluded. I did not receive—and refused to accept—any payment of any kind for the commissioned music nor was I credited, directly or indirectly, in any promotional or programmatic materials for the events themselves. These rather unusual stipulations arose out of something that a group of fellow musicians and I were actively debating, something which we described at that time as disposable music. The idea was that, in order to capture the full emotional resonance that a piece of music was capable of inspiring in a listener, it should be consumed live, with as little context and description as possible, and ideally never heard again. I don’t know if I believe that today or not. Over the years, the recordings have become very important to me: they document my first forays into recording electronic avant-garde music. They were produced cheaply, utilizing rudimentary sampling technology, hand-spliced tape loops, analog synthesizers, a digital piano, a single Shure SM58 Vocal Microphone, and an 8-track recording device that I barely knew how to use and was malfunctioning most of the time. There are minimal overdubs. There has been no mastering. As far as I know, I possess the original recordings of all of these pieces and, until now, they have not been heard in their entirety since the events for which they were commissioned. They possess no individual names. They are only Shadow Time.
John Barner
Athens, Georgia
September 2017