Taylor Deupree Albums (10)
What The Critics Say
In 2002 Taylor Deupree said goodbye to glitchy pastures and headed for more organic territory with the definitive Stil, the dreamy soundscapes of 2004's January and several collaborations; most notably with labelmates Christopher Willits and Kenneth Kirschner, as well as Japanese ensemble Eisi for an album length reconstruction project. So it's no surprise that every experiment that he's attempted throughout the past four years has led to Northern, a beautiful six song treatise inspired by the quiet countryside Deupree has chosen to reside in (he recently moved from Brooklyn to more rural settings). This transition finds Deupree entirely abandoning the vocabulary of crisp, ear jarring highs and sub sonic bass to more textured, organic instrumentation. Throughout Northern, he quietly weaves a tapestry of atmospheres and textures through structured improvisation that recall the emotion and stillness of Stil. and January without becoming predictable and tiresome. The level of discipline while layering the sounds upon one another (especially during the album's closer "November"), all the while maintaining a reverence for silence that is similar to opening movement of the Joe Zawinul/Miles Davis classic "In A Silent Way." The serenity and beauty of this album has few rivals in the electronic music world and by the time the final notes rain down, finding a record that can stand up against Northern is no easy task to undertake. Quite easily one of the best albums, electronic or otherwise, of 2006. ~ Rob Theakston, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
If there's one artistic crime Taylor Deupree can't be found guilty of, it's stagnation. Through recent collaborations with labelmates Kenneth Kirschner and Christopher Willits, he's managed to shift away from the callous sine waves that were the hallmark of a music he helped to champion, microsound, and begin to incorporate more organic instrumentation into his works. He's also managed to move the fold away from the process and into more melodic territory, as evidenced by his return to his dancefloor roots on various Audio.NL releases and his shoegaze-inspired January release on the Spekk imprint. These movements, among others, are what have set Deupree up for one of the biggest artistic challenges of his career: reinterpreting and reconstructing an album's worth of material from a live band. The obscure band in question is the somber, Japanese kindred spirit of Mazzy Star, Eisi. The tracks found on Every Still Day were originally issued on the tiny Noble label in 2003 under the name Awaawa, and what's found here is a ten-song, 46-minute reinterpretation of Awaawa that's as every bit as striking as the original. In most instances, a reconstructed album is a shoddily produced affair, with edits and rearrangements stripping the soul and intention of the original release. But Deupree's reverence and sensitivity to the original is quite evident. Like a surgeon performing the most delicate of operations, he is more than up to the task of improving upon the material without overdoing it. Nowhere evident on this album are the glitches and high frequencies that have become synonymous with Deupree's production style; their absence is a testament to just how skillful he has become with his instrument of choice, the Kyma processor. Layers of gentle acoustic instrumentation, darker drones, and a hint of percussion (implied by digital edits) are the bed from which the tracks here originate, sprinkled lightly with chords from synthesizers and horns; somewhere in the fog is the haunting voice of Eisi lead vocalist Mujika Easel. The arrangements are as heavy and dense as anything Miles Davis composed during his electric period, and the delicate frailty of the compositions are comparable to passages in Talk Talk's epic masterpiece Laughing Stock. These comparisons may be blasphemous to those unfamiliar with Deupree's work (and may be blasphemous to those who are), but both carry the common thread that is exemplified throughout Every Still Day. This isn't just electronic music of the highest pedigree, it's an exploration into new territories of fresh, challenging music. ~ Rob Theakston, All Music Guide
'Taylor Deupree & Christopher Willits'
Release Date 1/27/2004
Tracks 8
Label Forced Exposure
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Given Christopher Willits' charming contributions to Taylor Deupree's seminal 12k label, it was inevitable that a collaboration between the two would come to fruition. Surprisingly, this does not happen on 12k, but rather as an installment of Sub Rosa's sublime Invisible Architecture series. Recorded as a late night collaboration between the two, it started with Willits jamming on his guitar and then running the results through his custom audio software. From there, Deupree manipulated the results of Willits' output through his own laptop processing. After editing hours of material down, six tracks of warm, glitched-out experimental fusion that, at times, sounds like what Miles Davis may be composing if he were alive today. The collaboration charts sonic waters both artists have yet to navigate, and for that reason alone this session is worth the listening experience. As a bonus, there are excerpts from the 2002 live performances that originally inspired the collaboration from each of the artists added on to the end of the disc. What makes these additions truly special is to hear each artist in their own environment, then determining how their work methods were employed during the collaboration. Attempting tracing back to who contributed what and whose production values were utilized on particular compositions is an enjoyable exercise for listening in itself. ~ Rob Theakston, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Recorded live at the Tonic in N.Y.C. on November 26, 2002, this set extends the "label mates" relationship between Taylor Deupree and Christopher Willits to a "collaborators" status. Willits had just released his debut album, Folding, and the Tea, on Deupree's 12k imprint. Released in the elegant Audiosphere series, this CD actually contains only 20 minutes of duets: the first six tracks. The last half-hour of music consists of two extended solo pieces. The duo tracks are short, melodic, and driven by the kind of half-stated melancholia that has become more and more prevalent in experimental electronica after the release of Fennesz's Endless Summer. Although here the music takes a different route, adding a light touch of cheerfulness. The pair quickly finds common ground to work on, Deupree's deceptively simple textures attaching themselves to Willits' shards of melodic suggestions. The set ends somewhat abruptly after the 90-second "Suspended by Giant Balloons," at a point where the listener is not ready to "let go." Deupree's solo set (19 minutes) is a different beast: it focuses on two contrasting textures: a soft glitchy background and warm organ-like tones that give the piece an analog feel and a slow, processional development. It doesn't rank among his best live pieces, but it makes a fine addition to this CD. Willits' solo set (ten minutes) comes back to the languid guitar sounds that formed the backbone of Folding, and the Tea, his rearrangement of soft electric guitar notes leaving a trace of clicks in the cuts to create unstable mock-rhythms. There is nothing here his debut album hadn't already stated, but if you happened to miss it, this track will help you nail down his contribution to the six duets. ~ François Couture, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
At the core of this album is a 22-kHz piano sample. Back in 1997, Kenneth Kirschner took that sample, stretched it across the keyboard (pitching up and down to fit the standard pitch of each key), and became enamored with the noisy, grainy piano sound obtained. He has used it a lot since, and in 2001-2002 he came back to it to prepare five piano suites. Made of fragments of simple, almost childlike piano motifs, these pieces were then delivered to microsoundsmith Taylor Deupree to sample and re-create. The results ally fragility and innocence -- beauty that stretches far beyond the methods and processes at play. At times the piano's presence is limited to trace elements: filtered clicks, abstract pulses, and the ghostly reverb of unheard notes. In other pieces (like "02.15.02"), Deupree keeps the melody at the center of his stage, wrapping microscopic pulses around it. Ambient and relaxing, this music sounds like a new form of new age music (the creative kind, early on, before birds and water streams ruined everything). The technology of experimental electronica has been fully integrated, and now the composer transcends processes to focus on manipulating emotions (in a good sense!) and inspiring memories. Deupree's ten constructions constitute the audio partition of post_piano. A data partition contains the original piano sample in aiff format and the five piano pieces in mp3 format. The CD is released under the Open Audio License; musicians are invited to use the material to continue the collaboration. ~ François Couture, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Stil has one weakness: it's too short. There are four tracks on here that are equally intriguing, whether separated from one another or listened to in the album's entirety. But these compositions were designed to unfold over a long duration of time; too long to be documented on any sort of media. Stil focuses on the variations found in changes of minute sound loops layered one on top another, and the results are breathtaking. Warm sine waves that aren't glitched up to levels of pretentiousness are abundant, giving the notion of activity to what could otherwise be deemed frozen and static. And Stil can be deceptive if close listening isn't employed: the results are so subtle that they can lead to the notion that they're nothing but a bunch of stagnant drones carelessly looped together. But nothing could be further from the truth, as it's easily Taylor Deupree's finest, most beautifully executed release to date. ~ Rob Theakston, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
For .N, graphic designer and electronic producer Taylor Deupree focuses on nanotechnology, the science concerned with impossibly miniscule molecules. The field not only converges several different areas of research (chemistry, biotechnology, computer engineering) but is itself a science many experts believe represents a breathtaking venture for scientists and computers in the 21st century. Surprisingly, Deupree manages to bring listeners into the microscopic world of sub-molecular space; his productions are largely free of both bass and rhythm, leaving only brittle, high-frequency sound tools and an abstract production style that sounds just this side of random. The fifth track, "Build," evokes rather well the construction of atoms one molecule at a time, with constant blips of gleaming synth and the occasional burst of faraway computer static. Though Deupree's hardly fettered by any preconceptions of what nanotechnology actually sounds like, these tracks -- experimental, freeform, obviously just as focused on the space between sounds as on the sounds themselves -- are just about what you'd expect to hear while floating from molecule to molecule within individual atoms. And of course nanotechnology is the perfect subject for a producer in league with the heavily computer-processed style dubbed microsound by fellow Ritornell/Mille Plateaux producer Kim Cascone. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide
