In the same package that contained my electric pine cone, last night, was also a new His Name Is Alive CDR, titled Brown Rice. To my knowledge, this CDR has primarily been made available at shows (with a hundred or so being made available to timeSTEREO mailing list members). It's been a heavenly listen, this instrumental gem:
Brown Rice, all instrumental except for some mixed-in recordings of baby talk, is mostly chaos, but it's chaos trying to organize itself. Celestial chimes and taps emerge from silence, cautiously trying to flow in the same direction; violins and saxophones eventually join them. A harp plays what could be the beginning of the Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice," scrambled beyond recognition; once or twice, Defever's guitar can be heard paraphrasing "I Can't Feel at Home in This World Anymore."
[Smallmouth: Sounds Beyond Silence, Douglas Wolk, Seattle Weekly Jan 21-27 2004, viewed Mar 18 2004]
I was listening to it last night as I was finishing up a painting (my second painting this week, which makes them the first two paintings I've put on canvas in over two years) while a friend slept on my couch. It was very fitting, the sound being so dreamlike. The environment filled with various art projects and chinese takeout in disarray. Spools of wire on the floor. Windows wide open to the city, looking many stories down. Girl in blue blanket crunched up on couch. All very nice indeed.