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Tempest Elegies

by Arthur Durkee

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1.
The Tempest: this rough magic 04:15
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2.
beaten by angels' wings 04:55
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3.
Elegy for Jeff 05:54
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4.
Persistence of Pulse 04:33
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5.
protect yourself, wanderer, with the road that is walking too 06:15
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6.
ahead of all parting 04:01
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7.
listen to the night as it makes itself hollow 04:35
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8.
at the shadowed crossing 04:59
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9.
I believe in the night 03:19
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10.
Serenity 03:51
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11.
it is strange to inhabit the earth no longer 03:18
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12.
Refuge(e) 09:46
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13.
BONUS: Chromatic Nightmare 08:28
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about

A history of the Tempest Elegies:

It has been a most difficult album to create.

This album began as a follow-up to my 2019 Stick album Shifting Times. I began work in 2020, with two tracks intended to be collaborations with musician friends. I wanted it to an emotionally intense album, both light and dark.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

I was in lockdown for several months. The world was turned upside down. Nothing has been the same since.

To preserve my sanity, I pivoted to recording solo music in Dragonsweyr studio for the summer of 2020. I made a plan to release one new track per week during that summer. As it happened, I did more. The result was a 19-track double album, Shelter In Place, which gave me something positive to do that first summer of COVID. I released one new track a week for months, and gave the album away for free.

Meanwhile work on Tempest Elegies lost all momentum. It fell apart as a project. I returned to it periodically, but I had lost focus.

At last, work on the album was renewed when we scheduled a recording session at Clutch Studio in 2022. Part of our purpose was to record live drums for the album’s keystone composition, Refuge(e)—the first track begun for this album, and the last completed. It has been the longest gestation time for a single track I have ever endured—a hard process that tested my confidence in my own music. We also recorded new improvs and groove ideas at Clutch, which led me to feel my way towards completing these Tempest Elegies.

The truth is, despite everything, despite all the turbulence and fear of these past few years—an ongoing pandemic, the growing insanity of our political landscape, the world literally burning because of the climate change crisis, endless tragedies and traumas that we as a nation and as a global community have yet to really deal with, and two years of my own serious illness, surgeries, and recoveries, all of which delayed this project—despite all that, I finished it. Making music gave me a reason to go on. Somehow, I finally got it done. It is the best that I could do during a difficult time. I hope it is worthy.

The tone of Tempest Elegies reflects the times during which it was recorded: a darker spectrum of feeling: loss, grief, regret, sorrow, loneliness. There are also moments of defiant triumph, joy, and serenity.

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NOTES on selected tracks:

The Tempest: this rough magic

A quote from Shakespeare’s play. The current Tempest being COVID-19, political turmoil, the world in crisis, climate change, my illnesses, surgeries, and recoveries, everything being uncertain and sometimes dangerous.

Elegy for Jeff

My friend Jeff Luebke passed from relapsing cancer, but he gifted me one of his musical instruments, which I cherish and play regularly: an NS/Stick. I acquired a vintage digital synthesizer, one of my favorite synths of all time: a Yamaha DX-7. Much of the music on Tempest Elegies reflects my first incorporations of these instruments into my music.

Persistence of Pulse

Persistence arises from the refusal to give in to those challenges that would drag us down, make us ill, even kill us. Despite depression, despite feeling sick and tired, despite everything: We rise. We keep going. We persist.

Both “Elegy for Jeff” and “Persistence” are composed of layered repeating ostinato cells, typically of varying lengths. This way of playing hark back to my previous Chapman Stick album, Shifting Times. I continue to develop the idea of cellular automata and layered patterns with the “Pulse” series of semi-composed structured improvisations.

Several other track titles come from lines of poetry. During the album’s making, I re-read Rilke’s Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus.

Tempest for the turbulent times, and Elegies for all that has been lost during this period, globally as well as personally.

I believe in the night

This piece is a lyrical elegy, the first piece i recorded using both my newly-acquired vintage digital synth, a Yamaha DX-7, and Jeff’s NS/Stick.

Refuge(e)

This track was the first idea developed for the album, and the last to be completed. I originally intended it to be a collaboration between four of my musician friends and my self, but the pandemic derailed that idea. Later, though, Anton aid down live drums for the track, and I added keyboards to the Stick tracks I had already completed. The double meaning of the title expresses the terror of displaced people fleeing for their lives, and the fierce strength they discover in themselves when they must, which empower them to find refuge—or to create it.

When illness and financial ruin forced me to become homeless, living in my van and a tent for a few years, I found in myself a strength, endurance, and will to live that I had never imagined. That sustained me through trial after trial—even living in the van, I composed several new choral pieces, writing in various public libraries in southwestern desert small towns. We are usually stronger than we think we are.

credits

released July 31, 2023

Arthur Durkee: Chapman Stick, NS/Stick, Yamaha DX7, Animoog, iPad synths, ARP2600, Eurorack modular analog synth, Yamaha D88, Roland EP-9 digital piano, sound design

Anton Kapela: drums, percussion, additional sound design

Written & Produced by Arthur Durkee
Recorded April 2020 through July 2023 at Dragonsweyr
Engineered, Mixed, & Mastered by AD at Dragonsweyr

Some tracks recorded April 2022 at Clutch Studio, Madison, WI
Co-Produced by Anton Kapela for Clutch Studio
Engineered by Max Jewer

© 2023 Arthur Durkee Arts. All Rights Reserved.

This album is dedicated in permanent gratitude to Emmett Chapman, Greg Howard, and Jeff Luebke.

Album artwork, photography, visual design, poetry, letterpress, and calligraphy
© 2023 Arthur Durkee Arts. All Rights Reserved.

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Arthur Durkee Ann Arbor, Michigan

Arthur Durkee is a composer & songwriter who records & performs on Chapman Stick, bass, analog modular synths, bamboo & wood flutes, keys, frame drums, and voice. He has won awards for composed, notated music as well as for his recordings, & is a published poet, & designer & illustrator. ... more

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