Listening in Asia…

Greetings from Yangon, Myanmar! I’ve had an amazing two months in Southeast Asia. In January I was Artist in Residence at ComPeung in northern Thailand where I was making field recordings, sound designing for some upcoming projects and experiencing the beautiful landscapes, people, smells, sights and sounds of the region​.

recording the landscape in Bagan, Myanmar; photo by Monica Gentile   Here’s a piece I made inspired by the landscapes of Thailand and Myanmar. Traveling in the land that’s home to Theravada Buddhism has been profoundly powerful. There’s so many temples, stuppas, pagodas, monks and lots of psychedelic Buddha shrines! To see all this first hand has changed me and given me perspective on the practice, dhamma and the nature of connection.​ Click below to hear and download this new piece of music “Once You Hear This You Will Always Be a Part of the Song”.

My next stop will be a residency in North India at PECAH in the Uttarakhand region in the foothills of the Himalayas. There I’ll be working on Echozoo, playing and collaborating with North Indian musicians and artists and working on upcoming projects for a very busy April when I return to Philadelphia for a month. If you’re in Philadelphia I’ll be involved in a number of projects including:​

2017 In Review

Happy holidays to everyone reading this! Thanks for being a part of an amazing year of sonic adventures. Without the connection I get by sharing these sounds, moments and memories with you all, this would be meaningless. In the midst of the busy holiday season I hope you’re all finding moments of connection and peace.
If you’re looking for a tonic to the holiday sensoral overload, I recommend two Mikronesia ambient albums I released this year. :dibba-sota is a quiet sonic meditation on Deep Listening and natural spaces and Dissolve is an hour long continuous piece of music that was described by music legend King Britt as “sonic sage”, great for clearing and cleansing a space. In the spirit of the season all the albums on my Bandcamp (including the Landscapes series) are “name your price”. So you can download for free or pay any price that’s good for you 🙂

dibba-sota

Also this year I released three albums in a series called Landscapes. These albums were created at artists residencies around the world this year. The intention of these albums is to allow the listener to experience a sense of place through listening and explore the sonic character of a geographic location. The environmental recordings are augmented with subtle effects and “sonic photography” techniques to represent our own coloring of sound through listening consciousness.

Landscapes 3: Iceland

In 2018 I’ll be continuing my nomadic life with residencies at Com Peung in Chiang Mai, Thailand and PECAH in Uttarakhand, India. I’m very excited to travel to Asia for the first time and focus on the soundscape recording, creation and Echozoo at these residencies.
In addition to traveling and releasing music this year I was glad to begin a new collaborative project Mixes from the Field, with fellow Deep Listener Sharon Stewart. This project seeks to connect people of all ages to explore modes of Deep Listening and the work of Pauline Oliveros through field recording, sonic meditation and music. Our initial project was supported by American Composers Forum for workshops in Philadelphia at Village of Arts and Humanities. My connection with VAH will continue in 2018 in an exciting community project around a basketball court in North Philadelphia that’s being renovated by the Philadelphia 76ers. More on this early next year….

VAH Students exploring the sonic spaces above Philadelphia

Mixes from the Field also led workshops and soundwalks in Berlin, Germany and Arnhem, Netherlands. We’re hoping to continue the work in 2018!
A quick note for anyone in Philadelphia on New Year’s Eve. I’ll be leading a dharma talk, discussion and silent meditation at Springboard Studio in Mt. Airy from 10pm through midnight. The theme for the night will be intention and the infinite potentials found in the ground of being. Hope to see you there! It will be my last night in Philly as I fly to Thailand on Jan 1!
Again, thanks for being a part of an amazing 2017 and I look forward to keeping in touch with you all in 2018.
with Mettā,
Michael

Dream Concert and Album Release

Hello and Happy Halloween! I’m back in the US for a few months and I have some new albums (new and old) and concerts coming up I wanted to tell you all about.

MAGICK CITY DREAM CONCERT

Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State

Saturday 11 Nov, I’ll be doing an overnight dream concert at Magick City in Brooklyn. As a concert experience these durational soundscape performances last from night until early the next morning. These concerts are an immersive, supportive sonic environment. A gentle sea of ambient found sounds and soft tones unfold over an evolving eight-hour concert. Limited tickets remain, purchase here. View some footage from a overnight concert below:

Also this will be an album release show for my new album Dissolve coming out on NOREMIXES. Anyone who buys a ticket to the show will get a free download of the hour-long album. More on this soon…


LANDSCAPES 3: ICELAND

Landscapes 3: Iceland

During my recent residency at Listhus in Olafsfjordur, Iceland I spent a lot of time hiking and taking in the auditory and visual splendor of the land. At night I would work in the recording studio, editing, augmenting and treating the recordings. The third in the Landscapes series was released this week on Bandcamp (with a cover photo by fellow resident Alfredo Esparza). 

There’s an ancient magnificence in the landscapes of Iceland, I hoped to convey that through sound. I recently heard a quote from Irish poet John O’Donahue on the podcast On Being that captures the essence of my recent interest in landscape recording.

Whether you believe you are walking into dead geographical location, which is used to get to a destination, or whether you are emerging out into a landscape that is just as much, if not more, alive as you but in a totally different form. And if you go towards it with an open heart and a real watchful reverence, that you will be absolutely amazed at what it will reveal to you. And I think that that was one of the recognitions of the Celtic imagination: that landscape wasn’t just matter, but that it was actually alive. What amazes me about landscape, landscape recalls you into a mindful mode of stillness, solitude, and silence where you can truly receive time.


:DIBBA-SOTA, QUIESCENT & VXVII ON ITUNES & SPOTIFY

Lastly, I recently remastered some of my most popular albums (including the 8-hour long sleep music album Quiescent) and reissued them to iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, Google, etc. So for people for that don’t use Bandcamp you can now stream or purchase these albums on your favorite platform.

Just search for “Mikronesia” in your favorite music platform and melt into timelessness…

Europe Residencies

Greetings from Berlin, I hope you’re enjoying your early fall / late summer days and nights. I had a wonderful time in Iceland. The other artists at Listhus were very inspiring. I got to take many walks in the mountains, fields, shores, towns and volcanic plains taking in the otherworldly sights and sounds of that lovely country.

I recently uploaded one of the tracks built around fields recordings from Iceland. You can listen here on Soundcloud:

Olafsfjordur ♫ 

My travels continue this month with a residency in Berlin at the prestigious soundart gallery/venue Liebig12. The space has a really great sound system where I will be working on some mediation / sleep music and Echozoo sounds. Also as part of my residency I’ll be taking part in three concerts (many with my old friend, Bilwa, from Philadelphia who lives in Berlin now) and a Deep Listening workshop. If you’re in Berlin it would be great to see you!

Here are the dates of the events:

Friday Sep 8
SPEKTRUM

Wednesday Sep 13
XBLiebig

Saturday Sep 16
Opening soundscape at Liebig12, 15:00-19:00
for Natsuko Tezuka + Tomomi Adachi Duo, 19:30

Friday Sep 29
18:00 – Deep Listening Workshop at Liebig12 with Sharon Stewart

CITIES AND MEMORY PROTEST SOUND MAP

I created a sound collage piece that I recorded at a Black Lives Matter Protest in Philadelphia for the Cities and Memory Protest Sound Map. This sound map is an amazing collection of over 200 recordings and remixes from protests all around the world. The project has been featured on Wired, BBC, The Guardian, Mashable and dozens of other news outlets. Check it out!

http://citiesandmemory.com/protest/ Protest and Politics is the first global mapping of the sounds of protest, demonstration and political activism.
Sourcing field recordings from our own archive as well as from dozens of field recordists around the world, we assembled a database of protest sounds over summer 2017, and opened this up to artists and musicians to recompose and reimagine, bringing to bear their own experiences and memories onto these sounds.
You can explore the documentary field recordings of protests, spend time in the alternative sound world created by their reimagined counterparts, or flip freely between the two as you choose.

MIXES FROM THE FIELD

Sharon and I are ramping up our Field Recording, Deep Listening, Sonic Works project Mixes from the Field with some exciting projects in 2018. Check out our latest Newsletter detailing all we’ve been up too and having coming up, including a Deep Listening outing in Arnhem, NL in October. Also please get on our mailing list to find out more about our upcoming events and projects!

Read more here: http://mailchi.mp/b03cec94af07/deep-listening-and-roundtable-at-sonsbeek-park

Landscapes

Greetings from Iceland! I’m currently writing you from the epic coastal mountains in Olafsfjordur where I am artist in residence at Listhus. Mostly I’m recording environmental sounds, doing research and sound designing extinct creatures for Echozoo. I also have access to a beautiful music studio at the nearby college at night, so I’ve also been recording some piano and other instrumental textures, mixing and editing sounds in the studio there and generally getting inspiration from the ancient landscapes here.

Olafsfjord
Music Studio

  Speaking of landscapes I’m happy to share with you a new album I’m releasing today. This one was inspired by a completely different environment, the rainforests of Brazil. In June I was artist in residence at Casa Na Ilha. During this residency I was again working on sounds for Echozoo. I had so much material and was so inspired by the sights, sounds and “emotional landscapes” (to quote my favorite Icelander) that I ended up working on a new album. This is the first in what I hope will be a series called Landscapes. This series seeks to meld field recordings from a specific environment with subtle ambient textures and beats in a process I called Sonic Photography.

Landscapes 1: Ilhabela   The last project I wanted to share with you was from of my on-going composer residency at Village of the Arts and Humanities in Philadelphia through American Composers Forum. While I was back in Philadelphia in July I taught a class that was a continuation of the Mixes from the Field project teaching high school students about listening and making music from the sounds of their enviroment. This project was for the students to create a Village Sound Map. It involved recording sounds from around the campus of the Village on portable field recorders, editing the sounds in post-production and creating a sound map to show what this neighborhood in North Philadelphia sounds like. Also some students used these sounds to make their own Village Sound Map remixes. Check it out!

Happy summer, be well and keep listening to everything all the time.

The Gifts You Bring

Lakshmi's Gifts

I’m pleased to announce a collaborative debut with renowned yoga/chant musician David Newman. The project is called Binaural Mantras. Our first piece is a 20 minute sonic meditation using a chant dedicated to the goddess Lakshmi. The song is available as a pay-what-you-want release on White Swan Record’s Bandcamp. We’re releasing it today on tax day in the US as a positive message of abundance and generosity. More from White Swan Records: The Goddess Lakshmi bestows abundance and prosperity and reminds us that the flow of giving and receiving are interconnected. We offer you this special recording entitled Lakshmi’s Gifts by Binaural Mantras, a collaboration between chant artist, David Newman and ambient musician Michael Reiley McDermott. This groundbreaking recording merges Sanskrit mantras with binaural beats in an ambient soundscape using sound healing technology to empower abundance and inspiration. We’ve made it available to you on Tax Day as a message and tool for manifesting prosperity, and serving humanity with ease un-distracted by financial concerns, and with the resources available to you to influence positive change in the world. In the Spirit of Lakshmi, we invite you to pay as you please for this gift from our hearts to yours!


NYC SLEEP CONCERTS

May 5th and 6th I’ll be doing two sleep music concerts in New York City. The May 6th concert in Soho is already sold out. There are still tickets remaining for the May 5th concert in Brooklyn.

These sleep concerts are an immersive, supportive sonic environment. Relax as a gentle sea of ambient found sounds and soft tones unfold over an evolving eight-hour concert. People who have attended these concerts in the past have described it as a profound experience. Let your unconscious body-mind receive this soothing tone bath.

Please bring a yoga mat, sleeping bag, blanket and pillows.

Pre-sleep concert sets by IVY MEDOWS and CURVED LIGHT.

MAGICK – CITY
37 Box Street
Greenpoint
$20 / Sliding Scale

FACEBOOK EVENT / TICKETS


:dibba-sota

In case you missed it, I released a new ambient album on Bandcamp called :dibba-sota. This will be the kind of still, serene music you will hear at the sleep music concerts. Enjoy!

Deeply Listening This Week

This has been an amazing week re-connecting with the work and community of my late teacher Pauline Oliveros. This week marks the beginning of my collaboration with Sharon Stewart in our new project Mixes from the Field combining Deep Listening, field recording, sound art and sonic ecology practices.

We began the week attending a memorial concert for Pauline in her hometown for the last 35 years, Kingston, NY. It was a beautiful day of readings, dedications, music and listening. Here’s a photo of a group sonic meditation from the event at Kingston City Hall.

Mixes from the Field began yesterday with our first class teaching high school students about listening and creating music from the sound world around them at our American Composers Forum sponsored residency at Village of the Art and Humanities in North Philadelphia. Here is a photo from the first day teaching the students about various microphones and sound processing techniques using an iPad.

Finally, just a reminder there’s still space for our day-long Deep Listening, Field Recording and Sonic Art Workshop for adults in West Philadelphia called Hidden Pulses. It’s Saturday March 25, 10am-5pm, with a two-hour break for lunch, sound-walks and a field recording outing! You can register here online, or just come to Art Church of West Philadelphia at 10am. Sliding scale payment for artists and students 🙂

Feel free to email me with questions about the workshop.

Keep on listening!
Michael

Mixes from the Field

‘m very excited to announce a new collaborative project, a new residency and a call for used keyboard donations for a community art and music school in Philadelphia…

Mixes from the Field

Last spring I met Dutch sound artist Sharon Stewart at EMPAC during a day-long meeting of Deep Listening teachers, students and community. After the symposium, during a layover at Penn Station and on the train ride back to Philadelphia we connected over our shared interest in field recording and sound art philosophies. From that meeting and a continued connection online we developed this new and exciting framework.

Mixes from the Field

Today, we’re pleased to announce a new website, teaching, performance and collaborative project called Mixes from the Fieldexploring the connection between environment, field recording, Deep Listening, sonic ecology and sound art.

This year I am honored to be Composer in Residence at Village of the Arts and Humanities with support from American Composers Forum. The residency will culminate in a week-long workshop with students at the Village and Mixes from the Field. During this week-long intensive we will be teaching the students about Deep Listening techniques, how to listen and remain connected to the environment and how to make music from the found sounds of their world. It will include hands-on technical workshops, field trips, sound walks and sonic meditations. The finished work by the students will be posted to the Mixes from the Field website and be part of the global community of listening and sharing.

Village of Arts and Humanities


Also Mixes from the Field will be hosting a day-long Deep Listening / Field Recording workshop for adult artists on Saturday March 25 at Art Church (52nd and Webster Street) in West Philadelphia. Look for a detailed announcement email coming soon…


CALLING ALL LONELY KEYBOARDS

As part of my residency at Village of the Arts and Humanities, I’ve expressed interest in starting to give keyboard lessons after school to the students there. The Village already has an impressive lineup of free music performance and production lessons for students. They already teach guitar, drums, music production, singing, rapping, podcasting, but not keyboards/piano! Why? Because they need some keyboards! This is where you can help.

  1. Do you have an old or new keyboard with a minimum of 50 keys (synthesizer or digital piano) that you’d like to donate? It should have full sized keys with touch sensitive velocity.
  2. Would you like to “sponsor a keyboard” by helping to purchase a keyboard for VAH?
  3. Do you know of a music or piano store who might like to donate a keyboard to VAH?

Once we have a few keyboards I’m going to start giving lessons there as part of my composer residency. In addition to teaching keyboard technique, the keyboard can be a gateway into the wide galaxy of music theory, chords, songwriting, collaboration, improvisation, playing by ear, sound design and self-expression.

Please get in touch at [email protected] or 267-312-2821 if you’d like to be involved!

Thank you!!

Michael

Tube amps for days

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth. Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar. The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli, but the Little Blind Text didn’t listen. She packed her seven versalia, put her initial into the belt and made herself on the way. When she reached the first hills of the Italic Mountains, she had a last view back on the skyline of her hometown Bookmarksgrove, the headline of Alphabet Village and the subline of her own road, the Line Lane. Pityful a rethoric question ran over her cheek, then she continued her way. On her way she met a copy.

The copy warned the Little Blind Text, that where it came from it would have been rewritten a thousand times and everything that was left from its origin would be the word “and” and the Little Blind Text should turn around and return to its own, safe country. But nothing the copy said could convince her and so it didn’t take long until a few insidious Copy Writers ambushed her, made her drunk with Longe and Parole and dragged her into their agency, where they abused her for their projects again and again. And if she hasn’t been rewritten, then they are still using her.Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth. Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar.

The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli, but the Little Blind Text didn’t listen. She packed her seven versalia, put her initial into the belt and made herself on the way. When she reached the first hills of the Italic Mountains, she had a last view back on the skyline of her hometown Bookmarksgrove, the headline of Alphabet Village and the subline of her own road, the Line Lane. Pityful a rethoric question ran over her cheek, then she continued her way. On her way she met a copy. The copy warned the Little Blind Text, that where it came from it would have been rewritten a thousand times and everything that was left from its origin would be the word “and” and the Little Blind Text should turn around and return to its own, safe country. But nothing the copy said could convince her and so it didn’t take long until a few insidious Copy Writers ambushed her, made her drunk

Preparing for the tour

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth. Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar. The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli, but the Little Blind Text didn’t listen. She packed her seven versalia, put her initial into the belt and made herself on the way. When she reached the first hills of the Italic Mountains, she had a last view back on the skyline of her hometown Bookmarksgrove, the headline of Alphabet Village and the subline of her own road, the Line Lane. Pityful a rethoric question ran over her cheek, then she continued her way. On her way she met a copy.

The copy warned the Little Blind Text, that where it came from it would have been rewritten a thousand times and everything that was left from its origin would be the word “and” and the Little Blind Text should turn around and return to its own, safe country. But nothing the copy said could convince her and so it didn’t take long until a few insidious Copy Writers ambushed her, made her drunk with Longe and Parole and dragged her into their agency, where they abused her for their projects again and again. And if she hasn’t been rewritten, then they are still using her.Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth. Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar.

The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli, but the Little Blind Text didn’t listen. She packed her seven versalia, put her initial into the belt and made herself on the way. When she reached the first hills of the Italic Mountains, she had a last view back on the skyline of her hometown Bookmarksgrove, the headline of Alphabet Village and the subline of her own road, the Line Lane. Pityful a rethoric question ran over her cheek, then she continued her way. On her way she met a copy. The copy warned the Little Blind Text, that where it came from it would have been rewritten a thousand times and everything that was left from its origin would be the word “and” and the Little Blind Text should turn around and return to its own, safe country. But nothing the copy said could convince her and so it didn’t take long until a few insidious Copy Writers ambushed her, made her drunk