SubVersion Stop 62: Peter Broderick's "Experiments In Sound And Song"

It is with deeply felt honour on my part that I can present Peter Broderick's contribution to "15 Minutes Of Fame". Best known for his piano-led masterpiece "Float" on Type Recordings, an LP which elicited heart-tugging poignancy in its 36 minute duration, "Experiments In Sound And Song" is described by Peter as follows:

Peter Broderick - Experiments In Sound And Song - www.myspace.com/peterbroderick
"In the last months, I have been occasionally posting music for free on my flickr page ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/ ). All of this music was recorded very quickly, impulsively, and then put online, and at the moment I don't plan to do anything else with it. The music has been all over the place, from quiet solo piano to wanna-be hip-hop. All of the songs in this mix, and more, can be downloaded at my flickr page, and I hope to keep putting music up there in future. I have written a short description for each song here, and posted links to the original flickr postings.

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01. Sunday Song (0:00 - 3:26)A simple song I wrote on my friend Nils Frahm's piano, recorded on a quiet Sunday evening when I had his place to myself.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4124838647/

02. When I ___ I ___ (3:26 - 7:15)I asked people on my flickr page to fill in the blanks on the following sentence: "When I ___ I ___, and my ___ is ___." Then I made this song using their comments.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4209420900/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4213098889/

03. Freyr (7:15 - 13:25)Before I moved to Europe at the end of 2007, I lived in Portland, Oregon, with my cat Freyr. Freyr was my best friend in the world, and leaving him behind was tough. But my father loves cats as much as I do, so I took Freyr up to his place in the country side to stay. He loved it there. And I would see him every time I was back in Oregon visiting. This last November he disappeared into the woods, and never came back. One morning I received an email from my father, explaining that Freyr was gone, and how that made him feel. Most of the emails I get from my father are quite short (he doesn't spend all his time on his computer like we do!), but this one was much longer. I knew he loved that cat like I did, and the words he wrote were so beautiful to me. I had to take them and make a song out of it, a song for Freyr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4106661573/

04. These Walls of Mine (13:35 - 21:36)I had surgery on my knee back in December, and was very immobile in the days that followed. So I spent all of my time trying to distract myself and pass the time. I watched Twin Peaks all over again, and recorded a bunch of ridiculous music. I thought a lot about all the different ways to present words. Our voices are so versatile, and when words come out of our mouths, the way we deliver them is a crucial part of how those words come across. So this is me playing around with the delivery of words, and trying to make hip-hop with a piano, a violin, a nylon string guitar, and a computer.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4196847489/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4197602544/

05. I Do This (21:36 - 27:20)This really makes the most sense if you look at these flickr entires, in the following order:
1. http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4034911156/
2. http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4037989881/

06. Copenhagen (27:20 - 35:16)There was a huge marching rally on the street right outside my window in Copenhagen. They were playing these amazing beats on their drums. So I hobbled over to my suitcase (it was the day after my knee operation) and grabbed my field recorder. Then I spent the rest of the day making this song, using my voice as the only other instrument. I processed layers of my voice to make a beat the same tempo as the one I had recorded from outside, then blended the two together with more layers of my voice.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4191088220/

07. Hannover (35:16 - 38:09)I was on tour with Efterklang a few months ago, and we played at this wonderful theater in Hannover, Germany. I found an empty room with a piano, set up my field recorder and recorded some short improvisations, then mixed a few different pieces together really quickly.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4124176977/

08. Inside Out There (38:09 - 43:28)Another song I made in the days after my knee operation. I was restless, and was basically just messing around with making beats on the computer, only using my voice and other things laying around, like my fingers on the table top, or smacking the chair next to me. Once I finished the beat, I picked up some other instruments and made this song around it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4197602318/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4197602544/

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