The Wire…

Last year, the new music publication The Wire did a feature on me and also previewed some tracks from my upcoming release “Koheleth” . You can read a blurb and listen to the previews here.

I’m especially proud of the album “Koheleth” and for this reason, had refused to release it digitally. As it was conceived and produced as an album – a gesamtwerk  – i wasn’t going to compromise it by having it disassembled and lost in the sea of “download only” singles that are all too overabundant on the Internet. I started a crowdfunding campaign on Patreon to raise the money to finance a proper release. It has yet to produce the result i aspired to. I’ve considered abandoning the Patreon campaign and then something happens to inspire me to press on. So, for the time being, i’ll continue working on that.

In the meantime, #blacbuc continues to get closer to a premiere. Watch this blog for updates and info and, of course, more music.

 

 

 

 

Blac Buc, Blac Buc!!!

Bassist Jair-Rohm Parker Wells composes “Blac Buc” on the Buchla 200e

The realization of the multi-disciplinary work “Blac Buc” on the EMS Buchla 200e system.

Stockholm, Sweden

NS Designs bassist/Composer Jair-Rohm Parker Wells, in residency at EMS in Stockholm, Sweden, has crafted a significant social/political work utilizing the Buchla 200e modular synthesizer system.

The 50 minute multi-media/multi-disciplinary work is called “Blac Buc”. The title is a play on words referencing the Reconstruction era racial slur “Black Buck” and the name of the modular synthesizer system that the piece was realized on: the Buchla 200e modular synthesizer. The work promotes and inspires the consideration that Booker T. Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” rather than W.E.B. Du Bois’ “Niagara Movement” held the best solution for post-Reconstruction America and the advancement of its Black people. The work was produced entirely using GNU, free and open source software. The completed work will be presented live as a fixed media performance incorporating projections, the voices of Ayn Rand, W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, dance and live NS Designs bass. A CD of the music as well as digital downloads/streaming will also be available.

Quotes:

…thinking man’s hip hop with cascading political indignation BEN WATSON (Music journalist/AMM-All Stars)

Let it now be known that the modern day “Freak-Bass Philosopher” has arrived – Jair-Rohm Parker Wells. I remember the Buchla well from my days at NYU (in the mid-80s!), so to hear it today through Jair-Rohm’s impassioned and well-informed “techno-logical touch” is a welcome sonic sandwich. Blessings for Bass. Thank you, Mr. Parker Wells. MARQUE GILMORE the inna-most (DRUM-FM / Kult-U-Real™) – April, 2017

“For Jair-Rohm, being called a virtuoso is too limiting. It’s being current that makes what he does so relevant. I think the measure of an artist goes beyond the hands that make the art. Jair-Rohm just doesn’t play the instrument, he creates a language using it.” — JEFFERY HAYDEN SHURDUT (artist/ producer/ director)

“…an innovative mix of electronica, EDM, jazz and spoken word that will move your feet and open your mind.” – KARL FURY (electronic musician)

“Music where acoustic and electronic instruments meet ,and where you sometimes can´t hear the difference will be tommorrows music. This is a good example of it. Nice bassplaying. It fits perfectly into the machines groove.” — THOMAS KLINTEBY (Composer , musician in ‘Upside’)

“…we experience the full range of pitch, timbre, precision, warmth, harmony and chaos, Whiteness, Blackness, noise and music that mirrors the complexity of 150 years of post-slavery social evolution. Prepare for a ride, and not one that brings you back safely to rest. It is meant to shake and move you to a different place, and regain lost momentum.” — LAWRENCE DE MARTIN (acoustic luthier)

“This is a fearless confrontation of history and music technology. It builds on the works of pioneers like Sun Ra & Joe McPhee in terrms of both the embeded social issues as well as the boundless experiments with sound.” — DAMON SMITH

Trailer

Jair-Rohm Parker Wells and NS Designs WAV electric upright bass at the Buchla 200e system at EMS Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo credit: Henrik Jonsson)