NEW VIDEO AND RECORDING FROM INTELLIGENT LIFE AVAILABLE APRIL 5TH!!
“IT SHADOWS FORTH” - FROM THE NEW INTELLIGENT LIFE ALBUM “ANALOGIES”, OUT APRIL 5TH, 2024.
New Recording available september 22!
New Sounds WNYC Presents - Live at The Winter Garden NYC - The Passion of Joan of Arc
David Cieri, a visionary and prolific composer of film music — best known for his work on the films of Ken Burns, has recorded a new score for one of the essential films of the silent era, Carl Th. Dreyer's La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (The Passion of Joan of Arc). On September 22, 2023, Ropeadope will release New Sounds WNYC presents - Live from the Winter Garden - The Passion of Joan of Arc, Cieri's new score for this cinematic classic. Director Ken Burns adds: "[David Cieri’s] score for Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc — featuring music by turns earthly and ethereal — mirrors the intensity and magic of this enduring work of cinema. Also on January 27, The Winter Garden, screened La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc with Cieri and an eight-piece ensemble performing the score live.
“This is real music, not trapped by boxes, definitions and genres, but creating its own style. Cieri delivers beautiful moods ... honest, imaginative, fearless.” (John Zorn)
MUSICIANS:
TENORES DE ATERUE - TRADITIONAL SARDINIAN VOCAL
TRINA BASU - VIOLIN
MIKE BROWN - BASS
DAVID CIERI - PIANO, WATERPHONE
SHAZAD ISMAILY - MOOG, GUITAR
SAM OSPOVAT - DRUMS, PERCUSSION
PRODUCED BY JOHN SCHAEFER - NEW SOUNDS - WNYC
RECORDING ENGINEERS:
EDWARD HABER
DUKE MARKOS
GEORGE WELLINGTON
ALBUM ART AND LIVE EVENT PHOTOGRAPHY:
RACHAEL HACKING
New short film by jon Levenson at the montclair film festival
I got the pleasure of writing and recording most of the music in this short film by the talented Jon Levenson.
This will be streaming and screened in person as part of the Montclair Film Festival.
October 30 at 1:30pm (EST)
Stream the october 6th show from shapeshifter lab
This show is available for streaming over the next few days!
From the one and only Shapeshifter Lab!
Orange Peels | Celebrate the Moments of Your Life
I am very grateful that my friends in The Orange Peels have invited me into their world once again to help out bye writing and recording some string parts for a few of the songs on this release. Please check it out if you have a chance, it is a beautiful album!!!
Here is the description:
Celebrate the Moments of Your Life is the first double album by the band, and an adventure into uncharted waters.
Featuring more than an hour of new music, the album was recorded from summer 2019 though fall of 2020 at the band's former headquarters in the Santa Cruz Mountains, mixed by longtime collaborator Bryan Hanna in Minneapolis, and mastered by Dave Gardner at Infrasonic in Los Angeles. Original artwork was created by collage artist Nereida Dusten.
“The next message you need is always right where you are.”
— Ram Dass
On the heels of the success of “Lost in Translation”, Intelligent Life presents “Thirty days of June”, their third album of boundary defying experimental music, recorded during Covid-19 lockdown. Right from the start, opening track “And when the time comes” evokes a potent sense of time and place. Underground travel through the dark tunnels of the NYC subway system. A sudden stop. A forward lurch. The unseen but ever present East River churning dangerously above. The hypnotic sounds of the album continue and intensify with each subsequent track. “Collective memory”, “Summer solstice” and “With the way things are” smoothly seduce the listener while, at the same time, give nothing away. True to its title, “Mysteriously silent on the subject” weaves a musical path that brings a feeling of peace and wonder and the magic of being in "the moment.” Title track “Thirty days of June” helps you get through the isolating days of Covid, yet you may not be quite sure just how it does that. Therein lies the genius. After the final track, “It is the time”, when you are fully immersed in the out-of-body experience that is Intelligent Life, you will leave with the sense that everything will be alright. It may be lot to expect from an album, but “Thirty Days of June" delivers.
credits
released August 13, 2021
Jeff Düngfelder: Electronics
Mike Brown: Contrabass
Joshua Trinidad: Trumpet
Recorded in Brooklyn & Queens, New York, and Denver, Colorado
Mixed & Mastered at the Georgian Gardens Studio, New York City
Artwork by Jeff Düngfelder
Written for Phamaly Theatre Co.’s original production of Alice in Wonderland
On the crest of “Everything is always the same”, Intelligent Life now presents their visionary second release, “Lost in Translation”. Joining the group is renowned trumpeter Joshua Trinidad, whose burnished tones and spellbinding improvisational skills beguiles the listener with an air of relaxed restraint. The alluring timbre of Brown’s contrabass gently floats the articulated notes of Trinidad’s trumpet, which then seamlessly interweave with the mystical texture of Düngfelder’s electronic world. Out of this fluidity of sound a new language is born. Boundaries are defused
and the listener gets lost into an unchartered world.
Düngfelder, Brown and Trinidad merge their individual experiences and talents to produce meditative music with an edge. With a blend of idiosyncrasy, depth and the unexpected it is a unique palette not come across in most experimental albums.
Intelligent Life makes its powerful debut with this genre-defying album. Ultimately unclassifiable and obsessively listenable, it is an ephemera of sound that defuse boundaries. A structural philosophy of experimental contrabass underscores the ambient, down-tempo and avant-garde components, which fluidly superimpose with the electronica. While the contrabass is clearly a foundational element, it serves more as a point of departure than a defining sonic envelope. Düngfelder & Brown take their disparate experiences and talents to attack convention. Alive with vivid colors they give the meditative music a real edge with the unexpected. It’s full of an idiosyncratic
The soundtrack for the New Ken Burns documentary is out now on Ropeadope! What a great time performing this music written by David Cieri with some of my oldest musical friends (and a special new guest as well).
Check it out if you have a few minutes - I'm sure you are going to love it!
Featured releases
intelligent life | Thirty days of june (2021)
“The next message you need is always right where you are.”
— Ram Dass
On the heels of the success of “Lost in Translation”, Intelligent Life presents “Thirty days of June”, their third album of boundary defying experimental music, recorded during Covid-19 lockdown. Right from the start, opening track “And when the time comes” evokes a potent sense of time and place. Underground travel through the dark tunnels of the NYC subway system. A sudden stop. A forward lurch. The unseen but ever present East River churning dangerously above. The hypnotic sounds of the album continue and intensify with each subsequent track. “Collective memory”, “Summer solstice” and “With the way things are” smoothly seduce the listener while, at the same time, give nothing away. True to its title, “Mysteriously silent on the subject” weaves a musical path that brings a feeling of peace and wonder and the magic of being in "the moment.” Title track “Thirty days of June” helps you get through the isolating days of Covid, yet you may not be quite sure just how it does that. Therein lies the genius. After the final track, “It is the time”, when you are fully immersed in the out-of-body experience that is Intelligent Life, you will leave with the sense that everything will be alright. It may be lot to expect from an album, but “Thirty Days of June" delivers.
credits
released August 13, 2021
Jeff Düngfelder: Electronics
Mike Brown: Contrabass
Joshua Trinidad: Trumpet
Recorded in Brooklyn & Queens, New York, and Denver, Colorado
Mixed & Mastered at the Georgian Gardens Studio, New York City
Artwork by Jeff Düngfelder
KOMUNYAKAA, CIERI, BROWN: DARK FURNITURE (2019)
While Cieri was writing the music (along with Trent Reznor and Yo-Yo Ma) for Ken Burns’ The Vietnam War Documentary, he kept close Yusef Komunyakaa’s poetry book Dien Cai Dau as a source of insight and inspiration. As good fortune would have it, The Gavagai Music and Reading series run by Danielle Blau, brought Komunyakaa, Cieri, and Brown together for the first time on St. Patricks Day 2016 to perform in NYC. From the downbeat, a deep relationship and understanding immediately caught fire and they have been playing with matches ever since as they fuse Komunyakaa’s poems with the sounds and music of Cieri and Brown.
THE MAYO CLINIC - UNITY OF FORCES (2018)
Released September 28, 2018 Bill Frisell – guitars Putnam Murdock – guitars Dan Brantigan – flugel horn and trumpet Jay Frederick – drums and percussion David Cieri – piano Rubin Kodheli – cello Yoko Waynen – violin Mike Brown – bass Engineer – Bryan Pugh All music composed by David Cieri except - I’ll Twine Mid the Ringlets - Maud Irving and Joseph Philbrick Webster Wagoner’s Lad – Traditional British Broadside Ballad Shenandoah – Traditional American Folk Song Give to the Wind Thy Fears – Paul Gerhardt Concerto for Two Mandolins – Antonio Vivaldi Hard Times – Stephen Foster Slane – Irish Traditional Folk Song Be Thou My Vision – 8 th century Irish Traditional Folk Song All music produced by Erik Ewers and David Cieri
EPIC BEARD MEN: THIE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN (2019)
EBM are on the road throughout 2019, starting in the US in April on the "Come To The Sand Dunes" TOUR: fanlink.to/EBMTour2019 This Was Supposed to Be Fun, the debut LP (and second official offering) from EPIC BEARD MEN, is an indie-rap tour de force by two of the underground's finest; SAGE FRANCIS and B. DOLAN. This album knocks. It parties with disreputable outlaws in truck stops. It blends the classic sounds of breakbeats and timeless drum machines with soul grooves and sub bass. Guitars, violins, and a goddamn brass band have sat in before the party's over. On the vocal side of things, more than a few lyrical heavyweights drop in to take their turn on the mics. SLUG of ATMOSPHERE joins the gang in some NC-17 fun, as Sage and B. are soulfully backed by BLUE RASPBERRY (Wu-Tang Clan) on the road-noir tale "Pistol Dave". ELIGH of LIVING LEGENDS and South African newcomer YUGEN BLAKROK contribute blistering verses, while New Orleans Bounce legend Vockah Redu... more credits released March 29, 2019