Audio Reel 2011
(Timur and the Dime Museum)
Lite of the world
This light-hearted Hawaii-inspired arrangement is peppered with the dark ambiguity. Featuring both the ukulele and a pedal steel guitar, the song also uses in tuba, bassoon, guitar and clarinet to underpin the various aspects of the human soul. In a way, each instrument creates a complex gamma of intricate sounds that in turn allows for the ambivalence of the emotion to be exchanged between the male, male falsetto and female voices.
Life on Mars
This song is probably the most operatically sung on the album, for it requires several B flats in a row, produced in a classical approach. The often calm, unusual and elusive instrumentation, featuring an accordion, gives this song a completely fresh and very intimate meaning, as if performed on the barricades and in the concert hall simultaneously.
Until the break of dawn (LIVE)
(Timur and the Dime Museum)
February 01, 2012
- MP3 download whole song, hi-fi
- MP3 play whole song, hi-fi (broadband)
- MP3 play whole song, lo-fi (modem)
Live performance at the Echo
Total Eclipse
Although originally written for the phantasmagoric Klaus Nomi and his rock-opera band, put together by Kristian Hoffman, our acoustic arrangement, with a sly wink on a toy piano, became a new way of finding tight textures. We wanted to keep the same fun drive and enthusiastic approach to the melodic vitality and rhythm of the original song, while creating an even larger panorama of an apocalyptic vision of destruction and heightening the vocal leaps from the tenor voice into falsetto with more color and brisk energy.
Solder (LIVE)
(Timur and the Dime Museum)
January 01, 2012
Live recording from Portland Arts Center
Anarchy of Love
This song explores the duality of evil and certain animosity, present in dogmatic philosophies of religion. The arrangement was directly inspired by Stravinsky’s two masterpieces, In Memoriam of Dylan Thomas, and Elegy for J.F.K. Complicated counterpoint, rhythmic inner-play and harmonic content, created by violin, cello and clarinet is combined with the extended technique and feed-back of the electric guitar. Combined with the solo voice, this song morphs itself into a chamber opera, with the devil at the center stage playing the man of the hour.
Autumn
This strikingly sophisticated song (with new English words by Timur Bekbosunov), written in the best traditions of Russian and Argentinean tango styles, receives an orchestral treatment in terms of instrumentation and the use of dynamics, arranged by Leanna Primiani. The long lines are often interrupted by pizzicati, and the solos are played with a feel of a Viennese style of romantic operetta.
Closer
Trent Reznor and his industrial rock musical project, the Nine Inch Nails, in this highly controversial song of the 90s, received a completely different treatment from the original song. Using no electronic sampling in its tracking, the arrangement was conceived specifically for classical instruments, even quoting the gestures of Lutoslawski’s Second Symphony in the middle section. We attempted to give the song a dementedly wry underlining, which is at once fragile and demonic, eventually reaching the dramatic point, where the laugh and cry become one operatic scream.
I put a spell on you
Taking the original theatrical element, so vital and present in the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins original, we decided to reach out to the outer world and channel the ghosts of broken relationships. Attempting to capture the essence of love, the spirit of the beloved, brilliantly portrayed on a bass clarinet, eventually morphs into a duet-like dialogue between the voice and the spirit, echoing each other fears and frustrated passions, ultimately becoming a little grand opera in itself.
That's Something New
Originally composed for guitar and voice, this song was arranged with a classical Bossa-Nova style in mind, while adding some extended glissandi on violin and cello, and an electric organ in the best traditions of Paul Barranca. We recorded the song thinking that we were performing in a small but busy café somewhere in Argentina, where the singer is standing in the corner on a tiny stage, singing a heart-breaking song, while the people in the café are bustling around with life.
Quiet Day
Vadim Kozin was a Russian-Jewish singer and composer of many well-known songs in USSR. Like many brilliant artists of his time, during the Stalin era of repressions, he was sentenced to years of heavy labor and was never officially rehabilitated by the Soviet government. We decided to create a tango like arrangement of the song, allowing the sadness that is hidden behind the music and words, to come out with a more classical sophistication, as if the music wants to last forever.
Life in a Glasshouse
This song by the renowned band Radiohead, whose compositions fascinated classical, contemporary and popular music listeners worldwide, has received a particularly experimental introduction and arrangement in the likes of Berio and Nono. While still retaining the original syncopated rhythm, our take on it became more dramatic and resolute with despair, reaching into a very operatic climax.
What I Meant to Say
Our experimental arrangement is influenced by the works of Xenaxis. It features harp and electric guitar, and uses the heavy processing to the extreme effect, often destroying the vocal line and deforming the whole structure of the song. Generations lost in war, nuclear bombs tested on populations, lovers leaving and never returning, the world ruined by the cruelty of the leading and corrupt hierarchy, all of that is eventually erased by the music, which remains there to comfort the forlorn soul.
Friendship
Another gem by Vadim Kozin, with new English lyrics by Timur Bekbosunov, takes on a rather intoxicated approach to interpretation. Starting from a dazzling violin line, the song stumbles around metrically, to evoke a quality of being slightly “buzzed”, which is especially evident in trombone that slides between the tones to ease its urge for a good stiff drink.
Credits
Timur and the Dime Museum: Timur Bekbosunov, vocals, Daniel Corral, accordion, toy piano, ukulele, percussion, Brian Walsh, bass clarinet, B flat clarinet, Cassia Streb, viola, David Tranchina, double bass, Matthew Setzer, acoustic and electric guitars, Chris Votek, cello. Additional musicians: Rory Cowal, organ (That's Something New), Luke Fitzpatrick, violin (Closer), Andrew Tholl, violin (Autumn, Friendship, Quiet Day), Josh and Justin Petrojvic, accordion and trombone, (Autumn, Friendship, Quiet Day), Kristian Hoffman, piano (Total Eclipse), Chase Morgan, tuba, Paul Lacques, steel guitar, Alex Noice, guitar, Maciej Fills, bassoon, Marie Wise-Hawkins, vocals, (Lite of the World), Susie Allen, harp (What I Meant to Say).
All songs arranged by Daniel Corral, except Autumn, Friendship and Quiet Day (Leanna Primiani) and Anarchy of Love and What I Meant to Say (Timur and TDM). All songs engineered, mixed and mastered by Mark Wheaton at Catasonic Studios, Los Angeles, except Autumn, Friendship, Quiet Day and What I Meant to Say (Owen Vallis at CalArts Studios), and What I Meant to Say (Matthew Setzer - mixing and sound design). Album cover, photography and art direction: Sandra Powers. Produced by Timur Bekbosunov and Daniel Corral. The album was funded through the Art of Opera Foundation. (c) copyright Timur Bekbosunov 2010
