A sampling of musical projects I have been involved with: Bell Orchestre, soundtracks, contemporary dance performances, etc.

This is a string quartet piece I wrote for an experimental film I directed. It was made in collaboration with my fearsomely talented friends, The Callino Quartet, at the Banff Centre for the Arts.

 

For this film I directed, set in a dystopian future, I imagined the kind of music that a girl might listen to escape on her headphones, but with a modern griminess seeping in. I play piano and trumpet on it.

A song from the Bell Orchestre album As Seen Through Windows. I play trumpet and Echoplex on this track.

 

A piece I composed and recorded with Andres Vial for a contemporary dance performance by Meena Murugesan. It combines electronics, prepared harpsichord, bits of Skype conversations with Meena, and traditional Indian instruments.

 

I wanted to make a neck-snapping West Coast groove for LA party-photographer/T-shirt-collector Cobrasnake. From my TV documentary 100% T-Shirt. With Andres Vial.

 

I needed a dark, clubby, but still hopeful feeling for the climax of my film Dive. I worked with electronic music wunderkind Greg Dibecki to find the sound: warped R&B vocals, minimal beats, and random shots of noise.

 

I worked as producer/engineer/horn player/keyboards/arranger on this beautiful-angry-dancehall-jazz collaboration with Jamaican-Canadian artist Naila Keleta-Mae and some great musicians from the Kalmunity collective.

 

Another collaboration with Naila. This time a song in Jamaican patois about a young woman trying to give herself an abortion. It’s got a really cool and unusual dancehall groove played on brushes beat courtesy of Jah Sun Promesse and Neil “Bassone” Benskin. I play keys and horns on it.

 

The cue for a montage of 1970s skateboarders doing their thing (Tony Alva, Jay Adams, etc) on some huge pipes in the California desert. With Andres Vial.

 

 

Wanted to get an old school NY feel for this one so broke out some old DJ Premier for inspiration. He still sounds so good. I programmed the beat, played keys, and did the scratches.

 

I wrote this moment of reflection for the end of the film, when the protagonist is hit with some bad news.

 

A dense beat for a cue in a manufacturing plant.

I reimagined our song Quintet on a melodica, trying to use breath to create a feeling of granular synthesis. With Richard Reed Parry.

 

 

 

A summery Wurlitzer and fluegelhorn cue for a sequence on Coney Island.

 

 

I was in love with a Juno-106.

 

 

A dubby, pensive cue for an eccentric photographer about to get evicted from his building to make way for tech companies.