Originally released in 2000, Shadow Economy was Blake Leyh's first solo release since 1993. The instrumental music is heavily string-based, and features violinist Andre Burke on six of the seven tracks. Acoustic instruments are mixed with electronics, improvisation is interweaved with complex composition, and traditional music from the past is re-interpreted in the context of an ultra-modern soundscape.
Opening with a New-New Orleans funeral march and ending with a deconstructed Mahler adagietto, the journey in between covers hypnotic violin minimalism, lush washes of extended-technique strings, a duet for fog horn and double bass, and dense landscapes of looped electric guitar, violin, cello, and fretless bass.
Leyh spent much of the 1990's composing film scores, and that sensibility can be found here: the instrumentalism, the strong, dark moods, and the detailed layering of strings invoke cinematic imagery. It often sounds like music which could accompany something, and in that sense it works as an "ambient" piece. But the music is also more organic, more emotional, more dissonant, and more rigorously constructed than most music usually classified as "ambient," and so often has more in common with the contemporary new-music movement.
While employing many modern techniques of electronics and studio manipulation, much of the music was actually improvised by live musicians, which suggests a commonality with jazz traditions rather than the modern electronic movement. In the improvised tracks like "Total Harmonic Distortion," Leyh gave short melodic fragments on staff paper to violinist Andre Burke, and the two of them then improvised together over many long takes, using an audio delay scheme similar to that used by Robert Fripp in his Frippertronics work.
credits
released April 4, 2000
Musicians:
André Burke - Violin on 1,2,3,4,6,7
Eugene Gearty - Guitar on 1
Skip Lievsay - Sounds on 4
Blake Leyh - Bass, Guitar, Percussion, Keyboards, Electronics
Chris Muir - Guitar on 2,5,6
Brian Salter - Reeds on 1,7
Madigan Shive - Cello on 8
Paul Urmson - Stick on 5
All music produced by Blake Leyh. All music composed by Blake Leyh & published by Ground Loop Music (BMI) except The Old Rugged Cross (traditional).
Recorded in San Francisco & New York 8/87 - 2/00 except "Still" recorded in Los Angeles 5/94.
Thanks to: Andre Burke, Skip Lievsay, Chris Muir,Brian Salter, Madigan Shive, Dale Strumpell, Matt Carlson, Arnold Finkelstein, Gennie Leyh, Leslie Asako Gladsjo, Joanne Piretti, Kirby Dick, Rita Valencia, Amanda Kramer, & Laurence Campling.
As you might guess from the title, this is strange and eerie synth music meant to conjure a mystical film where all is not what it seems. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 14, 2023
Your outie will thrill to the spine-tingling soundtrack from the breakout TV show. Please try to enjoy each track equally. Bandcamp New & Notable May 2, 2022
Future Romans call themselves “experimental slow-wave pop,” and the name is fitting; their songs are delicate and drifting and beautiful. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 19, 2021
The second LP from Kuedo feels like the soundtrack for future-noir, with rippling, uneasy synths and steadily-increasing tension. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 1, 2016
Wonderfully spectral guitar songs from Rob Byrd have the subtlety and beauty of the quiet parts of post-rock songs, all tension and mood. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 3, 2022