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Shadow Economy

by Blake Leyh

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    The original CD release from 2001. Shrink-wrapped jewel case with 6-page booklet.

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    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Liquid Modernity c/w Nobody’s Diary, ENDLESS, X-Ray Yankee Zulu Tango, Shadow Economy, Four Film Scores, and The Visible Range. , and , .

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1.
2.
3.
Still 12:14
4.
5.
6.
7.
Upriser 09:06
8.
Adagietto 05:52

about

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.

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about

Blake Leyh New York, New York

Composer, Music Supervisor (The Wire, Treme, Plot Against America), Sound Design, Music Producer, Bass/Guitar/Cello. Co-founder of N to The Power.

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