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Photos
Photo by Britta Johnson
Photo by S. Dewall
Photo by S. Dewall
Photo by S. Dewall
SPECTRATONE INTERNATIONAL
FOR PRESS CONTACT: promo@krecs.com
SHARE THIS PLACE: STORIES AND OBSERVATIONS
In 2006 Portland Institute for Contemporary Art commissioned collaborators Lori Goldston and Kyle Hanson of Spectratone International to create an insect-inspired song cycle with K Records recording artist Mirah. Set to a suite of 12 short animated films by Britta Johnson, the resulting multi-media performance premiered at Seattle International Children’s Festival in May 2007.
Influenced in part by the writings of 19th century French naturalist J. Henri Fabre (called “The Homer of Insects” by Victor Hugo), Share This Place also draws from Karel Capek’s surrealist Insect Play and a host of other sources. Layered with the luxuriant sounds of Spectratone International, Mirah’s beautifully delivered lyrics combine an epic scale and intimate tone, as in this excerpt from “Love Song of the Fly:”
Oh why do you despise me?
Only criticize me?
Your wrath collides with the love that resides in kaleidoscope eyes
Care you not for my speed and bravery
You only think me base and dirty
But I love you still darling, you multiply in my eyes
ABOUT MIRAH:
Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn (her first name pronounced as to rhyme with the former Italian currency) was born on September 17, 1974 at her parents then home on Westview Sreet in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The youngest of three, Mirah grew up mostly in Bala Cynwyd, a suburb of Philadelphia.
In her waning teen years, Mirah moved to Olympia, Washington to attend The Evergreen State College where she began making music, teaching herself to play guitar. She released her first album, Storageland, on yoyo Recordings in 1997. Proudly joining the roster of other fine artists on the K record label in 1999, she began to experiment with recording, producing some material by herself and also working with her close friend and favorite person to record with ever, Phil Elvrum. Several fantastic albums, You Think It's Like This But Really It's Like This (KLP112), Advisory Committee (KLP135), Cold, Cold Water (ipu100) & Songs from the Black Mountain Music Project (KLP150) have since been released by Mirah on K. In March of 2004, her collaboration with the Black Cat Orchestra from Seattle, entitled To All We Stretch The Open Arm, was released on yoyo recordings (www.yoyoagogo.com). Her newest album, C’mon Miracle (KLP 160), was released on K in May of 2004.
ABOUT LORI GOLDSTON:
Lori Goldston composes for and performs with film, theater and dance as a bandleader, producer, and session and side player. As a freelance cellist she has performed and/or recorded with Nirvana, Cat Power, Threnody Ensemble, Ellen Fullman, Laura Veirs, the Presidents of the United States of America and many others. Past composition commissions include music for the HBO documentary Heir to an Execution, a puppet opera commissioned by On the Boards, a collaboration with kotoist and composer Elizabeth Falconer on two scores for the Northwest Film Forum's Yasujiro Ozu retrospective, and a solo cello score for Carl Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc". She composed and performed original scores with early silent films on her own and with the Black Cat Orchestra, which she founded with Kyle Hanson in 1991.
ABOUT KYLE HANSON:
Kyle Hanson has composed music for film, dance, radio and theater in the Northwest since 1987. From 1991 to 2004 he led the Black Cat Orchestra with long-time collaborator Lori Goldston, performing at venues throughout the Northwest and in New York, and appearing on David Byrne's 1997 album, Feelings. A co-founder of the interdisciplinary Run/Remain Ensemble, Kyle has co-created numerous multi-media performance pieces with collaborators across a range of disciplines, including PEN/West award-winning writer Stacey Levine, visual artist Friese Undine, and dance theater company 33 Fainting Spells. Kyle was 1999 recipient of an Artist Trust Fellowship in Music Composition.
ABOUT BRITTA JOHNSON:
Britta Johnson is a Seattle based filmmaker. She has collaborated with a number of musicians in different capacities, including making projections for Robin Holcomb’s staged song cycles, O Say a Sunset, which premiered at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and The Utopias Project, performed at MassMoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts. She has also made music videos for Laura Veirs and Minus the Bear, among others. Her recent short, "But Soft," commissioned by the Northwest Film Forum as part of its Signature Shorts series, has been playing in film festivals in Seattle and across the nation.
K Discography
 klp201 2008-12-08  klp181 2007-08-07 |