We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.
/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $1 USD  or more

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Original 2005 Pressing. 6-Panel Deluxe Digipak with 20 pp. Booklet.
    Art and Design by Theresa Wong & Cornelius Boots.
    The Philosophical and Musical Depth of Occult Heavy Chamber Music.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Agrippa's 3 Books via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    edition of 1000  198 remaining

      $21 USD or more 

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    8
    releases

    Get all 8 Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Live at Old First Church, October 6, 2006, Unreleased Masterworks, Hymns for Christmas, Imagination Lost, Tooth & Claw, Agrippa's 3 Books, O Mysterium [demo-album], and Gods Help Us All [demo-album]. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      $52.80 USD or more (20% OFF)

     

about

DUALITY
[hip-hop electronica pop with chorale]

Starting off with the basics of Our Reality, it’s difficult to get more basic than Cause & Effect. In essence, it is all we know: the rest---matter, energy, thoughts, time---are all just details within Cause & Effect. Agrippa does in fact place this idea at the very front of his Three Books: “…the Maker of all things, and First Cause, from whence all things are…the elements are upon another account opposite one to the other . . .” (Book I, Chapter I)
All opposites can be traced back to this one because we are very firmly rooted within our context (or pretext) of linear time. Certainly we think of Up & Down as opposites, but we can only think of them separately, in sequence, not simultaneously. “The belief that time is a linear, directed sequence running from A to B is a modern illusion. In fact, it can also go from B to A, the effect producing the cause…” (Eco, p. 207)
The fact is, inasmuch as opposites exist, they certainly must exist together; then Time ceases to be a factor in existence at all. “A typical scientific explanation, in which the cause is mistaken for the effect, or vice versa. You must not think linearly. Nature doesn’t; nature knows nothing of time. Time is an invention of the West.” (Eco, p. 338-9)

Far from dispensing with time, this movement emphasizes it by causing the pulse to be central to the rhythmic counterpoint and cyclic nature of these intertwining lines. Layering, interlocking parts were built around a sketch made from some music overheard from someone’s headphones on the train in Oakland; I thought it was hip-hop since the listener was kind of rapping along, but I could clearly hear the electronic drum beat which had a very mathematical and infectious increase of subdivisions every two measures.
The concept of karma adds new dimensions to our impression of cause & effect, so it occurred to me to borrow something from the Radiohead tune “Karma Police”. In the spirit of contrafacts and motet composition based on pre-existing melodies, I remolded the bass line of “Karma Police” into new meters and made this line into the highest part of an upper register four-voice chorale. These harmonies mostly, but not always, cater to the implied inevitability of tonal harmony.
This movement functions to introduce the elements, roles, sounds and capabilities of the four bass clarinets. All parts concurrently oppose and complement, and the pairing voices in opposite registers figures largely in the final measures.

credits

from Agrippa's 3 Books, released August 6, 2005

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet image

Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet Oakland, California

Edmund Welles has the distinction of being the world’s only original, composing band of four bass clarinetist: they invent and perform heavy chamber music. Drawing virtuosic precision from the classical realm; innovation and texture from jazz; and power, rhythm and overall perspective from rock and metal, the quartet’s sound is characterized by a thickness of tone and absolute rhythmic prowess. ... more

contact / help

Contact Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this track or account

If you like Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Fabiana Palladino stops by to talk about her mesmeric debut LP.
listen now