"'Explorations' is a series of hypnotic, quiet videos and field recordings of musical work in progress, shot in natural environments," Multi-instrumentalist Richard Reed Parry says of the inspiration behind his new video series. Filmed in Malibu, watch the first installment "Explorations 1."
"It's a meditative, ongoing process of improvising, capturing and developing new musical ideas while they're still in an early phase of development - a song before it's a finished song, melodies that are still finding themselves, lyrics that haven't decided what words they really want to be yet," he continues. "I treat the natural world as my working studio, wander out into a remote location to see what ideas appear and where they go. I try to allow myself to just flow with a musical idea and let it hypnotize me; let it continue as long as it wants to. Some of these fragments will become finished songs, some of them won't ever be more than a fleeting musical thought. And either way, there will be a beautiful, raw document of new creations in the making, filmed in wild, immersive natural environments, my favorite places to go exploring."
Earlier this year Parry released Quiet River of Dust Vol. 2: That Side of the River, the companion piece to Vol. 1 what was released in the fall of 2018. Both volumes bleed into one another, by design. "It feels like a multi-sided window to me," says Parry, "a different view into this prismatic song world." Both albums are comprised of layered songs that move in a linear fashion, following a current rather than circular composition. Japanese folk myths, death poems and British folk music are the inspirational tributaries flowing into a river of late-20th century avant-garde composition and traditional song craft on these records.
Next week, Parry will be bringing his immersive music to Japan with a performance in Tokyo. All upcoming dates are listed below.
