Precipitations features two composer/performers, Steven Ricks and Ron Coulter, who have cultivated sophisticated hybrid instruments that merge their respective instrumental practices (trombone and percussion) with various electronic instruments and manipulations. The spontaneous and unpredictable results are a function of but not limited by their chosen constraints, decidedly shaped by both of their omnivorous appetites for many styles of through composed and improvised music.
# | Audio | Title/Composer(s) | Time |
---|---|---|---|
Total Time | 67:21 | ||
01 | Tap, Rattle, and Blow | Tap, Rattle, and Blow | 7:45 |
02 | Late Night Call | Late Night Call | 10:44 |
03 | Mechanic's Choice | Mechanic's Choice | 6:03 |
04 | Charming Ways | Charming Ways | 8:38 |
05 | Button Drop | Button Drop | 7:29 |
06 | I-S3eM | I-S3eM | 16:53 |
07 | Slurry | Slurry | 9:49 |
Steve Ricks and Ron Coulter are longtime collaborators, having performed experimental improvised music together in RICKSPLUND + Coulter and CRAG. Precipitations is their first recorded project as a duo, zeroing in on each of their hybrid setups, enhancing Ricks’ trombone and Coulter’s percussion with various batteries of electronics, effects pedals, and microphones. The result is a constantly percolating dialogue between two composer/performers who know each other’s language instinctively. Coulter Ricks marries noise oriented examinations with characterful instrumental playing, an engaging counterpoint between a style of phrasing that is influenced by the Chicago free jazz scene with a more technology driven exploration of granular timbres.
Tap, Rattle, and Blow is an apt opener, with both the title and the musical materials serving as a presentation of the kinds of standard material we will hear coming from Ricks’ and Coulter’s instruments. Coulter interrupts burbling material on the toms with disjunct punctuations on cymbals, gradually building up concurrent layers of activity. Ricks introduces himself with truncated phrases run through a harmonizer before he lays out for a Coulter solo. A flute sample emerges midway through the track, opening up a more expansive dimension to the sonic space. Ricks lays into some bluesy material on the horn, before he adds processing that transposes the instrument down in register and adds a washy reverb, revealing haunting, underworld sonorities.
Late Night Call revels in the subtle timbral distinctions in non-pitched electronic sounds; early dial-up modems, bad telephone connections, and poor TV or radio reception come to mind as we listen to this ecology of resistors, currents, and connections. Mechanics’ Choice establishes a four note ostinato as a pad over which Coulter improvises on found objects and gongs. A reverse processing effect turns the texture inside out, distorting it as the sound envelopes fold back upon themselves.
Charming Ways uses a varied vocabulary of samples including recordings of spoken texts (from radio or television) as a backdrop for soloistic material on trombone. Coulter focuses on friction based material in accompaniment, dragging, scraping, and rubbing on surfaces to create sounds that are taut. The final section of the track switches to discrete, isolated percussive attacks, pops and clicks that call as much attention to the air around them as to themselves.
Button Drop is percussion focused, featuring non-pitched sounds played by Coulter and electronic sounds that inhabit the same soundworld. A rich and asymmetrical counterpoint develops that exists somewhere between polyrhythm and energetic symbiosis. I-S3eM is the longest track on the recording, and as such takes a longer view on charting out its structural arc. Many of the musical ideas are present throughout, fading and remerging in different guises. Disembodied sounds characterize the extended opening, as Ricks’ trombone peaks out from the depths with a gurgling passage. Coulter’s choice of timbre helps to frame the sectional divisions, as he moves to more prominent snare and tom material midway through the track and the eerie high register flute sample fractures into prismatic shards. We hear a return of Ricks’ low register, poignant trombone work to close the track, a fitting end to a piece that retains a cyclic orientation over its seventeen minute length.
The opening of Slurry gradually crossfades from a texture foregrounding bird chirps to bell and chime sounds. As the texture becomes more dense, we hear momentary harmonized trombone evoking organum. Sped up recordings of spoken voices appear in the mix — as the texts are further obscured the amalgam fuses into a swirling gesture. Slurry closes with a serene passage on glockenspiel, a strikingly simple ending to an album that covered such complex timbral territory.
On Precipitations, Coulter Ricks occupy an effective middle ground between timbral sonic examinations and performance driven, motivically focused improvisation. The album finds time to inhabit specialized sonic spaces, only to zoom out and travel to unexpected places. Not surprisingly, it’s improvised music by two adventurous composers, not content to be restricted within any codified vocabulary, but instead pushing against boundaries to find new territory, always framed by their collective intuition about what makes a satisfying whole.
- Dan Lippel
Recorded March 13 & 15, 2021 in Casper, WY
Recording and mixing: Ron Coulter
Mastering: Troy Sales, February 2023
Design by M. Lewis Barker
Steven Ricks (b. 1969) is described in BBC Music Magazine as a composer “unafraid to tackle big themes.” He creates work that is bold, innovative, ambitious, and diverse, and that often includes strong narrative and theatrical influences. His music is performed and recorded by several leading art- ists and ensembles, including counter)induction (NY), New York New Music Ensemble, Canyonlands New Music Ensemble (SLC), Talujon Percussion (NY), Hexnut (Amsterdam, NE), Links Ensemble (Paris, FR), Manhattan String Quartet, Earplay (SF), NOVA Chamber Music Series (SLC), Empyrean Ensem- ble (SF), NY Metropolitan Opera soprano Jennifer Welch-Babidge, pianist Keith Kirchoff, guitarist Dan Lippel, flutist Carlton Vickers, and violinist Curtis Macomber.
Ricks has received commissions and awards from the Fromm Music Foundation, the Barlow Endowment, SCI, and Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, among others, and his music has been featured at multiple national and international conferences, festivals, and symposia, including ICMC, SEAMUS, NYCEMF, ISIM, KISS (Kyma International Sound Symposium), Third Practice, Festival of New American Music, and TRANSIT (Leuven, BE). Recordings of his music appear on multiple labels, including New Focus Recordings, Bridge Records, Albany Records, pfMENTUM, Vox Novus, and Comprovise Records. Ricks received degrees in music composition from Brigham Young University (BM), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (MM), the University of Utah (PhD), and a Certificate in Advanced Musical Studies (CAMS) from King's College London. He is a professor in the BYU School of Music where he teaches music theory and composition and is the Music Composition and Theory Division Coordinator (2016 to the present). He is former Editor of the Newsletter for the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (2012–19), and was director of the BYU Electronic Music Studio for 20 years (2001–2021).
http://www.stevericks.comRon Coulter is a percussionist, composer, and improviser. He has toured internationally appearing in all 50 U.S. states, Europe, Canada, and Japan with artists such as the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Vinny Golia, David Murray, Sam Newsome, Matthew Shipp Tony Malaby, Linux Laptop Orchestra, Hugh Ragin, Sandy Duncan, Bolokada Condé, Music from China, Wyoming Symphony, Michael Zerang, Eric Mandat, Gino Robair, Chris Corsano, and Tone Road Ramblers, among others. Ron has presented at conferences, including: ISIM, PASIC, NIME, LiWoLi, BMC3, JEN, CMS, a.pe.ri.od.ic, Futurisms, Soundlines, RadiaLx, VU Symposia 1-3, and the JVC and Montreal Jazz Festivals. He is co-founder of the Percussion Art Ensemble, duende entendre, Drm&Gtr, SeFa LoCo, and founder of the SiiS, WyExSs, and Creative Music Series. Additional interests include noise, intermedia, interdisciplinary collaboration, and organizing Fluxconcerts. Ron has composed 420+ compositions for various media.