"BIRDS OF THE FUTURE": "MA" SOUL, AIR RAID SIREN + REWIND

Another excerpt from Skewed Visions’ 2019 live performance installation “Birds of the Future”, featuring original music and sound design by yours truly. I posted the first one here a while back. “Inspired by research into the nature of time and the combination of dystopian narratives in popular culture with resurgent political and social activism, ‘Birds of the Future’ explored what it is to recognize one’s place in a seemingly unending cycle of utopian impulses and dystopian realities,” Skewed Visions’ web site offers as a description of the show. “Rather than revel in a bleak aesthetic of apocalypse, ‘Birds of the Future’ wrestled with the possibilities revealed by chaos— among them, a new understanding of time in which each moment is open to the possibilities of a new way of being.”

Here we take a look at the musical accompaniment I came up with for a section that starts with performers Erika Hansen and Megan Mayer semi-improvisationally pronouncing the word “Ma” first conversationally, but gradually building a yelled crescendo, eventually singing the word repeatedly as lyrics to a 60s soul-style instrumental to reflect a temp track used by artistic director Charles Campbell. To me the somewhat forlorn repetition of “Ma” suggested a state of vulerability, a helplessness that no one ever arrives to rescue, and that the darker impulses portayed elsewhere in the show are grievance-borne as a result of the repetition we witness here.

I aimed to approximate classic Motown soul with the musical score, assembling an ensemble replete with a horn section entirely with virtual instruments. Eventually the frenzied ritual is cut short by an air raid siren, and the bird people scurry to safety in the provisional shelter nestled within Jess Kiel-Wornson’s wonderfully cluttered set, curling up like bugs to withstand whatever rains down on them. I even executed what I hoped to be a Eugene Chadbourne-esque freakout coda for the music once it’s interrupted by the siren. Never knew I could freak out with virtual instruments like that, but apparently I can. And as the video clip fades out, a rewind sound cue signals that our performers’ cyclical travails are about to restart.

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2019: YEAR IN REVIEW

As the year draws to a close, I’m grateful to all the collaborators I’ve had the good fortune of working with this year. So many great experiences have come our way. Here are but a few of them!

CORPORATE VIDEO

I had the opportunity to edit voiceover by LeVar Burton on some videos for the Be The Match charity’s annual gala, scrub dialog of an interview with the Senior Director of Education for the World Bank on some educational materials about qualitative research for the University of Minnesota, plus edit and mix audio on promotional pieces for Made to Impact, the Minnesota Timberwolves, Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, The DC Group, and plenty more.

CUSTOM MUSIC

Many placements of my music on TV this year, both solo compositions and co-writes with my friend Dan Luedke— mostly on European shows like “When TV Stars Go Horribly Wrong” (UK), “Build Your Dream: A New Life in a French Castle” in the Netherlands and a German cooking show called “Die Küchenschlacht” (The Kitchen Battle), but also in the U.S. on Amy Poehler’s NBC show “Making It”.

I also wrote an original score for J.D. O’Brien’s short documentary “Uganda Gold”, created some music for Skewed Visions’ experimental performance installation “Birds of the Future” (more on that later), and scored Felipe Mafasoli’s post-apocalypic film “Nowhere Left To Run” as well as a medical video about T cells.

FILM / ANIMATION

The 2019 Minneapolis- St Paul International Film Festival featured two shorts I had the pleasure of working on: the horror film “Dual” by Justin Staggs (sound edit, Foley and mix) and the experimental animation “Beebox” by Cable Hardin (FX edit, custom music, and mix). “Dual” also premiered online in 2019, as did Andrew Hunt’s comedy horror short “Clean Cut”, which features my original music, sound edit, and mix.

This year’s Twin Cities Film Festival also offered a fair amount of my work. Wayne Johnson’s feature film “Into the Void”, featuring an original score by yours tuly, premiered there. I also engineered and edited ADR, created Foley and cut some FX for Barry Andersson’s “Soviet Sleep Experiment”, a feature that included Chris Kattan among its cast and premiered at TCFF as well.

PERFORMING ARTS

I don’t do much work for the theater these days, but when Charles Cambpell called, I was coaxed from retirement like a gunfighter summoned to take out one last man. Charles and I had been a mutual admiration society for some years, and it was finally the right time for me to collaborate with his company Skewed Visions on “Birds of the Future”— your garden variety post-apocalyptic performance installation about two bird people looking for a better life.

There was a whole lot of great talent assembled for this show— we were truly birds of a feather. Now that I’ve gotten my hands on the video footage, I’m looking forward to putting together some clips to share. Sleep in fear!

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM JUNIOR BIRDMAN AUDIO!

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BIRDS OF THE FUTURE

I hardly do any work for the stage these days, but this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. Charles Cambpell and I have been something of a mutual appreciation society for the past few years, and it’s been a lot of fun to finally get the chance to work with his company Skewed Visions to create this performance piece. It’s very difficult to describe, and we’re still not sure exactly what we will have put together by the time it opens this coming Thursday, but suffice to say it’s unlike anything I’ve ever worked on before, and I’m grateful for the chance to explore such a wild and weird soundscape on the way there.

More info on “Birds of the Future”