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dreams of dharma

by Randall Harlow

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dreams of dharma 56:38
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about

'dreams of dharma' is the first of a forthcoming triptych of albums inspired by the American beat writers of the 1950s, inspired not only by the literature they produced, but by their lived pursuit of spiritual enlightenment, joie de vivre and the beatification of that which makes us most human.

Each album in the triptych presents a radically-unconventional approach to playing the organ. Taking inspiration from Jack Kerouac’s 1958 novel, The Dharma Bums, 'dreams of dharma' is an hour-long deep-listening extemporization on the Baroque Organ at Cornell University, recorded in a single take on July 6th, 2018. This fully-mechanical organ, built strictly using material techniques of the 17th-century and meticulously voiced by Munetaka Yokota, possess an unsurpassed spectrum of sound possibilities, every key and stop presenting an artist with a rich palette of sound, from whispy wind, gossamer overtones, microtonal pitch bends and interference beats, to glorious full pipe tone.

Rather than play the instrument in the usual manner, pulling out stops fully and playing keyboards with the hands and feet, I places wedges in the keys in order to free my hands to manipulate the stop knobs, limiting the wind supply to pipes in order to explore the liminal space between noise and pitch, wind and tone. Additionally, I place microphones throughout the organ case to sample and loop on the fly, creating complex spectral landscapes and clouds of sound.

“I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling.” Kerouac, from The Dharma Bums

credits

released June 2, 2023

With sincere thanks to Kevin Ernste for making the original four-channel recording and providing artistic feedback during the recording session. Thank you also to Annette Richards for generously offering ample time on the magnificent Cornell Baroque Organ and to the staff of Anabel Taylor Chapel for kindly facilitating access.

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Randall Harlow

Randall Harlow
has long defied conventional expectations as a both a performing artist and scholar. Seeking to transcend his conventional training as a concert organist, his albums and concerts increasingly seek to upend prevailing conceptions of pipe organ performativity. ... more

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