Leaving the Party on Pluto - Paul Burnell
Excerpts (mp3 files)
Audio CD: 31 tracks - 74 Minutes. £4.99 (UK) $10.00 (US) plus post and packing
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Paul Burnell says: "I wanted to put together an album that mixed different types of music and with lots of different durations. I hope this results in a surprising variety - like a revue or a cabaret. I hope there's stuff here people can dance to, be relaxed by, laugh at. It was important for me was to introduce some humour along the way - some types of music are often way too serious - I wanted to make space for some fun and nonsense."
Track listing and durations:
1 Leaving the Party on Pluto 4.42 -- 2 Nanomachines at war in the brain 0.53 -- 3 Frayed End 4.45 -- 4 Angle Poise 0.59 -- 5 Tuber 3.14 -- 6 Just Before Dawn 1.34 -- 7 Consumers Unite 3.17 -- 8 A Short Prophecy 0.29 -- 9 Out of the Woods 2.17 -- 10 Deadpan 0.42 -- 11 Ripper Ripper Let RIP RIP 3.08 -- 12 Convulsive (excerpt) 0.33 -- 13 Forty 5.40 -- 14 A New Planetary Anthem 0.30 -- 15 Sugar Ray Gun 2.15 -- 16 Tooth Decay 0.35 -- 17 All the same 1.37 -- 18 Ophelia's last song 3.20 -- 19 Domino Effect Experiment 0.29 -- 20 Hugh's in Trouble 3.33 -- 21 Service 0.29 -- 22 Musical Squares 2.38 -- 23 Andromeda 0.32 -- 24 Is that you? (or is it just me?) 4.49 -- 25 Three Chairs 0.33 -- 26 A Long Prophecy 3.16 -- 27 Trying to remember 2.38 -- 28 Running Round the School 1.12 -- 29 Coming Unstuck 0.29 -- 30 Tricorder 6.47 -- 31 On the ice 3.59
CD Booklet notes:
1 Leaving the Party on Pluto 2 Nanomachines at war in the brain 3 Frayed End - for piano 4 Angle Poise 5 Roly 6 Just Before Dawn - for piano(s),keyboards, etc 7 Consumers Unite "Consumers, unite, you have nothing to lose but your brand. There is a world to gain." 8 A Short Prophecy 9 Out of the Woods - for organ 10 Nature Three 11 Ripper Ripper Let RIP RIP "Hydrogen methylated oxygen hydrogen sulphurated methane carbon ...treatment of...should be mainly...preventative...relieve an attack... Coal gas light, what a beautiful flame" 12 School Plane 13 Forty - for guitars and optional ensemble 14 Nature Five 15 Sugar Ray Gun 16 Tube 17 All the same - for mixed ensemble "Here There All the same, Them Us..., In Out..., Win Lose..., Long Short..., Love Hate..., Young Old..., Big Small..., Near Far..., You Me ALL THE SAME!" 18 Ophelia's last song - for solo unaccompanied female voice "Fantastic garlands She fell. His heels A Stone. Clothes spread. He is dead and gone. His sandal shoon. La... A tear, tears rained. There's a daisy. Eye, raised, a, tear... Good night, good night sweet ladies, good night, good night. He is dead and gone, lady, He is dead and gone: At his head a grass green turf, At his head a grass-green turf, At his heels a stone. Melodius mermaid - poor mermaid..." (from 'Hamlet' by William Shakespeare) 19 Nature Seven 20 Camp Fire Scene "If Hugh offers one wrong wort to the wrong woman. Can't Hugh do something I ask without giving me an argument? What do you think Hugh? Do you think it's got a brain? Hugh don't know? I told Hugh to put that gun away. I'll gun Hugh out of town." 21 Service 22 'Musical Squares' (Tarry, Is This?, Going like the..., Nth Heaven, All four one) "what have you do not want want not do you have what is this ?" 23 Andromeda 24 Is that you? (or is it just me?) - for two instruments, one of which may be recorded 25 Nature Thirteen 26 A Long Prophecy "More than once it has happened to me, on a summer night. I have been at an open window, in a room from which I could overlook the sea at a mile below me, and could command a view of the great town of Liverpool. I have sat, from sun-set to sun-rise, motionless, and without wishing to move. The ocean, in everlasting but gentle agitation, and brooded over by a dove-like calm, might not unfitly typify the mind and the mood which then swayed it. For it seemed to me as if then first I stood at a distance and aloof from the uproar of life: as if the tumult, the fever, and the strife, were suspended. A respite granted from the secret burthens of the heart; a sabbath of repose; a resting from human labours. Here, were the hopes which blossom in the paths of life, reconciled with the peace which is in the grave. Motions of the intellect as unwearied as the heavens, yet for all anxieties a halcyon calm: a tranquillity that seemed no product of inertia, but as if resulting from mighty and equal antagonisms. Infinite activities, infinite repose." (from 'Confessions of an English Opium Eater' by Thomas De Quincey) 27 Trying to remember - for piano 28 Running Round the School (from 'Vitus') - for recorder with piano, tape and speaker (in varying permutations) "I run round the school, whizzing round the corners of the buildings, down the corridors, around the school field. The bell goes for the next lesson, I walk back. I got a satchel, I got school uniform." 29 Nature Fourteen 30 Tricorder (Three oboes dancing) - for mixed ensemble or three oboes with optional percussion and drone instruments 31 On the ice - for oboe with piano and organ/synthesiser etc or voices. 'Frankenstein', by Mary Shelley, begins with a series of letters from a Mister R Walton to his sister in London, written whilst on board a ship travelling north from Archangel in Russia. The fourth letter begins: "So strange an accident has happened to us, that I cannot forbear recording it...Last Monday, we were nearly surrounded by ice, which closed in the ship on all sides, scarcely leaving her the sea-room in which she floated. Our situation was somewhat dangerous, especially as we were compassed round by a very thick fog. We accordingly lay to, hoping that some change would take place in the atmosphere and weather. About two o'clock the mist cleared, and we beheld, stretched out in every direction, vast and irregular plains of ice, which seemed to have no end." (From 'Frankenstein' by Mary Shelley). All tracks written and performed by Paul Burnell, except Karen Hunt on tracks 18 (voice), 26 (tenor horn, trombone, violin). Everything recorded in Heston, Middx, UK 2000-2001 - but no thanks to Heathrow. Much of my music over the last few years has been influenced by the many friends and acquaintances found through my membership of COMA - thank you to everyone. Also thanks to all my friends and family who have had to endure much listening over the years. Photographs - Karen Hunt. Much love to Karen. © 2001 Paul Burnell