“Finely wrought… a series of art songs that can just as readily evoke Robert Schumann as Paul Simon.” — New York Times
“There is no one quite like Kahane… ‘The Fiction Issue’ is not a record to miss.” — I Care If You Listen
“Kahane lyrically sweeps up what’s left after loss: razor sharp observation of the mundane; the crucial morning ritual of a donut and coffee; post-9/11 unease in New York City and beyond.” — Q2 Music
Via Second Inversion, here’s a live performance at KING-FM in Seattle of “Bradbury (304 Broadway)” from The Ambassador with string quartet Brooklyn Rider. Many bowls of pho were harmed in the making of this video.
(Source: youtube.com)
Roscoe is mad psyched because you can get five of my albums, including the critically-acclaimed new release “The Fiction Issue”, for a total of $18.60 via bandcamp.
“The Fiction Issue” tour with Brooklyn Rider continues tonight! Album out this Friday! Exclusive stream of the record is here.
Feb 02 Newmark Theatre w/ Brooklyn Rider Portland, OR Tickets RSVP“Kahane is more similar to one of those 360-degree cameras on the tops of Google Street View cars, leaving room for the beautiful glitches that often describe the nascent high-tech world better than the tech itself. On his new chamber music release, “The Fiction Issue,” Kahane hasn’t stopped being a mapper, but this time he focuses on building a sense of place with the scraps of modern life—the leftovers—rather than the locations from which they came.”
Stream The Fiction Issue in its entirety at Q2.
Happy New Year, folks! My first album of chamber music, The Fiction Issue, featuring Brooklyn Rider & My Brightest Diamond, comes out in less than five weeks. Pre-order your copy today and I will sign it for you, plus you’ll get two tracks right now!
Coming on 2/5. Preview and pre-order here.
In the late afternoon yesterday I embarked on a semi-day trip, leaving the wide sun-dappled streets of Ditmas Park for the confines of the Hampton Jitney, a bus that would ferry us from 40th Street on the East Side to a nondescript suburban parking lot in Southampton, where my friend Eric picked me up and drove us over to the Parrish Art Museum, at which Brooklyn Rider was to give the premiere of my new string quartet, “Bradbury Studies”.
This piece is derived from the song “Bradbury (304 Broadway)”, which appears on my new album The Ambassador.
My intention was to continue in the tradition of those composers who have created conversations between their own vocal and instrumental works. I’m thinking here of, say, Mahler’s 1st Symphony as it relates to the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, or how Schubert’s Piano Sonatas often have some motivic or spiritual kinship with various lieder.
“Bradbury Studies” opens with little shards of cellular material being thrown manically against the wall, gradually gaining some semblance of recognizable shape as the source material. The tune, as well as the primary accompanying motif, are passed around the quartet in various guises, both harmonically and rhythmically, until finally, in the last few minutes of the quartet, there is an unambiguous statement of the main themes; the work becomes very much a transcription, albeit one with interruptions of other musical materials.
I’m telling you all of this because last night, I had an experience which can only be described as a rite of passage that I’m sure many composers have already had the misfortune of knowing firsthand, and it is this: the person sitting directly to my left just absolutely detested my piece. And he made quite a show of making that known.
Right around here,
a passage in which bursts of somewhat controlled chaos are interrupted by the viola stating the main piano riff from the song— a passage which I might add is a bit of a loving nod to the string writing of Andrew Norman, a friend and hero of mine— my misanthropic seatmate lowered his head into his hands and uttered, quite audibly,
“STINKS!” —
