Faraway Plants is available on most formats including iTunes, Spotify and Amazon Music. Cover design by Sara Kay.
Tag Archives: electronic
Komorebi
Komorebi is the Japanese word used to describe sunlight as it passes through trees. In this piece I play rich tones on the marimba which are paired with heavily dubbed spikes of zither. Each timbre enters representing the light passing through leaves and branches. At about midway through the improvisation, a trumpet enters soaring over the scene like a bird of prey. Listen and download here: Komorebi
Charles Mantis T-shirts
Glimpse of the Future is here!
Charles Mantis and Everypeople Workshop at Transistor May 18th
If you are in Chicago for the NATO summit or plainly would like to avoid it Charles Mantis will be playing Transistor Friday May 18th with Everypeople Workshop. Transistor is located at 3819 N Lincoln Ave in North Center. It’s just a short walk or cab ride from the Irving Park brown line stop. The venue/shop is located in a perfect neighborhood to grab dinner before and drinks after. A special thanks to Doug Abram of Black Bear Combo and Rat Snake Turbo Rat for all his work on this cat poster! RSVP HERE!
Rodan this Sunday April 8th.
I’ll be playing at Rodan in Wicker Park Sunday April 8th with my new project featuring saxophonist Anthony Bruno.
A New Song!
Be sure to check out Charles Mantis in Chicago Wednesday April 18th at Underground Wonder Bar.
Balkan Invasion of Wicker Park
For close to a year and a half DJ Roma Soul and Black Bear Combo have played to a packed house downstairs at Subterranean on the third Friday of the month in Chicago. This has grown to be one of the more successful nights I’ve seen featuring an instrumental act since I moved to Chicago nearly 7 years ago. The crowd demands high energy. I look forward to it every month and I hope that you will join us this Friday February 17th 2012. More about the night in the Chicago Tribune.
Live Production as a Musical Instrument.
The Akai APC40 is a midi controller instrument that controls audio clips, effects and virtual instruments in a live setting. The grid design of the instrument provides an angle to writing music that is very different from composing and performing on a traditional piano. The buttons illuminate when they are actively playing an audio clip creating a choreographed light show to the music.
new music
I recently opened a Sound Cloud account. You can check out my newest songs here. My latest composition project is in collaboration with visual artist Rajeev Basu involving electronic works made entirely of alarm sounds called eep eep eep. It’s a great challenge to make something beautiful out of sounds that are intended to warn humans of danger. You can hear an abbreviated version of what I came up with below.
alarm sounds