Duane Pitre
Variolii Patterns
Duane Pitre's Varolii Patterns was made with an eight-voicesynthesizer, tuned in just intonation. These consonant pieces exploreshifting polyrhythms that slip in and out of rhythmic focus and "Common Rhythmic Pulses" that carry over as the pattern evolves withina piece.
Artist statement:"While experimenting with microtonal electronics for a piece I waswriting for Zinc & Copper, which would eventually be titled Pons, Icame across a process-based technique that I was quite keen on.Although I would…
Pitreleh
"With Eleh having cemented themself as perhaps the modern minimalist, their collaborations have become a fascinating journey into the genre old guard such as Pauline Oliveros and Ellen Fullman as well as platforms for newer artists like Sun Circle, and in this case, Duane Pitre. As usual, Eleh hardcore analogue drones are well matched by Pitre feather-light just intonation harmonics. Both sides reflect different aspects of minimalism past without being pale shadows of those earlier pioneers. In …
Omniscient Voices
Duane Pitre returns to Imprec with Omniscient Voices, an articulate, intense and emotionally resonant set of five pieces for justly tuned piano and electronics. Omniscient Voices is a uniquely distinct work that follows Pitre's trilogy of releases which culminated with 2015’s Bayou Electric and included the critically acclaimed Feel Free (2012) and Bridges (2013) albums. Where those albums were rooted in long form pieces, Omniscient Voices is a collection of shorter pieces, offering more harmon…
Organized Pitches Occurring In Time
Consists of two 25 minute pieces of music, both spawned from the same conceptual composition/score by Duane Pitre, titled 'Ensemble Drones.' With their form reminiscent of works by La Monte Young's 'Theater of Eternal Music' and their tonality touching on the floating works of Terry Riley, 'The Ensemble Chord in Eb with a Minor 7th' and a 'Pump Organ Base & The Ensemble Chord in C with a Major 7th and a Guitar Base' are aural tapestries based on a minimal tonal palette with their instrumentation…
The Harmonic Series Volume 2
A collection of long-form works in just intonation by Kali Malone, Duane Pitre, Catherine Lamb, Tashi Wada, Byron Westbrook, and Caterina Barbieri. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu
Bayou Electric
CD edition. "Bayou Electric" is the final installment in an unplanned trilogy, with "Feel Free " and "Bridges" making up the first and second installments in the series, respectfully. All three works share similar characteristics, compositional processes, alternate tuning schemes, instrumentation and a certain ethos that the composer views as cohesive whole. There is a progression toward refinement over the course of this trilogy, in the overall "sound" of the albums and in their dependence on o…
Inverted Torch
Wisconsin's Jon Mueller and New Orleans' Duane Pitre are both towering figures in the world of avant-garde sound. Mueller has notched up an astounding amount of albums and collaborations in the past (including two on this very label) and while most of his time is spent eking out unusual textures from his plethora of percussive instruments, he can also be spotted moonlighting as the drummer for main-stage indie act Volcano Choir. Pitre, having retired as a professional skateboarder (serious…
Feel Free: Live At Cafe Oto
Beautiful ensemble performance of Duane Pitre's Feel Free including James Blackshaw on hammered dulcimer. LP pressed in an audiophile grade edition of 1000 copies.
Shortly after the release of Pitre's Feel Free, the composer set out for a 2012 solo tour in select European cities. To start off this tour he staged an ensemble performance of Feel Free, at London's renowned Cafe OTO. For his ensemble, Pitre chose to utilize only one veteran of a Feel Free performance (Jesse Sparhawk) and for th…
The seeker and the healer
Performed and put to tape at Estuary Recording Facility, The Seeker and The Healer constitutes the first collaborative work by Texas-based sound artist Cory Allen and Louisiana minimalist composer Duane Pitre. The album’s two side-long pieces were developed out of multiple improvisational sessions governed by predetermined rules, sourced from piano, bowed guitar, harmonium and 49-stringed drone harp (a custom-made instrument of Allen’s own design featured here on record for the first time). In t…
Bridges
Duane Pitre\'s new album, Bridges, features two pieces taken from a suite of analogous compositions by the same name, and was composed by Pitre in 2012. The two pieces that comprise the album are meant to work together in sequence as a composite work; or they can be isolated and listened to on their own. The title derives its name from the original concept for this work, which was to bring together aspects of traditional Eastern music (such as compositional form and tuning) with Western musical …
'Split'
Split release including a new 20 minute piece from Eleh and the installation version of Duane Pitre's beautiful new composition, Feel Free. Screenprinted jackets. Feel Free is a new composition by Duane Pitre that currently has three possible manifestations: solo performance, group performance, and sound installation. At the core of all of them is the pillar of the work, an open yet orderly system whose intention is to produce potentially infinite variations of self-generating rhythm and …
Feel Free
LP edition: The two major focal points in the creation of composer Duane Pitre's Feel Free, his new work for a unique sextet combination, were rhythm and melody. An open yet orderly system intended to produce potentially infinite variations of self-generating rhythm and melody was carefully created for this piece, allowing the sextet musicians to approach these factors in a freer manner. This 'musical system,' combined with the fixed elements of the composition, in turn, spawned a rich foundatio…
Origin
The entirety of Origin's musical material is comprised of the vibrating strings of Pitre's ensemble of bowed "harmonic-guitars," which are unconventionally strung electric guitars (utilizing multi-unisons) tuned to intervals corresponding with the Harmonic Series, a.k.a. Just Intonation. No effects processing (pre or post) was used in this recording. All effect-like qualities result from the multi-unison strings (phasing), sympathetic vibrations, combination/difference tones (of the chosen just …