Regina 15½

from regina by Nick Brooke

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about

Regina 15½ was written for percussionist Virgil Moorefield, accompanying me at the electronic organ, and premiered in Princeton in 2001. this current recording features percussionist Michael Lipsey. I’m inspired by language-learning tapes, where spoken phrases alternate with “beeps” (here, the cowbell and organ), fragmenting linguistic flow, until a certain idiom, phrase, or tune is mastered.

I've become interested in reworking tunes that are so familiar that I'm no longer inspired to listen, their meanings having become cliches. I;ll often play a recording of one of these tunes for months, until remembered fragments of the tune take on a new order in my mind. I then try to "speak" the tune in tongues, using a pigeon language made up of the offbeats and asides of the tune. My aim is to create a doppelganger of the original that is both familiar and alien.

The American Regina was a music box popular in 1900. It played giant tin discs that would slowly rotate full circle as the tune played through. This piece, too, circles around itself, and at every repetition, the original tune becomes more complete.

credits

from regina, released August 21, 2022
Nick Brooke, organ; Michael Lipsey, drumset

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Nick Brooke Bennington, Vermont

Nick Brooke mixes musical sampling, lipsynching, and theater into a genre all its own. In his works, vocalists and actors are trained to mimic sampled collages of sound effects, pop songs, and musical ephemera, blurring the line between recording and live performance. His works have been performed at the Lincoln Center Festival, HERE, and Mass MoCA. ... more

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