Cosmologic III

Circumvention Music 044

 

 

 

Nathan Hubbard Skeleton Key Orchestra

Circumvention Music 039 A-B

 

 

 

NH SKO is perhaps the most definitive recording i've made of my percussion playing, with me covering many different roles and instruments. A large portion of the recording has me playing kit, generally the red Tama kit with the normal junk (see below). I played a larger "rock kit" (mostly daves Yamaha kit) for the trombone solo in a murder of crows and my smaller solo setup for the ending percussion trio of a murder of crows. Several pieces have overdubbed percussion, mostly congas (is that you..., east on 53rd st.) and frame drums (sleeping against other warnings). In addition to Jon Szantos mallet playing (marimba, vibes and glockenspiel) on the record, i overdubbed quite a bit of mallets - vibes on raincastle, sleeping and don't look says the crow, marimba on raincastle, a murder of crows and don't look, and glockenspiel and chimes on a murder. I got the chance to play duo drums with several people on this record - Harris Eisenstadt played drumkit (and marimba) on several tracks (raincastle, don't look) and James Burton played kit on next love. Curtis Glatter, James Burton and Marcos Fernandes also added percussion to several tracks. Use of electronics varies, from the drum machines on East on 53rd Street to frame and sampler on a murder of crows, old gig tapes and phonographies on raincastle to processing and dub mixing thru-out the record. Finally, the use of my homemade instruments rounds out the record, with pipephones used in sleeping and the dopplerophone orchestra at the end of don't look says the crow. The entire thing was recorded to my Mac G4, i also mixed and edited the recording and Steve Langdon mastered it. After much searching, i found the key hole for the cover, Ward Baxter did the layout and Karen Hubbard, Kelly Lancaster, Marcos Fernandes, Jason Hubbard and Melonie Sacalamitao took pictures.

Nathan Hubbard Born On Tuesday

Circumvention Music Stand Alone 081

 

 

 

Born On Tuesday was my first documentation of solo work. My involvement with electronics had sparked my interest in changing sounds and different grains of sound. A lot of this recording is about the production, my experiments with extended miking techniques and the use of different rooms to acheive different possibilities. For the first session, we recorded several electro-acoustic pieces at Palomar College. The setup was my red Tama kit (10" tom, 14" floor, 18" kick) with a 14" Ayotte snare, 13" K hihats, a 18" flatride, a 18" K crash/ride, my percussion box, frame 1 and a sampler. We recorded the kit with three different mic setups, first (using an ADAT) we placed four mics on the kit (kick, two overheads and a middle mic) and a mic and DI on the amplifier. Second we placed two 57s in coffee cans in front of the kit, and third Nate Atwood was walking around the space with a minidisc attached to a lo-fi mic. Later, we mixed the ADAT tracks, lined up the coffee cans and lo-fi recordings and dub mixed the material. The possibilities allowed for a hi-fi sound (the ADAT), a slightly ring-modulated sound with very strange resonance (the coffee cans) and a grainy lo-fi sound (the minidisc). For the second session, i recorded several pieces in my house. Several of these were purely electronic, using frame 1 and 2 and a sampler, and were recorded directly to DAT. The other pieces were acoustic material, and were either processed live or processed later in the computer. The acoustic pieces used various junk kits - a snare drum filled with beads, an old head used for a bass drum, trashcan lids for cymbals, broken cymbals for hihats, and various junk percussion to extend these sounds. The third session was recorded at DHCC (the first recording there), now using my modified kit (16" Ludwig kick, 14" Gretch floor tom, junior conga, small 6" PVC tom, two small cymbals + hihats and various mounted blocks and metal stuff), frame 1, a sampler, a drum machine and several processors, including an echoplex. This session was recorded to DAT. This CD was the first on the Circumvention Music Stand-Alone Series and was also the first use of my artwork as a cover. In addition to this, Ward Baxter did the design and Karen Hubbard took the photos.

Cosmologic Syntaxis

 

 

 

 

Return To One Firecliffs

Circumvention Music 034 A-B

 

 

 

Firecliffs was Return To Ones third recording, and the second recording of pieces based on Stella Hubbards paintings. I decided to take the concept a bit farther this time, and we ended up with a double CD of extended pieces, using overdubbing, electronics and the inclusion of voice (Anne Whattof sang on several of the tracks). The sessions for this recording range from live performances to studio recordings and overdub situations. The tracks starsong, something bright for a dark corner, kaliedoscope moon III and firecliffs were recorded at two different clubs, Galoka and Dizzy's. The drum setup was my red Tama kit (10" tom, 14" floor, 18" kick) with a 14" Ayotte snare, 13" K hihats, a 18" flatride, a 18" K crash/ride, my percussion box, a vibraphone (setup left of the hihat) and a sampler. I also substituted the frame 1 for the vibraphone on firecliffs. The kit was miked with three overheads and a kick mic placed on the back head. The tracks all is silent, lonesome tree (disc I), secrets, kaliedoscope moon I and october calm were recorded live in studio and (in some cases) later overdubbed on. The use of overdubbing allowed a multiple horn arrangement to be completed (lonesome tree), samplers to complete a textural area (all is silent), percussion to be added (october calm), or, in the case of kaliedoscope moon I (a piece for four quartets), the entire ensemble to be overdubbed on top of itself. Setups vary depending on the piece - bowed gong and cymbal for all is silent, kit for lonesome tree (disc I), kit + small bell cymbals, gong and logdrum for secrets, and vibraphone, marimba, chimes and daveophone for km I. october calm was recorded live to a click (with me playing vibes and marimba, josh playing bass, ward playing alto flute and bass clarinet and lee playing soprano sax), and i later overdubbed surdo, medium and low congas, 2 tracks of kpanlogo drum, a clay drum, several tracks of panderio, 3 tracks of triangle, a shaker, a tamborim, thumb piano, piano and several tracks of tibetan bell, jingly percussion and bowed vibraphone. The second version of lonesome tree (disc II) is a voice and vibraphone abstraction of the piece, slowed down and reharmonized with open improvisation thru-out. The piece bright lights shows RTO's electronic side, with all instruments being processed in real time - Lee using echoplex, Ward using distortion and wah-wah, Josh using various phase shifters and myself contact miking my kit, running it thru multiple effects pedals (phase shifter, delay, flanger) and also using a sampler. Finally, the pieces kaliedoscope moon II and connections (you are) were completely overdubbed in studio. km II is a multi-level piece, with the upper and lower levels working at their own tempos. The lower level was recorded piece by piece to a click (two marimbas, two vibraphones, two glockenspiels, two chimes, xylophone, two electric basses, gong and almglocken). The upper section was also recorded to a click, with voice and soprano saxophone 8va covering the melody and three tenor saxophones filling in the harmonic implications. connections (you are) is a poetry piece, with several layers of field recordings (windchimes and rain from the DPH patio), multiple tracks of bandmembers whispering the poem and Anne and myself speaking the poem. Again, Ward Baxter did a great job on the layout, and also designed webpages that we placed on the CDs, including complete recording information, track listing, pictures of each painting that corresponds to the tracks, two scores per CD and several pictures of Stella and Harold in the mid '60s. Kelly Lancaster took photos of the paintings and i found an old picture of Stella for the inside panel.

Return To One Hopes And Dreams

Circumvention Music 033

 

 

 

This recording was Return To Ones first recording as a quartet, showcasing quite a few pieces in our repertoire at that time along with a few older pieces. Hopes and Dreams was recorded summer 2000 at several different sessions at SDSU. The two exceptions are a search for truth, the only track usable from a session at Palomar College, and silverfish, recorded live at the club Galoka during my annual birthday concert that year. All the tracks are live performances with no editing, recorded to ADAT and mixed by Greg Buhlert and myself, and later mastered by Steve Langdon. Originally i hoped to also include a live recording of the composition one rainy night (possibly the oldest piece in the RTO book), but we ran out of space on CD. Listening back to Hopes and Dreams now, i hear myself orchestrating more, using more woodwind doubles (Lee on flute, Ward on bass clarinet) and writing longer, more complex forms involving notation and open improvisation. Pianist Rick Helzer is featured on the recording, adding a much needed fifth voice to the harmonic complexities of bells for you and bouts of doubts. The drums were recorded with two overheads and a kick mic (placed at the back of the drum near the pedal), with a snare mic used for some of the more backbeat oriented pieces. On several pieces i used a vibraphone setup to the left of the kit, miked with two overheads. The kit was my red Tama kit (10" tom, 14" floor, 18" kick) with a 14" Ayotte snare, 13" K hihats, a 18" flatride, a 18" K crash/ride, a small bell cymbal and various floor percussion. The recording introduces my use of woodblocks and various bells on the kit, as well as different ways of extending the kit, using found percussion and multiple sticks/mallets/strikers/bows. All the pieces were composed by myself with the exception of the group improvisation hopes and dreams. We used Stella Hubbards paintings for the front and back cover, i wrote the liner notes and Ward Baxter designed the layout.

Lee Elderton/Nathan Hubbard

Castor and Pollux Music CD003

 

 

 

This recording has become known as Level 3, due to the fact that half of this CD was recorded in the SDSU parking structure IV level 3. After several years of random duo gigs, the impetus for this recording started at the sessions for Promises (June 1999), where Lee and myself had quite a bit of time to record a few duets while waiting for the very late Josh Jones. Excited by this positive experience, we presented a evening concert of duo improvisations in November 1999 after several months of work researching saxophone/percussion duet possibilities. By summer 2000, we felt we were ready to record. The CD was recorded in three main sessions. The first session was recorded to minidisc by Ward Baxter very late one night in the SDSU parking structure IV level 3. Lee played alto saxophone, and my setup was my red Tama kit (18" kick, 14" floor tom, 10" tom) with a 14" Ayotte snare, 13" K hihats, an 18" K flatride, an 18" K crash/ride, an 8" EFX cymbal, a small bell plate and my box of percussion. The session started out simply, but by the end both Lee and Ward were walking around the structure, allowing the acoustics and the environment to changed the focus of the music being played. The second session was recording in studio at SDSU, with Lee playing soprano, alto and tenor saxophones, dopplerophone and various game calls. I used a table with various percussion (mixing bowls, coffee cans, metal tins, a large almglocken, a spring, several lobster pots and a flower pots), my percussion box, a rack of hubcaps, frame 1 with echoplex, and a sampler. The percussion was miked with an overhead and we ran the frame through Buhlerts bass cabinet. The third session focused on electronics, with Lee using using a radio, a minidisc player, several wind instruments (including a saxophone), an ektar, a spray bottle and an amplifier with distortion. I used several old radios and walkmans, a discman, a sampler, a megaphone and a minidisc player. At various points in this session we were both playing previous performances, recording the session (or the happenings between takes), playing back these recordings, or processing any of the above recordings. Both the second and third sessions were recorded to ADAT and mixed later by myself and Greg Buhlert. Steve Langdon mastered the CD, Kelly Lancaster let us use her photograph as the cover and Ward Baxter did his normal incredible work on the layout. This recording is my first document focusing exclusively on free improvisations and it is the first recordings of the frame 1 as well as the dopplerophone i built for Lee.

Cosmologic Staring At The Sun

Circumvention Music CD032

 

 

 

The Cosmologic recording Staring At The Sun was recorded live at Galoka, a club in Birdrock that Cosmo had a steady weekly gig. So this material was well worked out after several months of performing. We recorded two sets of the same material and picked the better performance. The session was recorded to ADAT and mixed later at UCSD Studio A with Joe Kucero. In addition to pieces by Michael Dessen and Jason Robinson, i contributed two pieces, the title track Staring At The Sun and the "free ballad" Shrouded Over With Fog (as if the world were about to end). As per usual on Cosmo records, there were a few tracks that didn't make the final cut, on this session it was Jasons piece Dr. Funk. The drum setup was my usual at that time, my four piece Tama kit (18" kick, 14" floor, 10" rack) with my 14" Ayotte snare drum, 13" K hihats, an 18" K crash/ride, a 20" "unknown" ride (similar to a thin 60's A) and my percussion box. The kit was miked with two overheads, one "middle" mic (directly in front of the kit about waist level) and a kick mic on the front head.

Return To One Promises

Castor and Pollux Music CD001

 

 

 

The recording Promises was recorded three separate times over the course of several months. The first recording was in Nico's studio in his drum/pottery shop in downtown SD, the second at Palomar Community College and the third at San Diego State University. All the tracks (with one exception) were recorded live to two track. The track in her garden/all is silent was recorded in two sections, the first in one take, the second with three overdubs. The track was later edited together. Equipment use was regular gigging setup at that time - my four piece Tama kit (18" kick, 14" floor, 10" rack) with my 14" Ayotte snare drum, 13" K hihats, 18" K crash/ride, 18" flat ride, a vibraphone set up to the left of the hihat, and my percussion box. For some of the tracks i used a 14" junk cymbal with a lot of tape on it (given to me by my little brother), several metal and shell windchimes, a 8" bell cymbal and a small bell plate. The kit was recorded with only two overhead mics. At the time of this recording RTO was a trio and most of this record is trio, however by the third recording we were working with Ward Baxter so there are a few quartet pieces to round out the recording. There is also a vibraphone/bass duet on blurred image. The pieces for Promises were written as a suite based around my great-grandmothers Stella Hubbards paintings. Each piece corresponds to a different painting, and we used the paintings as artwork for the cover. Jay Easton helped with final editing and Ward Baxter did the layout.

Nathan Hubbard Small Potatoes On The Road To French-Fries

Castor and Pollux Music CD000

 

 

 

Small Potatoes on the Road to French-Fries was recorded to an analog four track recorder in my garage, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. The four original tracks were recorded in one day in my garage, using several different drumkits, most of my percussion collection and several found objects, including the washer and dryer. There is also use of voice and spoken word. These pieces are loosely structured improvisations hinting at various genres, such as the country western takeoff in crash, the drum'n'bass mishap in bang, the vocal percussion groove + stream of conscious vocal solo of slap and the funk groove plus vocal diatribe driven boom. Later recordings include poetry (blues, dream), conch shell meets detuned water cooler possibilities (hey), backwards metals and voices (everything), duets of geese and prepared piano (prepare), the mini berimbau concerto with homemade percussion of splash and a duet for vibraphone and whistling tea-kettle (keatettle). Finally, i incorporated field recordings of geese, old answering machine messages and the slightly ridiculous vocals plus multiple drumkit piece what?, where i discuss my percussion prowess with my overdubbed self. Truly a sight to be heard. These recordings are one of very few that consciously incorporate absurdist humor into my music, and were recorded in an attempt to make a "demo" to showcase my abilities for clients willing to hire me for their every percussive need. (?). Danny Cantrell did final editing and mastering and also did the artwork layout. These recordings remained hidden until the day i played it for Lee Elderton, who demanded a copy and played it for everyone he new. Pretty soon everyone wanted a copy, so i printed a few up and started giving them out. (although this recording is out of print, i am currently working on a remaster of this recording, more info TBA)