New album by D.J. Sparr
A couple months ago I was asked to record some songs for D.J. Sparr’s new album - Hard Metal Cantüs. Well, it’s finally out on Innova Records, the label of the American Composer’s Forum.
D.J. is an amazing guitarist and composer whom I met years ago when he was a soloist with the Great Noise Ensemble, where I was principal percussionist from 2005-2015. We also played some of his pieces and would perform together; he’s one of the few people I know that goes from classical to rock in a heartbeat.
One of the pieced that we played back then, “Folios,” was reinvented by taking electronic percussion/drums and performing them on acoustic drums. Now dubbed “The World Within,” I had to find a way to take a multilayered midi drum part and record all the layers myself. There were sections that were literally impossible to play, so I would record just snare and bass drum, then maybe hihat alone, or just splash cymbal chokes. For one song I used regular hihats to my left and a stack (a lot tighter) to my right, playing the complete hihat part divided between the two sets. Another hip-hop flavored song brought out my new Grover 5x10 snare and it received many rim shots.
The sounds were then manipulated and processed so that some of my drums don’t sound anything like how I recorded them-like completely different instruments. Very cool stuff. There’s elements of Zappa, Cowell, EDM, R+B, and Hip Hop.
If you’re interested in checking it out, head to the link below!
https://www.innova.mu/albums/d-j-sparr/hard-metal-cant%C3%BCs
“The album closes with a look inside. The World Within is our internal place, the world within our own mind…which if you learn to control, you become irresistible. Here we go from the outer worlds to our inner world. And then of course, even the worlds that are within ourselves. It is here that Sparr's rock-funk wah-wah guitars take the highest voice in the polyphonic tapestry. It uses the same musical processes as the previous works, but with hair tied up in Zappa-pig-tails accompanied by snare-cadence rock drums, a studio string section, Austin Texas Bass, and a wall of guitar amps.”