IAN YEAGER: music for guitar + computer

Ian Yeager

music for guitar + computer

© 2004 Ian Yeager & Pax Recordings (656605988023)

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Melodies merge and collide into sparking electronic abstraction and dusky sonic detail. "Engaging vapor-like riffs.that sustain with enough depth and peculiarity to be complete." Eric Weddle, Signal to Noise

tracks

1 I
2 II
3 III
4 IV
5 V
6 VI
7 VII
8 Viii
9 IX
10 X
11 XI
12 XII
13 Xiii
14 XIV

notes

music for guitar + computer is Bay Area guitarist/composer/improvisor Ian Yeager's solo debut release. Gently hovering between composition and decomposition, Yeager thoughtfully explores and deconstructs his guitar over 14 tracks, forming a sparse and evocative set of theme and variation. Melodies merge and collide into sparking electronic abstraction and dusky sonic detail. Suffused with a quiet rigor and beauty, music for guitar + computer is ambient in the best possible sense, a compelling, architectural soundworld which engages but does not intrude.

Bio:
Ian Yeager, b. 1977. Born and raised in Bloomington Indiana, Ian Yeager began teaching himself guitar at age 11. After completing his undergraduate studies at Indiana University in Music and Audio Recording, Yeager moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he now lives and works. Active as a performer, composer, and improvisor, he has performed in numerous improvised music contexts with many of the Bay Area's finest experimental musicians, including Dina Emerson, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Bob Marsh, Joseph Zitt, Rent Romus, Phillip Everett, and Matt Davignon. Yeager has performed at the Luggage Store Gallery, 21 Grand, and the SIMM series, and at music festivals including Big Sur Experimental Music Festival (Sound/Shift 2003 & 2004), San Francisco Found Objects Festival, Sound/Shift Oakland and Transbay Skronkathon. Current activities include the release of his debut cd, music for guitar + computer, trombone studies, compositional writings and sketches, and the continued development of both traditional and extended guitar technique.

reviews

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  • Intriguing (and a bit peculiar), to say the least...
    author: RKF, Dead Angel zine

    The disc is exactly what the title suggests: Fourteen tracks of music composed and recorded using only guitar and computer. The packaging is quite minimalist and Yeager doesn't appear to have bothered with actual titles, which is kind of interesting. The tracks themselves are a series of minimalist compositions featuring plucked guitar and broken, stuttering, looped computer sounds to provide counterpoint in both melody and rhythm. The result is frequently a disorienting collision between melodic, man-made sound and cold digital robotics. The only real difference in the individual tracks is the choice of notes and rhythmic patterns, and the different points at which the computer noises burst to the fore; in that sense, it might make more sense to think of this disc as one long idea broken up into fourteen individual movements. No matter how you think of it, the sound is unusual, a mating of past and present approaches to sound that reach for the outer limits of experimental music. This is not so much "music" in the accepted sense as a catalog of possibilities in the juxtaposition of wildly different instruments. Intriguing (and a bit peculiar), to say the least.

  • Meditative, but often in a mildly jarring way...
    author: Jon Worley, Aiding & Abetting

    If album titles could be recognized for truth in advertising, this one would win the grand prize. Ian Yeager plays his guitar and then manipulates those pieces through a computer. Meditative, but often in a mildly jarring way. Without the computer "accompaniment," the pieces would be a bit dull for my taste. The electronic scrambling makes me smile.

  • a gentle push towards chaos...
    author: Dave X, ITDE

    With his debut album, Yeager doesn't knock one out of the park, he tucks it into his pocket and smuggles it home by walking through the subway tunnels. The minimal cover art should have given it away-- this isn't brash compu-math-rock, it's more of a gentle push towards chaos from a benign virus. One track really moves into the next, so much so that no titles are given-- indeed, this might be one piece of music. It's one of those "who-knows, who-cares" situations that nice music often inspires.

  • ...beautiful, calm, quiet, abstract melodies and fine sparkling electronics.
    author: fakezine

    i have reviewed one pax recordings release so far. it was a release by the san francisco based project miba that i really liked. it offered a fresh electroacoustic sound with vibrating glitchy moments. this is another release by this quite interesting improv and electro acoustic label, a release by ian yeager. and as it seems it is also a very nice album composed by this bay area guitarist/composer and improviser. the title itself tells everything about the compositions. in this debut solo, in all of the fourteen tracks, he is playing a guitar and a computer. he combines calm, beautiful and subtle guitar melodies, implementing in them in irregular electronic vibrating. and the result is pure guitar ambiental music, ambient not in a sense of musical style, but more as a way of listening to the music. guitar is of course in the highlights while the computer only gives the final sharpening which results in long, beautiful, calm, quiet, abstract melodies and fine sparkling electronics. endless simplicity does nothing but contribute to the ambient feeling. completely simple and relaxed.

  • I'm impressed, & give this recording a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for listeners who want
    author: Rotcod Zzaj, Improvijazzation Nation

    If this recording weren't from our friends at PAX RECORDINGS, we might be a bit skeptical... I mean, I figger we've heard just about all th' variations that marriages between instruments & computers can have... & yet, Ian's slow-paced fusions don't sound nearly as offensive or "stilted" as some works we've reviewed along these lines. There's a strange sense of "comfort" inherent here, & it doesn't get frenetic until around cut 6. One drawback (I thought) is that there need to be some kind of track titles... I mean, that's certainly not enough to make a listener intent on learning/hearing something new & exciting abandon it... but, my personal preference is that th' player invest enough time to title th' trax. Minor complaint, of course. It's obvious that Yeager has honed his skills in the improv/experimental arena (he plays with some of th' top improvisors on th' San Francisco scene, including Dina Emerson, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Bob Marsh, Joseph Zitt, Rent Romus, Phillip Everett, and Matt Davignon), & his sensitive approach to "deeper" playing makes that obvious to the listener. I'm impressed, & give this recording a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for listeners who want to expand their horizons a bit.

  • Ian Yeager's CD is positively refreshing and thoroughly inclined to peaceful sta
    author: Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes

    Picture a scene consisting of a man alone in his room, armed only with a naked soul and a minimum of instrumentation, surrounded by a multi-coloured dance of microdroplets amidst a light fog of simple guitar patterns and arpeggios, lots of spaces for thought and memories appearing from everywhere. Ian Yeager's CD is positively refreshing and thoroughly inclined to peaceful states of mind; there's some sheer beauty here, even if the relation between guitar's direct and computer-treated sound is quite simple and certainly not groundbreaking. Nevertheless, this nice cross between "Evening Star" (...remember Fripp & Eno?) and some of the most linear work by Christian Fennesz stands right in front of you with its own reasons to exist and its special way of winking to the listener. At the end of the day, it's truly pleasing music.

  • Most pieces are of a pretentiousless simplicity that make this one a nice ambien
    author: Dolf Mulder, Vital Weekly

    For his debute release Ian Yeager choose a title that clearly and simply states what it has to offer: music for guitar plus computer. Yeager works in the Bay Area as a composer and performer. As an improvisor he played with many musicians including Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Bob Marsh, Joseph Zitt, Rent Romus, Phillip Everett, a.o. That's about all I can tell about his whereabouts. On his solo-release Yeager shows another side of his musical identity. He offers a very ambient-like music. Friendly and gentle guitar melodies and riffs prevail. The computer is used in a more additional sense. Let this be my first compliment to Yeager, because the use of a computer often leads to meaningless complexity. As far as I can judge about it, I have the feeling Yeager uses only a limited range of computertechniques in order to give the pieces the finishing touch. Often he seems to seek a cascading effect. Most pieces are of a pretentiousless simplicity that make this one a nice ambient - absolutely non new age - cd.

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