Landon George - Organ Studies + DE/COMPOSITION (Excerpt)
- 1Procession
- 2The Most Sacred Light Of All
- 3Pressure, Again
- 4From Outside Bin Four
- 5DE/COMPOSITION (excerpt)
001
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Edition of 5
In this exclusive release (public on April 10, 2024), musician, experimenter and farmhand Landon George presents recorded work from his time at Vilicus Farms; a first generation organic dry-land crop farm located north of Havre, Montana, USA.
The works presented here are but excerpts from two ongoing sonic expositions, "Organ Studies" and "DE/COMPOSITION."
––––
While working in southern Wisconsin in 2022, George had a conversation with archival photographer Leslie Schwartz. Always interested and intrigued by industrial architecture, George asked Wisconsin native Schwartz what the grain bins and elevators represented to her as a local. Schwartz mentioned that they were like cathedrals, jutting up throughout the plains of the midwest and far west. This sentiment moved George, who was partially raised by his great-grandfather, a preacher and minister within the Southern Baptist Church.
Soon after this interaction George began listening intently to the works of Stockholm based, American composer and organist, Kali Malone. Specifically, George fixated on Malone's 2019 release, The Sacrificial Code. This record features slow, methodical organ recordings that are distinctly secular but evoke strong emotional reaction through their harmonic closeness; often simultaneously jarring and meditative. From September 2020 - April 2021, George would listen to this record "front to back at least three times a week."
With the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, the systematic murder of George Floyd and hundreds more BIPOC folks by police, and the reality of impending ecological collapse due to a broken economic system, George turned away from his career as a musician and took up an internship in rural north central Montana at Vilicus Farms. George turned inward in an attempt to reject the ego, clout and toxicity that is so inherent to promoting one's music under capitalism.
It was here, at Vilicus Farms, cleaning last year's rye from a grain bin, when George witnessed the incredible acoustic properties of these "cathedrals of the West." A whistle became the spark for the fire that would become Organ Studies. George sourced three different electric organs from Facebook Marketplace. All free, George traveled around Hill County and picked up these instruments from homes, garages and sheds. The organs were then placed in "Bin Four," one of twelve grain bins located north of Vilicus' main "North Bin Site."
The bitter, underlying truth is that Bin Four was only available to house these organs because of the ongoing drought and a diminished harvest. With this in mind, George entered the industrious grain bin with intention and hope, sat down at the bench and poured that hope into these forgotten instruments.
“Organ Studies captures an intense reflection of both the literal space within Bin Four and the lived experience of the musician / farm hand in a golden age of decay. Such as life, something is tragic, yet hopeful in these compositions. Our pursuit for a better reality is met with hardship, challenge, and defeat. We persist, however and this truth comes alive through the reverberations of polyphony on steel. Through the intention of hand, patience, and imagination, we realize that the better reality is here, in each moment and in each breath.” - George 2022
––––
DE/COMPOSITION, George's latest work, focuses on the nuances of time, nature, climate and place. This project features short improvised pieces performed on an upright piano situated in a roofless grain bin in Simpson, Montana, USA.
"The goals of DE/COMPOSITION are concerned with letting nature and time guide composition through the degradation and decomposition of wood and wire. I am interested in how time and nature affect the human tendency to control and conduct. Through exposure to weather and time, a certain freedom is obtained for me as a composer. I am no longer going at it alone. I am co-writing music with nature. The juxtaposition between the piano, a finely engineered machine, and the wonderful chaotic order of nature intrigues me. I want to know what it means to fall apart, but I can only really know if I don't have any part in the process outside of starting the composition and putting the piano in the grain bin. I have to step back, and that release is what really interests me. The bin itself has a lot to say as well. It's windy on the plains, and the whole structure groans and dances around the piano. I want to know that song." - George 2022
The excerpt from DE/COMPOSITION included in this CSSA Shareholder exclusive is audio recorded one evening in September of 2022.
This project is ongoing and shall conclude one all keys have frozen and no longer activate the hammers. Once this occurs, George plans to dismantle the remaining soundboard for use in another, undisclosed project.
credits
released November 1, 2022
Landon George - organ, piano, compositions, photographs
Tracks 1-4 recorded live by Cy Benson
Track 5 recorded by live by Landon George
Special thanks to Doug Crabtree and Anna Jones-Crabtree for their support and encouragement.
SORSE 051
The works presented here are but excerpts from two ongoing sonic expositions, "Organ Studies" and "DE/COMPOSITION."
––––
While working in southern Wisconsin in 2022, George had a conversation with archival photographer Leslie Schwartz. Always interested and intrigued by industrial architecture, George asked Wisconsin native Schwartz what the grain bins and elevators represented to her as a local. Schwartz mentioned that they were like cathedrals, jutting up throughout the plains of the midwest and far west. This sentiment moved George, who was partially raised by his great-grandfather, a preacher and minister within the Southern Baptist Church.
Soon after this interaction George began listening intently to the works of Stockholm based, American composer and organist, Kali Malone. Specifically, George fixated on Malone's 2019 release, The Sacrificial Code. This record features slow, methodical organ recordings that are distinctly secular but evoke strong emotional reaction through their harmonic closeness; often simultaneously jarring and meditative. From September 2020 - April 2021, George would listen to this record "front to back at least three times a week."
With the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, the systematic murder of George Floyd and hundreds more BIPOC folks by police, and the reality of impending ecological collapse due to a broken economic system, George turned away from his career as a musician and took up an internship in rural north central Montana at Vilicus Farms. George turned inward in an attempt to reject the ego, clout and toxicity that is so inherent to promoting one's music under capitalism.
It was here, at Vilicus Farms, cleaning last year's rye from a grain bin, when George witnessed the incredible acoustic properties of these "cathedrals of the West." A whistle became the spark for the fire that would become Organ Studies. George sourced three different electric organs from Facebook Marketplace. All free, George traveled around Hill County and picked up these instruments from homes, garages and sheds. The organs were then placed in "Bin Four," one of twelve grain bins located north of Vilicus' main "North Bin Site."
The bitter, underlying truth is that Bin Four was only available to house these organs because of the ongoing drought and a diminished harvest. With this in mind, George entered the industrious grain bin with intention and hope, sat down at the bench and poured that hope into these forgotten instruments.
“Organ Studies captures an intense reflection of both the literal space within Bin Four and the lived experience of the musician / farm hand in a golden age of decay. Such as life, something is tragic, yet hopeful in these compositions. Our pursuit for a better reality is met with hardship, challenge, and defeat. We persist, however and this truth comes alive through the reverberations of polyphony on steel. Through the intention of hand, patience, and imagination, we realize that the better reality is here, in each moment and in each breath.” - George 2022
––––
DE/COMPOSITION, George's latest work, focuses on the nuances of time, nature, climate and place. This project features short improvised pieces performed on an upright piano situated in a roofless grain bin in Simpson, Montana, USA.
"The goals of DE/COMPOSITION are concerned with letting nature and time guide composition through the degradation and decomposition of wood and wire. I am interested in how time and nature affect the human tendency to control and conduct. Through exposure to weather and time, a certain freedom is obtained for me as a composer. I am no longer going at it alone. I am co-writing music with nature. The juxtaposition between the piano, a finely engineered machine, and the wonderful chaotic order of nature intrigues me. I want to know what it means to fall apart, but I can only really know if I don't have any part in the process outside of starting the composition and putting the piano in the grain bin. I have to step back, and that release is what really interests me. The bin itself has a lot to say as well. It's windy on the plains, and the whole structure groans and dances around the piano. I want to know that song." - George 2022
The excerpt from DE/COMPOSITION included in this CSSA Shareholder exclusive is audio recorded one evening in September of 2022.
This project is ongoing and shall conclude one all keys have frozen and no longer activate the hammers. Once this occurs, George plans to dismantle the remaining soundboard for use in another, undisclosed project.
credits
released November 1, 2022
Landon George - organ, piano, compositions, photographs
Tracks 1-4 recorded live by Cy Benson
Track 5 recorded by live by Landon George
Special thanks to Doug Crabtree and Anna Jones-Crabtree for their support and encouragement.
SORSE 051
